Posted on 05/28/2024 6:44:10 AM PDT by SJackson
When it comes to carbon sequestration and the natural world, many efforts go into planting more trees. But large land mammals also have a significant role to play.
A new study analyzing the climate impacts of a small herd of European bison in Romania discovered that the bovine increased the surrounding grasslands’ carbon capture capacity by a factor of 10.
This is thanks in large part to the animals’ immense bulk, as their hooves regularly compact the soil, which allows it to trap more carbon.
Bovines often get a bad rap as big emitters of methane, an ultra potent greenhouse gas. It’s estimated that livestock contribute to roughly 14.5 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, largely due to burps and other bodily excretions. However, other, more wild members of the family Bovidae are actually a net positive in the world’s fight against rising temperatures.
Take, for instance, the European bison (Bison bonasus). The largest herbivore in Europe, this majestic bovine once roamed vast stretches of the continent until human poaching dwindled their numbers to extinction in the wild. Thankfully, captive breeding programs reintroduced the species in several parts of Europe in the 2010s.
One of those areas was a region of Romania that hadn’t seen European bison for more than 200 years. In 2014, 17 of these bison arrived at the Țarcu mountains in the southern Carpathians, and now their numbers have climbed tenfold. That continued increase, according to researchers, could have a big impact on carbon sequestration.
As such a large species, the bison have an equally large impact on their environment. They fertilize grasses and spread seeds, which promotes plant growth and further carbon removal. However, they’re greatest contribution just might be their huge bulk. That’s because bison compact soil as they roam across Europe, which allows it to lock away more carbon.
According to a non-peer reviewed modeling study (based on a peer-reviewed model), the Țarcu grasslands currently lock away 10 times more carbon that they did when the bison were absent from the ecosystem. To put some numbers to it, that means that 20 square miles of grassland are locking away 54,000 tons of carbon—roughly the annual CO2 emissions of 43,000 cars.
“These creatures evolved for millions of years with grassland and forest ecosystems, and their removal, especially where grasslands have been plowed up, has led to the release of vast amounts of carbon,” Oswald Schmitz, the lead author of the study, told The Guardian. “Restoring these ecosystems can bring back balance, and ‘rewilded’ bison are some of the climate heroes that can help achieve this.”
And the bison aren’t the only heroes. A previous study by Schmitz revealed that if humanity only focused on rewilding nine specific animal groups—marine fish, whales, sharks, gray wolves, wildebeest, sea otters, musk oxen, African forest elephants, and American bison—the planet could absorb an additional 6.4 billion tons of carbon. That’s close to the annual carbon footprint of the U.S.—the second largest emitter of greenhouse gasses.
Conservationists will continue to try to protect and rewild all species for their myriad benefits outside of carbon sequestration, but this study reiterates how large land mammals can play a big role in tackling CO2 emissions. While the millions of cows kept in captivity around the world is still an undeniable climate disaster, this small-yet-mighty herd of bison shows that bovines also have a positive role to play in the fight against a warming world.
But...but...do bison fart?
What does this have to do with mechanics?
The world is near a 50 million year low in CO2 in the atmosphere. It has “recently” bounced off the bottom (possibly with some contribution of mankind, but that’s still not determined), which is a very good thing, because we were close to the levels where plants would start to die off.
Well a Carbon Based Planet has lots of carbon and you’ll never ever reduce it ,LOL
Oh Puhleeze. What a bunch of bovine excrement. These people have lost their friggin’ minds.
interesting
“...large land mammals.” So cows are “good” again?
The globe is approximately 3/4 water. The 1/4 of land has vast tracts of no or few inhabitants. More or less cows aren’t going to significantly influence carbon levels, the ozone layer nor ‘climate change’.
Well, it looks like some climate alarmists have discovered a tiny sliver of the immense carbon cycle that all life depends on.
It seems they still haven’t discovered the fact that all life is formed from carbon dioxide. Let’s hope they discover this before they put too many carbon sequestration schemes in place and start causing mass extinctions.
Plant trees and use the wood and then plant more trees.
“It’s estimated that livestock contribute to roughly 14.5 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions,”
Sunovabitch, PopMech, don’t you have an editor anymore? They mean to say livestock contribute 14.5 percent of the global-warming emissions (as measured by total heating effect, not volume or mass). Those emissions in the case of livestock are from methane. The amounts are actually minimal, but the effect is 28 times greater than water (per mass? per mole?)
The absurdity of the “carbon” crisis and “global warming” is so amazing I find it incredible that there are still articles and studies going on. What it tells me is that there are no real crises. At least not ones anyone can get behind to resolve. Social Security, illegal immigration, government overreach all easily come to mind as much more real and immediate than carbon or global warming. But mention them and someone waves his hand and says, “We’re all gonna die in just ten years.” They’ve been ten-yearing the rubes since the sixties when the crisis was the coming ice age and peak oil. I remember an article stating we were all going to die in the freezing dark by 1975.
Trying to solve an imaginary problem.
No, apparently they burp and do other bodily excretions. I guess that's a worse word than burp.
Popular Mechanics has gone Woke Stupid.
I can’t remember if it was Popular Mechanics or Popular Science that ran a ridiculous story on the Glomar Explorer when I was just a kid.
I thought it was a completely stupid story. I had no idea what it was for.
But it wasn’t going to be picking up “nitrogen nodules” - absolutely stupid.
I wonder if they thought that they were actually fooling anybody significant.
Much later we found out what that ship was really doing.
Which was a good idea.
But the “article” was ridiculous.
We're still dangerously close to those levels.
I've tried to point out to carbon alarmists the central role of atmospheric CO2 in supporting life on this planet. When plants die off because of insufficient CO2, this means that everything that depends on plants also dies off from lack of carbon. You can't remove a ton of CO2 from the air without decreasing the existing biomass by a ton.
The answer I've received from alarmists is that it's okay for plants requiring a relatively high concentration of CO2 to die off, because there will still be other plants that can survive on lower CO2 concentrations. They simply cannot (or refuse to) understand the link between CO2 and total biomass.
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