Rethinking Methane

Biogenic Methane – the kind of methane from cattle and wetlands – is unique among the main three greenhouse gases that influence climate change. The difference being, it has a short life-span and is part of the natural carbon cycle, but we haven’t always considered those facts when we consider how it warms the planet. And warming is what we care about when talking about global climate change. This video explains why we should be rethinking how we measure biogenic methane’s impact on the environment.

[danm]

Am I missing something?
The claim is apparently that methane doesn't stay in the atmosphere anywhere near as long as CO2, but then it says that the *reason* for this is that the methane is converted to CO2...
Then it says that the CO2 produced by the breakdown of the methane is "part of a cycle, " but it doesn't explain any way in which this CO2 is different in this regard from CO2 produced by fossil fuels, which as far as I can see could be pulled into this cycle just as easily.
Unless I've missed something this is just creative accounting: grass pulls carbon out of the atmosphere, then the cows eat the grass and put the carbon back into the atmosphere, and the people raising the cows want credit for what the grass is doing.

[romanbartos]

So, please, a cow needs about +-20 kg of food a day. Where this food comes from? All the year round - 365 days a year. How much CO2, methane and other greenhouse gasses is needed to feed a cow a day and water, .. (if you are good, calculate all the manpower, transport energy of feed and also feeding all the people in the chain so the cow stays alive)? And you say, that there is a positive impact on climate? And please calculate the land is needed to feed this cow and put it in comparison to the same land, when nature is back on it. Calculate also the degradation of the soil by growing feed on this land. In this point I think, you just rescribed the basic physical laws of this universe.

[ericy]

Sorry, this completely ignores the clearing of forests to increase cattle grazing land. This has been accelerating exponentially with the rise in wealth of some demographics in China, India, Africa & other areas of the world.
While worthwhile in the short term, painting this as a "solution" and using this as an excuse to do nothing about reducing meat (especially beef) consumption is misleading at best.
Also, plant based food can be many times more efficient use of land/water/other resources than converting plants to meat, if feeding a growing global population is the real concern.