The cows are off the hook. Several years ago, when the man-caused global warming thesis was riding high in the saddle, proposals were floated to regulate and restrict livestock agriculture to reduce the amount of noxious gases, such as methane, emitted by, e.g., cattle. Studies purported to show that cattle gasses were a major contributor to global warming. But the accounting procedures behind such claims were faulty. It's true that cattle emit gasses, but that is not the whole picture. When all of agriculture is examined, modern agricultural methods have greatly reduced total green house gasses.
The development of intensive agriculture since 1950, a green revolution that boosted productivity permitting more farming output on less land, reduced by about one-third the amount of green house gasses that would have been emitted had the green revolution not occurred. Green house gas emissions were lowered because less forest acreage was cut, than would have been required to keep agricultural output up in the absence of the green revolution, and because of the cumulative effects of fertilizer, pesticides, and hybrids that boosted productivity. Study by scientists of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C.
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