Dr. Frank Mitloehner, Director of the UC Davis CLEAR Center, recently joined host Jamie Mackay on New Zealand’s popular radio show “The Country,” a daily program that dives into the nation’s largest industry, agriculture.

Marketing efforts distract us from the main climate change polluters by disproportionately blaming sectors such as animal agriculture and the products they produce such as meat and dairy.

Mitloehner lab Ph.D. student Samantha Werth, M.S. explains that cattle are often thought to contribute to climate change because they belch methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas. While this is true, cattle do belch methane, it is actually part of an important natural cycle, known as the biogenic carbon cycle.