For a talk at Eco Farm Day 2020 by the Canadian Organic Growers, I compiled a few thoughts on how to talk about meat to media.  Please also note my first post on “Regenerative Meat – Basics“, which is more about communication than about facts!

This blog post answers the following questions:

• Livestock & consumer behavior
  • How do I talk about diet?
  • How can consumers source regenerative food products?
• Livestock & Ethics
  • The ethics of keeping livestock
  • The ethics of killing for food
• Livestock & the environment
  • What are the main environmental arguments against livestock?
  • Is meat really such an inefficient use of land when producing food?
  • Doesn’t grazing require more land than feedlot production or plant sources for protein?
  • Why do studies report these very large greenhouse gas impacts of grazed meat, even larger than for feedlot meat?
  • What about the methane burps of cows and sheep?
  • Can’t we rewild large areas if we stop eating animals?
  • Isn’t animal feed only a waste product when processing soy and corn?
• Livestock & Activism
  • How can activists raise awareness for regenerative meat production without mentioning the destructive aspects of meat production?

Livestock & consumer behavior

How do I talk about diet?

In her book “Sacred Cow”, Nutritionist Dianne Rogers makes a strong point that the American obesity crisis can be linked to an excess reliance on carbohydrates in the diet, and that an increased consumption of meat especially by lower-income groups could lower the carbohydrate intake. She makes a case for the wider adoption of a Paleo diet. I would warn against this line of argument around the topic of veganism: while Dianne certainly has valid points about the broken state of the US food system, excessive consumption of carbohydrates,  and income equality, her proposal to eat more meat must be compared with other strategies that fix our broken food system.

I recommend avoiding discussions around whether humans need to eat meat or not. What each of us chooses to eat – our dietary preferences and needs – are highly dependent on individual genetics, the personal immune system and microbiome, taste, and cultural upbringing. Some people are healthiest with a high meat diet, while some athletes excel on plant-based and microbial proteins only. Some arctic cultures mostly rely on meat, other cultures mainly thrive on grains and fermented products. Diets that are fit into the local ecosystem vary by regional and by season – what is appropriate during winter may not be appropriate in summer.

I recommend encouraging a flexitarian diet. Plant-based proteins are a reasonable part of everyone’s diet, except for those people suffering from particular allergies against pulses. Again, this point aligns you with your audience – many meals that use pulses, beans, or fermented products (kefir, tofu, sauerkraut) are tasty, cheap, seasonally appropriate, and healthy. But this does not mean you never can eat regenerative meat!

How can consumers source regenerative food products?

Regeneratively grown products are unfortunately not easily recognizable for urban consumers. On the contrary, most beef sold in urban centres is produced often under ethical questionable conditions and and with practices that are not good for the environment. As long as this situation prevails, consumers have few leverage points to distinguish regenerative and degenerative meat products. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to defend the broad consumption of meat!

The organic label does not sufficiently identify regenerative production methods. Leaders within the organic sector are well-aware of this problem and actively work on solutions. For example, the organization IFOAM suggests improvements to the organic system (e.g. discussion papers on the future of organic agriculture / Organic 3.0). There are many initiatives ongoing to establish a label for regenerative meat products, such as the Rodale Regenerative Organic Certification or Savory Institute’s Land To Market program.  Not all of these are within organic certification!

So be prepared – point out some existing options where to buy regenerative meat products that are ethically superior and also affordable: Meat CSAs, purchasing directly from a regenerative producer, choosing frozen beef quarters for a better price, buying from a value-based vendor who has a regenerative purchasing policy, by choosing certified organic and grassfed products, and otherwise avoiding meat from unknown origin. In restaurants, you may ask for ethically raised meat options to exert consumer pressure.

Ethics & Livestock

The ethics of keeping livestock

The first line of ethical arguments is around the suffering of animals as sentient beings when living on farms. A common argument of vegans is that Confined Animal Feedlot Operations (CAFOs) and many other treatments create unethical living conditions for animals.

Regenerative grazers also believe in avoiding animal suffering. If this comes up, ethics are an excellent opportunity to build bridges. Regenerative grazers believe that animals should be raised as close to their natural habitat as possible – on pastures with high biodiversity, and enabled to express natural social behavior. Both is possible with good grazing management. Align with a critical audience and express common interests!

