Orion Magazine posted an excellent essay by Bill McKibben regarding the recent accusations of cattle farming as a chief cause of global warming. McKibben points out the following bit of history:

Still, even once you’ve made that commitment, there’s a nagging ecological question that’s just now being raised. It goes like this: long before humans had figured out the whole cow thing, nature had its own herds of hoofed ungulates. Big herds of big animals—perhaps 60 million bison ranging across North America, and maybe 100 million antelope. That’s considerably more than the number of cows now resident in these United States. These were noble creatures, but uncouth—eructate hadn’t been coined yet. They really did just belch. So why weren’t they filling the atmosphere with methane? Why wasn’t their manure giving off great quantities of atmosphere-altering gas?

Indeed.

Note that McKibben isn’t defending industrial farming (in fact, he agrees that it is damaging to the environment), but instead defending small-scale, grass-fed, pastured cattle operations, as they essentially mimic the grazing habits of the ungulates of yore.

Posted on 1 April 2010