ISSUE 32: Have gas emissions from livestock farms been proven to have caused large impacts on our environment ?
RESPONSE: Very little ground-truth data has been collected to date to verify the relative atmospheric emissions of various compounds or their environmental impacts. Some livestock farm emissions such as methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide are thought to be contributors to the global greenhouse effect. Some of the un-ionized form of ammonia is believed to contribute to rainfall deposition of atmospheric nitrogen. Ammonia also transforms to the ionized form of ammonium which may combine with other pollutants such as sulfur compounds from power plants to form particulates. Ammonium also combines with water to form ammonium hydroxide. This weak base helps to reduce or mitigate the effect of acid rain. Other emissions are known to be neutral to the environment such as dinitrogen or N2 gas, the same natural element that constitutes 78% of the air that we breathe.