Regenerative grazers also believe that many less known practices within the dominant livestock system are unethical. For example, ‘backgrounding’ is a technical term for a common practice in conventional beef production: yearlings live on a pasture but also receive “background feed”. Backgrounding is most common in the Prairies where land is dry and brittle, and often almost only bare ground is left. Here, operators feel it is necessary to complement feed because their pastures are of so poor quality that they provide sufficient feed.  Most ‘backgrounding’ operations are small; owners rely on regular 9-to-5 jobs for their income and farm “for hobby” or to lower their land taxes. So these small operators have low financial incentives to put efforts into managed grazing, and sacrifice their pastures to convenience. So the ethical argument of suffering is really an opportunity to educate the audience about dominant beef production practices and stress the need (and opportunity) for a transition to regenerative practices.

The ethics of killing for food

The second line of ethical arguments is that killing animals for food is unethical because animals have feelings and can perceive pain.  This argument is difficult to address and impossible to resolve, because it is based on a religious worldview and not on “scientific” arguments. I believe that it is a basic human right to choose a plant-based diet that avoids killing animals, or embracing our omnivore evolutionary past.  It is a fact that humans clearly has the teeth of an omnivore, and also that humans have evolved as grassland hunters for most of our history. However, vegans make the point that, given humanities increased population, it is time to enter a new evolutionary stage, a new consciousness that avoids animal suffering and inefficient production.  This worldview has many valid aspects and it we should respect it.

Yet, there are several points that make the ethics of livestock use complicated:

• Annual field crops also kill animals, not only when we kill our livestock. Typical crop farming is responsible for destroy microbes and insects while destroying habitat for higher beings. Here, it is worth pointing out that most vegan products are not produced regeneratively and that production destroys habitat and kills animals.
• Herd animals have evolved around being killed by hunters. These plant eaters evolved by moving in a large group  – a herd – to protect themselves against pack hunters. These hunters still follow the herd and kill whatever animal falls behind due to sickness, age, reduced fitness. This ongoing selection is actually good for the health of the entire group! For hundreds of thousands of years, groups of humans were exactly these hunters – this was our role in nature. HOW we fulfill this role today is something we really need to discuss, and there are many ethical questions to be answered.
• Ecological farming relies on animals. Animals are an essential part of landscape ecology, and ecological farming cannot do without – even if a few small market gardens have managed to carve out micro niches for “vegan farming”. Especially in dry regions of this earth, ruminants are an essential part of mineral cycles because only ruminants ensure that dry biomass is trampled, decomposes, and makes space for new life. And manure is central for maintaining a diverse biome, for spreading seeds, and for cycling nutrients.
• Grassland restoration absolutely requires grazing by animals. In the dry regions of our earth, grasslands are degenerating to desert due to inappropriate use, such as field mono cropping with the plough, and destructive grazing. Only if herders mimic the behavior of large herds, then the dry grasslands of this earth can be regenerated.

Again, it is possible to educate the audience about regenerative production practices of plant food that allows for truly ethical consumption. With a word of caution: it is still difficult to buy regenerative food if you don’t know an ecological farmer or a value-based food retailer.

Livestock & the environment

What are the main environmental arguments against livestock?

Maybe the most prevalent argument for industrial food production is its superior “efficiency” – defined as a high yield per area (acre, hectare) to feed our rising population. In my opinion, this argument is deeply flawed – yet, my opinion is counter most literature on the internet. The argument is basically promoted by BigAg in order to defend the status quo of degenerative chemical agriculture. Most arguments look at the “land base needed to produce one unit of meat”, but disregard how this land base is impacted ecologically.  With only 50 years left for harvesting food from the world’s rapidly disappearing soil, we also need to look at ecological impacts, not just at land use.

Especially if one assesses “yields per area” in calories, then meat is a very inefficient way to produce food.  Many studies consistently show: The ecological footprint of meat production, with average/dominant production methods, is very high. This has several reasons:

1. Providing calories:
   To produce one calorie of meat, animals must eat on average 10 calories of plant matter. It is more efficient to eat plants directly.
2. Area footprint:
   To produce the grain and soybean that is fed to animals requires about ten times the area than producing the same amount of plant-based protein (beans, soy, chickpeas) and consuming it directly;
3. Feeding food to animals:
   Eating less meat will reduce humanity’s footprint of annual cropping. The feed use ratio (kg feed per kg meat) is better with monogastric animals (crickets, poultry, and pigs) than with ruminants. Studies thus suggest that monogastric meat is preferable to ruminant meat.
4. Efficiency of feedlots
   Average feedlot production brings cattle faster “from calf to finish” because cattle move less, gain weight to slaughter weight faster, and thus spend less energy on maintaining their body functions compared to average grass-based production.   Feedlot meat is thus preferable to grassfed meat.
5. The methane issue:
   Finally, ruminants like cattle or sheep emit substantial amounts of methane when digesting grass, and methane is a potent greenhouse gas.

