Between two and three million cattle are currently grazing on hundreds of millions of acres of public land in 11 western states. While western beef cattle make up only a small percentage of the beef production in the United States, they cause significant environmental destruction. According to a 1991 report prepared by the United Nations, more than 450 million acres on the western range are suffering a 25 to 50 percent reduction in yield, in part because of the overgrazing of cattle. The burning of fossil fuel accounted for nearly two-thirds of the 8.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere in 1987. The other third came from the increased burning of the forests and grasslands.
Plants take in and store carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis.
When the trees are cleared and burned to make room for the cattle pastures, they emit a massive volume of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Still, the burning of forests for pastureland is only part of the story. Commercial cattle ranching contributes to global warming in other ways. Our highly mechanized agricultural sector also uses a sizeable amount of fossil fuel. With 70 percent of all U.S. grain production now devoted to livestock feed, much of it for cattle, the energy burned by farm machinery and transport vehicles just to produce and ship the fee represents a significant addition to carbon dioxide emissions.