Cattle produce the greenhouse gas methane, but they are not alone as a carbon producer. Methane is a byproduct of digestion of cows and all other animals that live off grass like deer, moose, elk, bison, goats, sheep, etc. Did you know that until 1880, an estimated 60 million buffalo grazed the high plains? In essence, our current grazing cattle industry has just replaced a larger grass eating animal that has been absent for 140 years.
Let me tell you about a process that is rarely explained. Cattle ranches are typically on grasslands and in wooded areas, usually including wetlands that clean, filter, store our drinking water and recharge our underground aquifers. In the photosynthesis process, grass absorbs carbon and releases oxygen that we breathe. The carbon absorbed by the grass on a ranch grassland is greater than the carbon in methane produced by the cattle with the typical ranch concentration of cattle in residence there. Science describes this as a carbon sink, an area that absorbs more carbon than it produces.
Let’s compare two environments: grasslands and forests. It was previously explained grasslands absorb more carbon than they produce. An acre of grass produces more oxygen than an acre of rain forest. The difference in carbon absorption is that grass has a short life span and turns carbon over quickly. Big trees live for years, storing carbon concentrated in their trunks and branches until they die and decompose, releasing their carbon back into the environment. These facts are the types of things you will learn at Go Natural Education.