All five arguments are partly valid and have implications for how we should shape a regenerative food system. Yet, all five arguments have deep conceptual flaws that are not easy to grasp without substantial background knowledge. I will now dismantle each argument one by one. I have to draw on knowledge from ecology, soil, biology, animal nutrition, and even philosophy – this exceeds general knowledge levels. I see the main reason why the meat-or-vegan-debate keeps on haunting us especially in (1) the lack of ecosystem literacy and (2) our “paradigm of scarcity” (Section “Some philosophical background”)!

Is red meat really such an inefficient use of land when producing food?

Most studies calculate the calorie content of meat and then calculate the land area needed to produce a number of calories. Nutrition should not focus on calories. Obesity is raving around the world [1], especially among poor [2]. Dietary recommendations must shift away from ensuring sufficient intake of calories and instead focus on a balanced, healthy and nutritious, culturally appropriate diet. Compared to meat, certainly plant calories – especially potatoes – have a far lower land requirement for producing a set amount of calories. However, humans eat meat as a source of protein and not as a source of calories.

A second element is how land is utilized, and how food production impacts it ecologically. Is the soil health increased or is the topsoil eroded? Here, regenerative grazing really has large potential to restore rangeland ecologically. While feed production for feedlot from annual crops, especially if based on tillage and chemical agriculture, can greatly degrade land. The accurate numbers of how many acres are needed to produce one kilo of meat vary considerably from region to region, and I believe that this number game is less important than looking at production impacts!

The land footprint of animal agriculture raises several aspects.

1. 1. What’s the alternative land use? It is questionable whether a reduced demand for animal feed will actually reduce land demand – or simply shift product use toward biofuels. In the US in 2013, 40% of all corn was already used for biofuel production, 36% for animal feed, and only 24% were used for human consumption [9]. Soy is processed into oil (20%) and meal (80%). Almost all of the meal is fed to animals; only 3% are used for human consumption. 68% of the oil is used for food, 25% as biodiesel, and the rest as industrial input [10].
   2. The focus on “land used for production” is problematic. What is preferable: Feeding humans from one acre of high-quality soil, but degrading the soil on this acre rapidly, or feeding the same humans from 5 acres of degraded soil that is regenerated while producing food? Degenerative production of annual feed crops may appear to have a smaller footprint than regenerative grazing, but the ecological consequences of “efficient” modern production are severe. Indeed, annual cropping has degraded about ⅓ of the world’s arable soil since 1950. Every year, the world looses 25-40 billion tons of top soil to erosion, reducing our farmland’s capacity for producing 7.6 Million tons of cereal [11]. If we continue our current trend we only have 60 more harvests left before the world’s soil are destroyed [12]. So instead of focusing on land use, a better – more holistic – method to estimate environmental impact is needed.
   3. The type of feed matters. Monogastric animals (insects, poultry, pigs) eat less feed per kg meat produced (in kg/kg) than ruminants. Yet, monogastric animals generally compete with humans for food, ruminants naturally eat what humans cannot digest. Ruminants naturally eat grass. Monogastric animals and humans cannot digest this cellulose. In fact, ruminants have evolved complex microbial partnerships to digest this type of feed – the lowest nutritional quality that nature offers. Except for ruminants, only termites and a few insects can digest cellulose, always in symbiosis with microbes. In contrast, monogastric animals eat exactly the same feed that humans can digest: grain, and to some extent soybean or corn[1]. That said, modern industrial farming has totally altered ruminant diet against their biology and diminished their rumen microbiome. Mad Cow Disease started because ruminants were fed with bones and waste meat. Today, farmers mostly feed grains, high-protein soy pallets, or corn. Such feed that has much higher value than ruminants really need if their microbial rumen work as nature intended.
   4. Pay attention to units.  Ever heard claims like “Producing one kilo of rabbit meat takes less than one kilo of feed”? Such numbers compare ‘wet’ meat products that mostly consist of water, with ‘dry’ feed input with much higher nutritional density per weight unit. This compares apples with oranges!

