Animals and greenhouse gases

It is an incontrovertible fact that it is physically and chemically impossible for an animal to put any more carbon into the total environment than it consumes from it.

Very basic high school general science tells us that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but it can change its state. Carbon can exist in several different states. A carbon atom could exist in diamonds, coal, sugar, gases, or multiple other states but it is the same atom. Furthermore, there is no more carbon in the whole environment now than there was at the beginning of time.

One of the prime building blocks of the plant and animal kingdoms is carbon, and carbon circulates in the environment according to the dictates of the carbon cycle.

Vegetation is loaded with carbon built up largely from carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis.

New Zealand farming systems are largely pasture based and rely on animals consuming vegetation for their diet.

When an animal consumes carbon in its diet that carbon is repurposed to meat, milk or fibre, plus by-products of the digestion process.

Methane is just one such by-product. But methane is an unstable gas and falls out of the atmosphere relatively quickly and is ultimately reconverted to vegetation by photosynthesis.

All this demonstrates that because animal products are multi faceted and comparatively very little finds its way into the atmosphere, and atmospheric gases cycle back to vegetation, it is ludicrous to suggest that animal production is a net contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Roger Bent, Ha¯wera