By Mary Powell

Environmentalists claim cattle in feed yards are polluting the air with their methane (CH4) from belching and manure.  They want to do away with animal agriculture because of the detriment to the environment but they don’t say much about big cities and doing away with them because of their detriment to the environment.

All life consists of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and other biochemical elements.  Animals, plants and humans all contain carbon in various proportions.  Animals and humans breathe out carbon dioxide (CO2) and plants take in that CO2 and during photosynthesis, releases oxygen.  This is one of the circles of life, it is a carbon cycle.

All animals, humans included, release carbon into the air when they breathe and they also release methane (CH4) when they burp or experience flatulence.  Environmentalists say that feed yards are bad because of the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, therefore, cattle are bad and some even think we should all be vegans and cut out all meat.  When we compare the hundred thousand head feed yards to the cities with millions of people living in them; do you really think that one feed yard is that detrimental to the atmosphere when you compare to the number of people in say, New York City, who not only burp, experience flatulence but also drive vehicles powered with fossil fuels?  The feed yards are usually found on the Great Plains and there is usually a prevailing wind that disperses the CO2 and CH4  so nature deals with it a lot quicker than in cities. New York City does not have as strong of prevailing winds as the plains, so of course the carbon is concentrated, that is why there is smog.

Looking at the prevailing winds and the jet stream, the carbon over New York City eventually blows over the North Pole, where according to the environmentalists, is experiencing warmer than ‘normal’ temperatures and the glaciers are melting.  Okay, so the smog has not dispersed or been diluted before it gets to the North Pole.  Yet environmentalists are saying that the cattle are a detriment to the environment.  Hmm; I would like to argue that cities are detrimental to the environment because of the concentration of carbon gasses they create.  When the environment is not over taxed, it can handle carbon release easily but not when there is excess.

I think the environmentalists are also a bunch of vegetarians and vegans who just want to stop animal agriculture.  When you look at the benefit that animal agriculture has for the world, their impact on the world is less than smoggy cities. Anyone who has been around a teenage boy after eating beans should understand the large amounts of methane humans can release on a normal day.  Add to that everyone breathing and using fossil fuels, there is no way animal agriculture has a way of having a larger impact.

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