tangrams, that is all well and good, but where is the other side of the argument? How much CO2 is sequesterd from the atmosphere by the livestock and either utilised by them or locked into the soil? Recent studies suggest that the whole system at worst is carbon neutral. With regards to methane, most of what is known has been learnt in the laboratory, there are so many known and perhaps unknown factors that influence how methane is either retained or converted in the atmosphere that the lab figures would almost certainly be a worst case scenario. It's obviously impossible to track individual molecules of methane to verify their life expectancy given there are so many ways that the methane can be broken down through natural means. Methane does sooner or later oxidise to produce CO2 and water vapour so it is a closed loop system. Unlike burning fossil fuels that have been out of the loop for millions of years, yet for accounting purposes, both are treated exactly the same. It's strange that so much emphasis is given to growing trees as a means to saving the planet, yet is is similiar to methane in that the carbon sequestered by the trees is only out of the system for a relatively short amount of time, the life expectancy of many trees being planted is not that long and at the end of their life the carbon sequestered by them will once again be returned to the atmosphere. It will reach a balance point, or perhaps already has, that the amount of CO2 being sequestered by trees is equal to the CO2 being released by dead trees either being processed, burnt or rotting. They only real answer is to not produce CO2 in the first place by eliminating unnecessary usage of energy. This is where those delegates to Bali who justify their production of CO2 by buying carbon offsets are either completely ignorant of the what they are supposedly trying to achieve or total hypocrites.