Ruminants are indeed capable of grazing in areas where food or feed for monogastrics cannot be produced regeneratively, while at the same time improving the ecological value of the soil, increasing biodiversity, and improving the small water cycle.

Doesn’t grazing require more land than feedlot production or plant sources for protein?

Ecological impact matters more than land area. If animals are fed with grains and soy- or corn-based feed, the main environmental impact is through the production of these annual feed crops. This cheapest of all production systems concentrates animals in large feedlots and moves feed long distances. This production system creates several negative impacts that are associated with how we produce annual crops, and has little to do with the animals that feed on it.

1. 1. Soil impacts of annual cropping practices are dramatic: considerable areas are degraded with annual production practices; for every ton of feed harvested, the USA looses 3 tons of topsoil to erosion [3, 4]. This not only oxidizes soil carbon into CO2, it also transports clay sediments, nutrients (phosphates, nitrates) and agrochemicals into river systems. Especially in sediments and in the anaerobic ocean zones that form in river deltas, soil carbon and nitrates are contributing to methane and nitrous oxide emissions – potent GHGs.
   2. Annual feed cropping removes nutrients from the production site that must be replenished with chemical fertilizers, and creates an excess of nutrients where feedlots are located that burden the water. In Europe, much feed is imported from as far as South America; China imports feed from North America and Africa. The resulting nitrate pollution in both feed production areas and around feedlot is considered the most severe overstepping of planetary boundaries [5, 6].
   3. Soil degradation disrupts watershed functions and the small water cycle. This means that the land cannot absorb rainfall and create groundwater that is slowly released in cold rivers, keeping the landscape hydrated and cool. Instead, water runs off rapidly into warm and muddy rivers, contributing to downstream flooding,  while the land then immediately falls dry, contributing to drought. So it is obvious that animal production based on annual feed crops accumulates the environmental burden of degenerative annual cropping practices.

Yet, it is also possible to produce meat with regenerative practices that replenish soil, restore the water cycle, and close nutrient cycles. An increasing number of farmers have figured out methods how meat – especially ruminants – can be created without the negative impacts mentioned before [7]. These systems mimic the growth of animals in their natural ecology. In a best-case scenario, North America could remove significant GHG from the atmosphere using regenerative practices including ruminant grazing [8].  To understand this argument, the audience must understand how regenerative animal production works.

What about the very large greenhouse gas impacts of grazing that are reported even larger than feedlot meat?

Many studies report that the greenhouse gas emissions for producing one pound of meat are far larger than for any other food group. In addition, grassfed meat is often reported to have a larger footprint than grain-fed feedlot meat. Yes, production systems based on grain feed are faster and require less area than grass-based production systems. Also, as animals are slaughtered younger, they have less time to emit methane (this point will be addressed in the next question!).

However, the comparison of feedlot and grazing practices generally assume “average” grain production and “average” grazing production strategies. Neither average feed production nor average grazing is done in a regenerative manner. Problems arising from feed production were described in Answer 2. Grazing can also be highly degenerative. Indeed, whenever pastures are grazed without giving sufficient recovery time between two feedings (“overgrazing”), they degrade in diversity, in soil health, and in their ability to hold water. Especially in dry regions of this world, overgrazing can rapidly degenerate vibrant grassland into unproductive rangeland.

Yet, the same grassland also degrades without any grazing – a fact that many conservationists still struggle with. With too little moisture for natural decomposition, these dry (“brittle”) grasslands accumulate dry biomass over many years, until UV light slowly oxidizes it, burned by grassfire, or eaten by ruminants. The dry biomass shades out the plant; the dry soil hardens in the heat and does not permit the germination of new seeds (“capping”),  and plants age and eventually die – “resting” dry grasslands also causes desertification as many natural undisturbed parks in Africa or the Midwest are experiencing today. Dry grassland ecosystems are absolutely dependent on grazers that move in large herds in protection from predators. These herds remove and trample dry biomass, returning it to soil as litter, urine and dung. These herds also disturb the capped soil to allow for new germination and rejuvenation.  And these herds generally do not return to an area until it had sufficient recovery time to re-establish fully developed plants with fully developed root systems.

