Farm emission plan announced, expect to pay more for your food...

[harm_less]

The problem is that "small percentage" of either CO2 or methane that is returned to vegetation growth as the remainder escapes to the atmosphere where it contributes to the 'greenhouse effect'. The solution is to mitigate CO2 and methane production as in activities like intensive farming and transportation we are discharging far more of it that the carbon cycle is able to cope with. That 10-12 years of methane is a big deal, which our children and grandchildren will be forced to survive with, as will farmers over future decades.

Moreover methane is mostly produced in anaerobic surroundings such as ruminant digestion, landfill decomposition and fossil fuel deposits. While a relatively small amount of methane is emitted from leaf litter the net effect of this environment is positive in terms of such factors as slowing rainfall runoff, diversity of habitat for a multitude of organisms and as a net carbon sink in terms of humus generation.

By the way, elephants aren't ruminants and besides the huge populations of herbivores in natural habitats are generally migratory so their moving herds ensue that their emissions are sparsely distributed and easily dealt with/absorbed by the environment. They also don't pug and otherwise compact their grazing areas as happens in intensive farming systems, a phenomenon which also promotes anaerobic soil conditions and so methane production.

I still think in the grand scheme of things its not enough to affect things, we could make better efforts with re-forestation, banning palm oil and products that contribute to de-forestation.
We once had more trees which would have absorbed the CO2, just like we have more humans breathing out CO2 and less trees than 100 years ago for example, thats got to be a bigger deal in itself.

Burning fossil fuel is the No.1 issue to be addressed, taxing the shit out of fuel to discourage drivers is not the solution either, especially when this money isint actually going to any forestation efforts overseas in the amazon, etc.
Intensive farming is not the solution either, we are proud of our grass fed beef and that would be disastrous if we went that way. Animal welfare is the main concern, but its also a poorer product quality and wont demand high market price.
Countries who intensive farm their beef want to buy our stuff because its better!

I fully support re-forestation, but only on areas that are uneconomic to farm and must be native bush, not shitty pine trees.

Yes elephants may not be ruminants, but methane is still produced in the gut of pretty much any animal on this planet.

Struggling to follow your logic there chap. We are already farming intensively (e.g. imported feed, undercover feed out facilities, break feeding herds of 100s+) so the degredation to our environment is a result. Also are you saying that well treated animals result in inferior produce? Why do you think then that organic products command such a premium in price, to markets that far outstrip our ability to supply them?