Burps

 

Eliminating animal agriculture over the next 15 years would effectively stop global warming in its tracks - largely halting the increase of greenhouse gases for the next 30 years, according to a recent study in PLOS Climate.

The largest contributor to that decrease in heating would be a massive expansion in prairie, forest and grassland, like cattle-raising, said co-author Patrick Brown, a Stanford biochemistry professor.

These are more significant problems, molecule for molecule, than the carbon dioxide released from tailpilpes and smokestacks. Methane - released from cow burps and hog waste pits - warms the atmosphere between 25 and 80 times more intensely than carbon dioxide, which it gradually degrades.

Nitrous oxide is even worse, rising from manure pits and fertilizer to the atmosphere, where it's heating effect is about 260 times as much as carbon, according to the IPC.  Just a thought.