The theory of biomass says that the ratio of plant mass to cow mass should be pretty much the same no matter where you are.

But the difference is whether the cow is actually allowed onto the land to access that biomass itself, or whether somebody harvests the crop and processes it into cow food. Which typically also involves lost of chemicals to improve biomass produced per hectare of land.

The issue is the methane which the cows generate in the digestion process and emit. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. So one should talk about CO2 equivalents here, not CO2.

Why do cows with more land area supposedly emit more CO2 equivalents ?

And if I eat hunted venison , surely I am preventing the deer from burping out more methane . So is that not better for the planet than being vegetarian

I didn't bring up the land use argument, so ask elsewhere. But if one thinks of deforestation in places like South Ametica to create farm land, that will have a negative carbon effect.

The other point ...

I tried the Lady Christl new potatoes from Denner today, really nice taste

I’ll check out my local Denner, thanks

Enjoy, nothing like the Jersey Royals sadly, every Spring I cry into my pillow

Quite interesting to see that the citizens of Glarus in their Landsgemeinde of last weekend have passed a law that prohibits the installation of new oil and gas heating systems in buildings. The Landsgemeinde follow a proposal that went beyond the government's proposal. Glarus had said no to the CO2 law with 60% of the vote.

https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/klimapoli...rus-ld.1644230

I saw that too. I wonder how much that has to do with the fact they vote in public on a central square (landsgemeinde).

I guess it has nothing to deal with CO2. It's about defense strategies. Using imported fuel to survive the winter may be cheap but not resilient at all. Fuel prices fluctuate, supply chains are disrupted, wars do happen every once in a while.

I remember reading in a museum about the extraction of peat for winter heating during ww1 and ww2 when the coal supply chain was disrupted. From this perspective, natural gas is the new coal. The valves can be closed at any time. Why rely on this for the long term?

I think it also has to do with this being a single, clear issue and not embedded in a package nobody fully can grasp. That, and the fact that it didn't come with two unwinnable city-driven agri initiatives.