(04-06-2022, 11:11 AM)C_T_Russell Wrote: Speaking of critical thinking, some food for thought...The closing sentence of the linked article covers off your suggestions aptly: "The proposal was also put to Climate Minister James Shaw, who told 1News heÔÇÖs grown ÔÇ£very frustrated at the simplistic nature of the debate"."
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/06/03/poll-...emissions/
Lets rid the country of these evil "greenhouse" gas emitting cows.
Hang on, its carbon neutral, why is grass not counted as a carbon sink? Why is it OK for africa to have millions of wilderbeasts roaming that produce the same gas?
Wake up!
The grass you mention is fertilised with large amounts of soluble fertilisers which require huge hydrocarbon input in their manufacture. The cows' diet is supplemented with PKE and other imported feeds that are transported often thousands of kms and are derived from environmentally destructive sources.
The pasture is grazed heavily by dense herds of livestock who exhale methane as part of their digestion. Grass could be considered a carbon sink but nowhere to the same extent as forests considering the biomass differential between the two. Also the fact that the grass is grazed is equivalent to forest harvest, which also then releases the sequestered carbon effectively negating any gain.
So what land area do the wilderbeasts roam? The 'stocking rate' won't come anywhere near that of our industrial farming systems so the effluent they excrete is easily absorbed by their environment, in lieu of any artificial fertilisers. That's a 'closed loop' system as opposed to our high input and high discharge farming systems.