Each time a cow burps or passes gas, a cloud of methane gusts into the atmosphere. Every one of those puffs coming out of a cow, has a powerful effect on climate because methane is a strong greenhouse gas. A cow burps between 160–230 litres of methane every day so in a year this is 83,950 litres, at most. There are 1.5 billion cows on the planet so imagine how much methane they are putting into the atmosphere: approximately 345 billion litres every day. This leads to global warming and it is changing our climate. Methane is produced when the cow digests its food. Would methane emissions get less, if we changed the cows' diet? If people ate less beef, what difference would it make to climate change? If every beef-eater ate 50% less meat, what effect would this have on the climate and for the planet in the future?