Regenerative grazing systems mimic this natural interaction between plants, ruminants, and hunters. For this reason, regenerative grazing even of livestock can have enormous benefits especially in the dry, desertification-prone regions of our world. In temperate regions like ours, regenerative grazing permits 2-3 times the number of animals per land of continuous grazing while also creating much larger biodiversity. Regenerative grazing is thus a true win-win-win for farmers, eaters, and the environment. While average grazing and average feedlot production systems are both degenerating ecosystems. Regeneratively grazed animal products thus help restoring the ecosystem functions of this Earth.

What about the methane burps of cows and sheep?

The global Methane cycles is still poorly understood. Methane is a strong GHG and all ruminants emit these gases naturally, as part of their anaerobic digestion of grasses/cellulose. To reduce methane emissions, researchers are investigating how feedlots can complement feed additives like seaweed, with some success. And it remains unclear whether any of these additives is scalable to impact the 1.5 billion livestock ruminants that live on earth today.  While “the cow” has been blamed as one of the main culprits for climate change, this blame should really be with the meat production practices in our industrial food system that are removed from healthy pastures, and with the main culprit, the fossil fuel industry. Ultimately, we still neither understand methane sources [15], nor methane sinks [16].

•     Regarding sources, recent statistics on Methane sources indicate that atmospheric peaks in methane concentration are tied to oil, coal and gas [13a-d, 14], and not to livestock. Others fear that these spikes are already related to the thawing of permafrost [14b].
•     Regarding sinks, most methane is oxidization by short-lived hydroxyl radicals in the troposphere [17a]. Hydroxyl radicals are produced by splitting water molecules with UV light. Especially above natural vegetation, the concentration of hydroxyl radicals was estimated to neutralize most of the methane emitted by grazers. And grazers are essential to keep vegetation alive and keep air moist in the world’s dry grasslands! Ruminant methane emissions are more problematic if not grazed on pasture. These arguments are based on basic textbook knowledge; scientific robust measurement under field conditions are still lacking. The second-most important sink are soils [17b]. Especially benefiting from perennial grass vegetation, soil microorganisms absorb carbon dioxide as well as methane in boreal soils [17c], in temperate and tropical grazing systems [17d], or dry grasslands [17e].
•     With both sources and sinks, the time until methane gas is removed from the atmosphere is very short time before it is oxidized to CO2 and water. If ruminant numbers are constant, the rate of new methane emissions is equal to the rate of methane decomposition. Indeed, with 50 million cattle, North America today probably is home to a similar ruminant population as in previous millennia [18]. It is not clear whether numbers have increased globally, but story-based evidence from Africa, Asia, North America indicates enormous wild herds that are unimaginable today.  During the Pleistocene, even today’s tundra was a steppe ecosystem abundant in ruminant animals [19].

It is neither simple nor easy to understand why the dominant bad reputation of ruminants is misleading. First, it’s not the cow but the how – the way we feed cattle, the way we grow annual feed crops, even the way we graze. We certainly need to question these production systems. But that should not make us blind for the fact that ruminants play an essential role in our world’s biosphere, especially in ecoregions prone to desertification. And we should learn about how we can use livestock to regenerate these ecosystems, instead of shunning them because we dislike dominant industrial practices.

Can’t we rewild large areas if we stop eating animals?

What may work in theory currently does not work in practice, for several reasons:

•       Land owners would not rewild land if we stop buying meat and feed. When it is no longer profitable to produce animal feed crops, most owners would not convert the land into wilderness. Most owners would produce other cash crops that make money, e.g. biofuels, or even animal feed for export. The question and dream to rewild land centers around land ownership, not around markets for feed crops. As long as landowners (or investors) treat land as a profitable investment asset, the dream of rewilding would first require a massive land reform that dispossesses land owners. This is incompatible with our modern society.
•       Feed is often a side product when producing human food: Much of animal feed actually is a secondary product when processing corn and soybean for human food. If we stop eating animals, then processors will not be able to get value for much of these secondary products when they make soy-based proteins or corn-based glucose syrup.
•       Rewilding is a northern idea that only works in wet and temperate climate. Historically, the Roman empire and later British and other colonizers from Northern Europe have destroyed drylands around the world. These colonizers transferred agricultural practices that were developed in  Europe’s wet climate and young soils into other continents and ecoregions. This has led to wide desertifcation. Unfortunately, few people still remember that Spain, Greece, Tunesia, Australia, and South Africa were once green and fertile before Northern  agriculture destroyed it! Very similarly, the dream of rewilding earth is based on the belief that “if left alone, nature will turn the land back into a healthy ecosystem”. This disregards how different the ecology of dry grasslands is! Dry grasslands can healthy only if they are grazed by large and compacted herds. And herd animals only behave like that if followed by pack hunters! This means grasslands need large herds as well as hunters or they will be destroyed by overgrazing and/or over-resting! So let’s not go into other continents and mess with their ecology – we have done this as colonizers, and we should not do it again. We should not assume that we other ecosystems behave the same as temperate forests on young soil.
•       Dry grasslands require planned grazing, not rewilding.  Rewilding only works at a very scale if giant herds of plant eaters are reestablished, together with pack predators. This would require huge areas that are thousands of kilometers long! Without this type of grazing, grasses in dry regions will age and not rejuvinate, and eventually only bare ground is left- that’s desertification. This means the land loses biodiversity and only dust remains. Grassland management needs to take into account and respect this basic insights in grassland ecology.

