Recent findings from some peer-reviewed academic papers in agricultural journals sound like fodder for optimism: The United States cattle industry has helped to cool the climate almost every year since 1986. European dairy goats and sheep have caused no additional warming since 1990. Australian sheep meat is a “climate-neutral” product.

But these findings are highly misleading, according to a new study in Environmental Research Letters. The study found that an alternative method of quantifying the impact of methane emissions has led to a raft of industry-friendly findings that the livestock sector seems to be using to claim climate neutrality as they continue to pollute.