Those fossil fuels emit what otherwise wouldn't be available in the carbon cycle.
A cow that's fed on gras and farts emits nothing that that gras didn't pick up and contributes virtually nothing to climate change in the long term.
A cow that's fed on gras and farts emits nothing that that gras didn't pick up and contributes virtually nothing to climate change in the long term.
Sorry to say, this is a very basic misunderstanding of chemistry. Methane is produced by the cow from carbohydrates in the grass. It is not present in grass, and the grass did not get it from the air. If we stopped producing methane in this way, no other process would replace it and the planet would cool down.
Otherwise, I wonder if non fertilizer supported grass could support sufficient cows to satiate demand (which has not even peaked yet).
Pro-fossil fuel types will regularly claim fossil fuels are a hard requirement for fertilizer.
Many people think Haber-Bosch requires fossil fuels as input. It doesn't.
Haber-Bosch requires hydrogen. Currently this is nearly always fossil fuel derived and the carbon parts that are not needed are dumped into the atmosphere.
Venting is not required, just cheap and neither is using hydrogen from a fossil source.
but focusing on that is shifting blame in an innefectual way of course. Pointing at cow farts puts the pressure on the individual and seeks to dampen effects in the short term. Pump up less or no fossil fuels with actual long term thinking and those fertilisers will automatically become more expensive. At that point tho our oversized animal herd becomes harder to support and beef becomes automatically a lot more expensive whilst at the same time the manure becomes more important.