Herbivores do not create additional CO2 or methane. They are CO2 neutral. Cattle are the world’s great grazers and bulk and roughage feeders. Without them, vast areas of global farmland would soon begin to atrophy into mostly lifeless unproductive topsoil, devoid of essential nutrients and bacteria.
The carbon cows emit today was pulled out of the air via the grass it ate only months before. It’s a constant rolling ledger with no new carbon being added to the global system.
Cattle harvest CO2 from the air via the grass they eat – then use it for energy before returning it to the soil and sky – to be used again and again. There is nothing left over to threaten the planet. This is the biological miracle of CO2 being recycled. Cattle are not a new source of CO2 or methane.
Through photosynthesis, plants convert atmospheric carbon into carbohydrates (cellulose). Cows eat the grasses, which are cellulose, and through digestion eventually return that carbon to the atmosphere as CO2 and methane. There is no CO2 or methane left over to destabilise the atmosphere.
Within roughly a decade, the methane breaks back down into CO2, which the next season’s grass breathes in again.