RE: Top-ten reasons to go plant-based/vegan that actually aren't.
If my understanding is correct you are suggesting that methane from cows comes from the grass they eat as opposed to the chemical process of digestion. For that reason you see the methane molocules from cows being the same ones recycling themselves from grass to cows and back to grass again.
If that assumption, on my part, is correct than my feeling is that you are incorrect.
The plant diet of cows and other ruminants is high in cellulose, which cannot be digested by the ruminant itself. However, ruminants have a symbiotic relationship with colonies of microorganisms, called methanogens, which live in their gut and break down the cellulose into carbohydrates.. These carbohydrates provide both the microbial community and the ruminant with an energy source. Methane is produced as a by-product of this process.
This correction to your theory is not meant as a form of debate... but just that... a correction of facts.
[Edit : Grammer]
The cycle Is a bit longer. Keep your eye on the carbon atom. Something like:
CO2 -> (C6H10O5)n -> CH4 -> CO2
The whole cycle takes about half a dozen years from atmospheric C02 back to atmospheric C02.
There is no "my theory" here that needs correcting. It's a matter of your "perspective". A matter of taking a few steps back, away from the details of chemical processes so you can see the whole elephant. Keeping your eye on the carbon atom can help with that if you insist on keeping zoom mode on.
Look at 100 years. Imagine a stable size Hurd of cows and a stable emissions natural gas leak, both producing methane.
Imagine measure both atmospheric CH4 and CO2 at 10 years in and 100 years in.
The CH4 levels will be equal at 10 and 100 years, the CO2 levels won't be. The rise in CO2 between year 10 and year 100 will be 100% attributable to the gas leak methane.
If you take a few steps back you will see it all starts to make sense, and if you are anyway like me, you will start feeling silly for not having grasped it before. It's easy to get blinded by the details, especially when powerful narrative has compelled you to do exactly that.
This form of thought probably has a name. One place that it has been demonstrated to me is from Isreali Zionists who tell North Americans to turn their attention to their Native Americans before pointing fingers at their treatment of Palestinians. As if colonialism in North America is any different than colonialism in the middle east. As if pipe line methane is different than that produced by the herds of cows that are not required for nourishment by most humans. It brings a picture of putting lipstick of a bovine to me.
It's called "system thinking". And yes, the later is different, fundamentally different. But apparently I am unable to clearly communicate how the systems view makes the difference between cow methane, like fossil methane contributing to temperature but unlike fossil methane not to temperature rise.
If you understand this, and you also grasp #8 and importantly #5, you will see that not only is eating beef not a bad thing for the climate, GFFR beef (not CAFO beef!), especially if grazed on high bio-diversity open forest type of grazing ground, should actually be considered an important tool in attenuating environmental decline. Buying GFFR beef from a local rewilding program helps the environment. Buying multi ingredient mono crop based meat replacement products with ingredients from all over the globe hurts it.
I know, once you have been emerged in the plant-based narrative for a few years, the narrative becomes part of your identity, and recognizing, to paraphrase Mencken, that the well known, neat and plausible plant-based solution is in fact fundamentally wrong, recognizing that your choices made you a bigger part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, becomes an impossible hurdle to take.
I hope, for you, you will soon find a better teacher than me, able to get through to you on this, as it is clear my explanations and métaphores dont resonate with you in an anny way meaningfully way. That's my fault though, not yours. I am convinced there are no bad students, only incompatible teachers, and right now, I'm sure, at least as far as you are concerned, I am one of those.