Livestock: the missing tool against climate change
Despite the abundance of papers and reports, there is no science underlying the belief that livestock cause either desertification or climate change.
We have for centuries vilified livestock for causing desertification and more recently also climate change. Today literally hundreds of celebrities have joined the growing vegetarian and vegan movement to save the environment, and eminent scientists given media coverage stress the need for the world to eat less, especially red, meat.
Such antagonism against livestock, as well as against ranchers, and pastoralists resulting in cultural genocide in the U.S., Israel, China and elsewhere I once shared because I loved wildlife and could see the obvious damage where pastoralists and ranchers ran livestock.
No one is to blame for misinterpreting what we all could see so plainly through the lens of our beliefs. Observing the loss of biodiversity and beginning of desertification in wonderful wild areas in Africa, where we were forming new National Parks, led to my questioning the dogma of my university training and my beliefs as a scientist. Despite the abundance of peer-reviewed papers and international reports, there is no science underlying the belief that livestock, and not our management of them, cause either desertification or climate change.
