this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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A Texas Dairy Ranks Among the State’s Biggest Methane Emitters. But Don’t Ask the EPA or the State About It (insideclimatenews.org)
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[–] RemembertheApollo@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To add on - the feed we give cattle exacerbates methane production in their gut.

Cattle fed high-grain, low-forage diets produce 42% more methane than those fed-low grain, high-forage diets (Boadi et al.,2004). Methane (CH4) is composed of carbon and hydrogen. The formulation of diet influences the carbon: nitrogen ratio of manure, which impacts the amount of methane released. Diets high in grain have higher levels of readily fermentable carbohydrates, which create methane to be released into the atmosphere. Grain type can also change the amount of methane emissions. During the finishing phase, cows fed a corn-based diet released less methane than cows fed a barley-based diet (Beauchemin and McGinn, 2005).

So there is nothing “natural” about the excess methane produced by cattle because if they were naturally foraging the amount produced is lower.

[–] jackfrost@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, cows are adapted to eat grass, but that doesn't fatten them up. So we give them corn and whatnot instead. It's a generally unhealthy diet for them. As in, they are literally more prone to disease because a grain diet impacts their immune system.

When you offer a cow grass in one hand and grain in the other, they will always go for the grass.