As a confessed bug man (see Gut Check for a recent example) I couldn't pass on this one.

Microbes, it is safe to say, are sadly neglected in most discussions of climate science. . .

All our food is produced in alliance with complex communities of the organisms, as are many other life-sustaining materials. In fact, 90% of the cells in our bodies are microbes, and 99% of the genes in our bodies reside in these microbes. . .

Crucially, microbes have the capacity to alter the environment in profound and lasting ways. Historically they are the most effective geoengineers and biogeochemists. . .

Microbes could have various positive and negative feedback responses to temperature change, but the magnitudes of these are inadequately understood. This lack of knowledge is probably the reason why microbial activity is missing from most climate change models. Regardless of the reasons for this neglect, climate change models that fail to factor in microbial activities are manifestly inadequate.

Microbial decomposition of organic matter is crucial to the terrestrial carbon cycle. The same goes for the oceanic carbon cycle; simply put, microbes dominate. Some 93% of the Earth’s carbon dioxide is stored in the oceans, and oceans cycle about 90 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, dwarfing the 6 billion tonnes or so generated by human activities. The mechanics of this oceanic carbon cycle are dominated by micro-, nano-, and picoplankton, including bacteria and archaea.1

Also crucial, but even less well understood, is the impact of marine viruses. There are estimated to be 4 × 1030 viruses in ocean waters, but such large numbers are unimaginable for most of us. We can try to picture the scale differently: if stretched end to end, marine viruses would span 10 million light years. That’s still pretty unimaginable. How about this: viral carbon is equivalent to the carbon in 75 million blue whales.

So those are the big numbers, but what is the impact of these viruses? Viruses may lyse, or break open, up to 50% of oceanic bacteria per day. In this way they significantly affect geochemistry on a global scale by altering the storage and respiration of organic and inorganic material.3 These effects may have both positive and negative impacts on the carbon cycle and global warming. Far too little is known about these processes, although progress is being made. . .

Until now, microbes have been missing from the public debate on climate change. Why? Does bringing in microbes make the message too complicated and unwieldy? Certainly climate change is a hard sell as it is. But how much of the public message about climate change is moral as opposed to scientific? If humans feel responsible for climate change then they may take on the responsibility for behavioural change. Would balancing out the anthropogenic emphasis by including microbes in the story take away "blame" for climate change? And to whose benefit?

Good questions. But microbes are largely missing from the public debate on agriculture too, and that ties into the debate on climate as well. It's all messy stuff that squicks out many and MEGOs most of the rest, and that may be part of it, but the fact remains that "climate change models that fail to factor in microbial activities are manifestly inadequate", as are agronomic systems.