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Livestock Use on Public Lands in the Western USA Exacerbates Climate Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
Public lands of the USA can play an important role in addressing the climate crisis. About 85% of public lands in the western USA are grazed by domestic livestock, and they influence climate change in three profound ways: (1) they are significant sources of greenhouse gases through enteric fermentat...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer US
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9079022/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35366068 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00267-022-01633-8 |
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author | Kauffman, J. Boone Beschta, Robert L. Lacy, Peter M. Liverman, Marc |
author_facet | Kauffman, J. Boone Beschta, Robert L. Lacy, Peter M. Liverman, Marc |
author_sort | Kauffman, J. Boone |
collection | PubMed |
description | Public lands of the USA can play an important role in addressing the climate crisis. About 85% of public lands in the western USA are grazed by domestic livestock, and they influence climate change in three profound ways: (1) they are significant sources of greenhouse gases through enteric fermentation and manure deposition; (2) they defoliate native plants, trample vegetation and soils, and accelerate the spread of exotic species resulting in a shift in landscape function from carbon sinks to sources of greenhouse gases; and (3) they exacerbate the effects of climate change on ecosystems by creating warmer and drier conditions. On public lands one cow-calf pair grazing for one month (an “animal unit month” or “AUM”) produces 875 kg CO(2)e through enteric fermentation and manure deposition with a social carbon cost of nearly $36 per AUM. Over 14 million AUMs of cattle graze public lands of the western USA each year resulting in greenhouse gas emissions of 12.4 Tg CO(2)e year(−1). The social costs of carbon are > $500 million year(−1) or approximately 26 times greater than annual grazing fees collected by managing federal agencies. These emissions and social costs do not include the likely greater ecosystems costs from grazing impacts and associated livestock management activities that reduce biodiversity, carbon stocks and rates of carbon sequestration. Cessation of grazing would decrease greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil and water resources, and would enhance/sustain native species biodiversity thus representing an important and cost-effective adaptive approach to climate change. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9079022 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-90790222022-05-09 Livestock Use on Public Lands in the Western USA Exacerbates Climate Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Kauffman, J. Boone Beschta, Robert L. Lacy, Peter M. Liverman, Marc Environ Manage Article Public lands of the USA can play an important role in addressing the climate crisis. About 85% of public lands in the western USA are grazed by domestic livestock, and they influence climate change in three profound ways: (1) they are significant sources of greenhouse gases through enteric fermentation and manure deposition; (2) they defoliate native plants, trample vegetation and soils, and accelerate the spread of exotic species resulting in a shift in landscape function from carbon sinks to sources of greenhouse gases; and (3) they exacerbate the effects of climate change on ecosystems by creating warmer and drier conditions. On public lands one cow-calf pair grazing for one month (an “animal unit month” or “AUM”) produces 875 kg CO(2)e through enteric fermentation and manure deposition with a social carbon cost of nearly $36 per AUM. Over 14 million AUMs of cattle graze public lands of the western USA each year resulting in greenhouse gas emissions of 12.4 Tg CO(2)e year(−1). The social costs of carbon are > $500 million year(−1) or approximately 26 times greater than annual grazing fees collected by managing federal agencies. These emissions and social costs do not include the likely greater ecosystems costs from grazing impacts and associated livestock management activities that reduce biodiversity, carbon stocks and rates of carbon sequestration. Cessation of grazing would decrease greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil and water resources, and would enhance/sustain native species biodiversity thus representing an important and cost-effective adaptive approach to climate change. Springer US 2022-04-02 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9079022/ /pubmed/35366068 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00267-022-01633-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Kauffman, J. Boone Beschta, Robert L. Lacy, Peter M. Liverman, Marc Livestock Use on Public Lands in the Western USA Exacerbates Climate Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation |
title | Livestock Use on Public Lands in the Western USA Exacerbates Climate Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation |
title_full | Livestock Use on Public Lands in the Western USA Exacerbates Climate Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation |
title_fullStr | Livestock Use on Public Lands in the Western USA Exacerbates Climate Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation |
title_full_unstemmed | Livestock Use on Public Lands in the Western USA Exacerbates Climate Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation |
title_short | Livestock Use on Public Lands in the Western USA Exacerbates Climate Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation |
title_sort | livestock use on public lands in the western usa exacerbates climate change: implications for climate change mitigation and adaptation |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9079022/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35366068 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00267-022-01633-8 |
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