Today, only planned grazing with large ruminant livestock and other regenerative production practices can re-green the desertifying dry areas of this planet.

Isn’t animal feed only a waste product when processing soy and corn?

Advocates of feedlots often state that soy and corn feed is a waste product from the production of higher-value components of corn and soy. They claim that, as a waste product, this feed has virtually no environmental relevance.

This claim is highly questionable. First, the overall demand of soy for animal consumption is far higher than for human consumption. The revenue from selling animal feed is economically important for soy processors. Economically, soy processing can only achieve the low prices and solid profit margins because all products – including animal feed – are marketed effectively. Economists talk about “coupled products” when analyzing the economics of human soy products (like the Impossible Burger) and soy-based animal feed. An increase in human soy consumption thus also fosters more animal feed production and consumption! What irony, right?

How can activists raise awareness for regenerative meat production without mentioning the destructive aspects of meat production?

For me, the core challenge is to distinguish food production that is degenerating the environment from other methods that regenerate the environment. This is not unique to meat production, but due to the trophic aggregation of 10 calories of feed into 1 calorie of animal product, livestock production has large relevance for our planet.

Especially in the USA, regenerative meat producers are facing violent attacks from extremist vegans. Their animals are outside on pasture, so they are visible and accessible for sabotage. Feedlots are comparatively difficult to access: behind walls and security cameras, activists take far larger risks when entering and sabotaging these facilities. The result is that militant vegans have deeply estranged many regenerative farmers, even if we may share many values around protecting our planet. Ultimately, regenerative farmers are spending much time to battle veganism – instead of focusing on how to move their production systems forward.  I hope that over time, vegans and regenerative farmers will realize that they see very similar problems in the dominant food system. Both share the insight that we need to reduce environmental destruction, including from the consumption of meat that was produced with degenerative practices.

Depending on the audience, it may be necessary to be explicit about the destructive aspects of meat production. Especially if an audience is already educated about these aspects, but is not yet aware of the regenerative potential of livestock, then a speaker can win over a critical audience by acknowledging these aspects, by aligning in values. This may be the basis for opening up ears, for getting people to listen who otherwise pidgin-hole the speaker as a “meat lobbyist”.  In other situations, especially in the presence of meat farmers who have moved away from “natural” practices due to financial hardship and extension advice, these destructive aspects may trigger defensiveness and all other arguments are lost on these listeners. Gosnell recently described how regenerative livestock producers are happier, better off financially, and more fulfilled after changing their production system [20]. Keep your audience in mind – and be assured, sometimes you will step on someone’s toes. If you do this gracefully, honestly, and in a consistent manner, people may come around and respect and even hear you.

References

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[7] Gabe Brown, 2018. Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture. Book,Chelsea Green Publishing, Oct. 11, 2018

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[13c]The Fracking Industry’s Methane Problem Is a Climate Problem, By Justin Mikulka • Sunday, December 22, 2019

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/06/21/methane-leaks-oil-gas-60-higher-epa-estimates-science-study-edf, accessed Feb 20, 2020

[13d] Jillian Ambrose Fri 15 Nov 2019, The Guardian.  Methane emissions from coalmines could stoke climate crisis – study

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[16] Hydroxyl Radicals May Explain High Global Methane Levels. News article from American Laboratory, April 2017. https://www.americanlaboratory.com/336652-Hydroxyl-Radicals-May-Explain-High-Global-Methane-Levels, accessed Feb 20, 2020

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