I want to know what exactly was changed to help them "endure climate change" because to me it sounds like bullshit designed to create a proprietary cow genome with a pretty story to sell it.
Instead of factoring in the costs of our actions, engineer ways to lower price and feed more demand -> and thus creating more methane, forest destruction, emissions from feed, huge waste of water, and all the gas shipping it a continent away.
If people won't reduce their beef consumption, maybe we can crispr out some methane (seems not possible just based on chemistry but who knows?). Or maybe just let the real price with externalities lower consumption.
If the inefficient cow/bacteria processing step is skipped, the whole production pipeline is greatly more climate-friendly.
The food doesn't turn to methane without the bacteria.
https://jasbsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40104-01...
This paper[1] suggests it would cost about ~20 cents per lb of beef
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
I wonder if that means it would actually be possible, more likely I would guess to modify the corn or whatever gross food we feed most cows.
However! I agree that the who-owns-the-genes question is interesting.