This book explores the widely held misconception that sheep, cattle and other grazing animals are responsible for an enormous net production of new global warming gases. The reality is that livestock are part of a closed atmospheric carbon cycle where the carbon they emit is equal to the carbon they take in.
With the information in this book, food lovers who enjoy eating meat, chefs, restaurant owners, catering managers, cooks at home in their own kitchens and the general public, can feel confident that they can put meat on the menu without fear of warming the Earth.
Not only are sheep and cattle neutral with respect to the carbon cycle, they can be the positive agents by which carbon dioxide can be drawn down from the atmosphere and sequestered in farmland soils.
Prominent scientists recognise the role of plants and animals in drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequestering it beneath the ground as soil carbon.
Individual farmers and ranchers all over the world are taking action to raise carbon levels in their soils. In doing this they are directly addressing the excess carbon dioxide levels in the air which the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and numerous governments have stated is too high. Read how, far from being villains of global warming, farmers and ranchers, together with their plants and animals, can be the heroes of the environmental movement. Through his work as a journalist and writer, David has researched the matter of soil carbon sequestration on farms. He has visited farms where carbon farming is being developed and has a good working relationship with many of the leaders who are developing the techniques to do it. He has written articles on the subject and a book – Should meat be on the menu? – which advocates the role that farm animals, correctly grazed, can play in drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it, as carbon, in the soil profile.
