The Cattle Climate Connection

Brazil is the world’s 4th largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. The majority of those emissions are from the destruction of the Amazon forest. In the past loggers were mainly to blame but today cattle are driving deforestation, as 80 percent of the cleared land is converted to cow pasture. To preserve what’s left of the forest and stall climate change the United Nations has proposed a plan known as REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Living on Earth’s Bruce Gellerman and Bobby Bascomb travel to the Amazon to investigate the connection between cows and climate change.