Reading today that climate scientists were feeling pressured by the dairy industry to downplay the effect of methane emissions. I believe this applies to other livestock, or possibly just ruminants. A quick internet search tells me that it is an issue because there are more cows than other animals and they are more concentrated in one place.
It just doesn't feel like that is the full picture though. Surely there were a lot more other animals in the past though, so wouldn't they have been farting away too? Also, if we all stopped with the meat and dairy, wouldn't we need a lot more land to grow crops on, therefore taking away more habitat. In UK there are more sheep on marginal land that wouldn't be farmed for plant based food as they can survive in really horrible weather and convert grass to meat. Appreciate that statement would not be true across the world. It also seems like it would increase the amount of food that would need to be flown or shipped here.
Happy to be told I am wrong if I am, just interested to understand more about it and there doesn't seem much accessible information on the whole picture. I am fully on board with climate change being human made and that people should be eating less intensively reared animal products.