I HAD BEEN ASSURED THAT THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: Demonized as contributing to climate change, cattle may actually decrease emissions, research shows.

Dr. Vaughn Holder, research project manager for beef nutrition at Alltech, and Dr. Betsey Boughton, director of agroecology at Archbold, studied the impacts that cattle production has on the ecosystem on a wetlands pasture at Buck Island Ranch, about 150 miles northwest of Miami, Florida. The researchers found that 19%-30% of methane emissions were from the cattle, but the rest was from the wetland soils. If the cows are removed, their research shows, it actually increases the amount of methane the wetland ecosystems give off.

Methane, which is more potent in terms of greenhouse warming than carbon dioxide, lasts only about 12 years. So reducing methane can have a more immediate impact on warming than reducing carbon dioxide.

Cattle emissions, Holder told Just the News, are often thought of like fossil fuel emissions. When we burn fossil fuels, the emissions go into the air. So eliminating a coal-fired power plant, for example, removes an emissions source, which produces a drop in emissions.

Grill burgers tonight in celebration.