Even here in Iowa, with the highest percentage of farmland of any state, there are more trees growing today than before Westerners settled here. The obsession with tree-planting to prevent climate change is not only strange but unscientific.

We have a ton of data to show that grasslands capture more carbon than do forests. If we wanted to have the greatest climatological benefit, we'd be planting grasslands, along with promoting more animal foods produced from pasture and open grazing land.

Combined with the petrochemical industry, there is nothing worse than our present big ag food production that also requires mass transportation. If we went back to traditional and local food production, including farm animals, we'd drastically cut the harm to the environment.

Yet big ag and big food has been greenwashing the harm of the food system they're dependent on, while scapegoating farm animals. In reality, there are no more farm animals today than there were animals in the past, such as vast herds of buffalo that once roamed North America.

Such ruminants have always been part of a sustainable ecosystem and carbon cycle. If not for indoctrination, ignorance of this fact wouldn't dominate corporate media, the mis-education system, and the public mind.