UN livestock emissions report seriously distorted our work, say experts
UN livestock emissions report seriously distorted our work, say experts
Exclusive: Study released at Cop28 misused research to underestimate impact of cutting meat eating, say academics
Exclusive: Study released at Cop28 misused research to underestimate impact of cutting meat eating, say academics
A flagship UN report on livestock emissions is facing calls for retraction from two key experts it cited who say that the paper “seriously distorted” their work.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) misused their research to underestimate the potential of reduced meat intake to cut agricultural emissions, according to a letter sent to the FAO by the two academics, which the Guardian has seen.
Paul Behrens, an associate professor at Leiden University and Matthew Hayek, an assistant professor at New York University, both accuse the FAO study of systematic errors, poor framing, and highly inappropriate use of source data.
Hayek told the Guardian: “The FAO’s errors were multiple, egregious, conceptual and all had the consequence of reducing the emissions mitigation possibilities from dietary change far below what they should be. None of the mistakes had the opposite effect.”
If only there was a way to capture the methane from live-stock and use it as energy. Most natural gas is just methane anyway.
I can think of a couple ways, but whether or not they'd work is unclear or if they'd even be ethical or practical.
Best one I got is to keep the cows indoors and collect the methane from the internal atmosphere. Make the roof of said building out of glass or some other clear material so that the cows and their grazing ground has access to sunlight. But then you'd need to regularly clean the roof...
Not to mention having to maintain an HVAC system that siphons all the air (or maybe just the top layer?) of the interior space and somehow separates the methane from the myriad other gases in the space.
Sounds plausible but impractical.