DEAR SIR: Our politicians, the Green Party in particular, regularly state that livestock/ruminants are a major driver of global warming.

Some scientists don’t go along with this narrative, but it seems that most do.

When they make these statements, they never make the obvious observation that, if they are capable of causing global warming, they are very bad at it.

Over millions of years, they have had ample opportunity to cause global warming, but have failed to do so.

Why is it that after existing as a benign presence on the planet for millions of years, they suddenly became a danger to the planet in or about the same time as we discovered that burning fossil fuels causes global warming?

A layman’s observation. Ruminants have been on this planet for about 40m years, so for millions of years there has been millions of ruminants, emitting millions of tons of methane, and it’s all cumulative (at least according to the Government), but they never caused global warming, until now. That’s because it was cyclical and now it seems to be cumulative.

Most of our politicians are aware of these facts but their main focus is on staying in power and so, by going along with the policy of scapegoating the cow, they are diverting attention from the causes of global warming.

They are really cheerleaders for the fossil fuel industry. It’s a high price to pay for a seat in the Dáil.