I read a lot of studies and articles about the contributions to atmospheric carbon made by livestock. Apparently, fart jokes make a lasting impression on young minds as it is very popular these days for a thesis to be based on measuring cow emissions and speculating on their impact.

While many researchers are quick to count the carbons coming out, they often overlook the cyclical nature of the carbon lifecycle and the fact that grazing animals hasten the rate at which grasses deposit carbon into soil. Without being grazed, grasses and other pasture plants do not cycle through their growth spurts nearly as often, and so their carbon sequestration cycle only happens about once per year, instead of the multiple cycles that occur when grazed. 

Prior the 1870s, there were approximately 70 million bison on the Great Plains of the United States on any given year. They all ate grass, lots of it. That number is roughly 70% of the cattle population in the entire U.S. today, but it’s important to note that we only reached 100 million cattle around 2015. In 1900, the population of cattle was around 10 million and has grown steadily over the last 120 years. If the lifecycle of grazing animals is so carbon-detrimental, why do we not see comparable evidence of atmospheric carbon increases in the geological record with so many bison farting around the prairies for the previous 15,000 years?

Keep in mind that we’re only comparing bison to cattle here –– countless antelope, camelids, mammoths, and many other graziers dominated North America for millennia and were mostly gone by the time our recent carbon accumulation event started. Even with the recent proliferation of livestock, vertebrate populations have declined by an average of 60% in the last 50 years. The recent accumulation of greenhouses gases appears to coincide more closely with the disappearance of grazing animals than it does with their presence.

Seems to me the primary culprit is the carbon that we have taken out of the ground (fossil fuels) and placed into the atmosphere while simultaneously reducing the planet’s ability to draw that carbon back into sequestration (removal of forests and grazing animals from the land). To do my part, I’ve been thinking that planting more trees should help, while addressing many other environmental problems as well — food for birds and bees, cover for wildlife, shade to keep the land cooler... we can do this all day!  But then I discovered this:

• Whales store huge amounts of CO2

• They support the growth of phytoplankton, which stores 40% of all carbon produced

• A 1% increase in phytoplankton productivity is equivalent to 2 billion mature trees

From the World Economic Forum. Also see this article from the International Monetary Fund

What we really should be planting is whales! Turns out these big mammals are integral to an oceanic cycle similar to grazing on land. The distribution of their digestive waste creates conditions supportive of phytoplankton, which contribute more than half of our planet’s oxygen and sequester around 40% of all carbon released into our atmosphere. Additionally, a single great whale can absorb up to 33 tonnes (33,000kg, or 72,752.54 pounds) of carbon in its body, which will typically sink to the ocean floor when it dies. Depending on location, this carbon mass might be preserved (sequestered) indefinitely. Even if it is eaten, the carbon remains sequestered as it is bound up in the bodies of other life forms. 

These recent findings add to the growing evidence that the gross reduction of organisms, habitat, and diversity continue to undermine the sustainability of our planet. The candle is burning at both ends. While changes in fossil fuel consumption should be targeted for solutions, so should we be returning plants and animals to the fields and waters to help bind up more carbon in their lifecycles. Planting trees and grazing animals on pasture is already part of our plan. Now if I can just figure out how to plant whales in our seasonal winter lake...