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Comment by coldcode | Hacker News Reader

Fixing greenhouse gases requires focusing on the largest % contributors, not tiny little amounts. It's like optimizing code only used on startup instead of runtime. See https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-overv...

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I agree that targeting tiny amounts doesn't work - but I don't think your source supports the idea that raising livestock is a tiny amount. It quotes the amount for "Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use" at 22% and describes it as "Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector come mostly from agriculture (cultivation of crops and livestock) and deforestation".

Livestock accounts for somewhere between 10-20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That is roughly in the same order as emission from transport.

[1] https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environm...

Yes but… not all “greenhouse gas emissions” are the same. Emissions from cattle get recycled through natural processes, which is not the same as fossil carbon that hasn’t been part of the ecosystem for billions of years. I’m way more worried about fossil carbon.

That makes a certain amount of sense, even if humans weren't keeping tens of millions of grazers as livestock, the plants they're eating would to some extent still exist, fix carbon, die, and release it. I think the main problem is animal methane emissions[1], which cause more damage than just C02[1]

1: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2022/meth...

>Emissions from cattle get recycled through natural processes, which is not the same as fossil carbon

What do you mean? CO2 emissions from each are molecularly identical. both go into the air and recycled/reabsorbed through the exact same processes. The difference is the source of the carbon, not the recycling.

Furthermore, about half of the GHG from animals like cows is methane, with is not part of the standard carbon cycle.

> Livestock accounts for somewhere between 10-20% of global greenhouse gas emissions

livestock returns back CO2 captured by plants + transportation cost. So, transportation cost part is not CO2 neutral if they use fossils(very likely) and needs to be estimated.

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