A list of 5 over hyped climate related studies.

A leading climate scientist argues that overbroad claims by some researchers—coupled with overblown reporting in the media—can undermine the public's understanding of climate issues. Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate modeler, author and PM editorial advisor, concurs with the consensus view that the planet's temperature is rising due largely to human activity. But, he says, many news stories prematurely attribute local or regional phenomena to climate change. This can lead to the dissemination of vague, out-of-context or flat-wrong information to the public.

This is somewhat ironic since Schmidt is a chief culprit in climate hype, misinformation, obfuscation, selective use of studies and data, and general hysteria. Consider one of the listed hyped studies.

The Study /// In early 2006, a study in Nature published surprising results that plants were giving off trace amounts of methane.

The Fallout /// We know that methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, so the suggestion that it comes from plants led to a blizzard of headlines suggesting that trees could be contributing to global warming.

The Truth /// The researchers balked after the media coverage of their study broke. The scientists said they were widely misinterpreted when it was reported that plants contribute to global warming. Rather, if plants do give off methane, they've been doing it since long before humans were on the scene and their emissions aren't connected to today's anthropogenic climate change.

The same is true of all animals as well as plants. Long before humans existed the planet was thoroughly infested with animals who belched, farted and shat all over the place. And yet we have climate hysterics with their knickers in a twist about ruminant belches though there are fewer of them today than during most of the earth's history. We have more domestic cattle, goats and sheep but far fewer deer, elk, bison, mountain goats, wildebeest etc. etc.

I won't hold my breath waiting for Schmidt to complain about all of the animal methane hype, there's too much money at stake and too many climate activists invested in animal bashing.

Update: Jeffrey sent this link.

"1) Except [for] the fossil fuel borne CO2-emissions by the livestock industry (production, processing and commercialization of meat and milk) and except [for] some unique biosphere borne CO2-emissions, associated with land use change (e.g. deforestation), domestic animal husbandry is totally "climate neutral" (using a controversial terminology, only justified under the assumption of any measurable effect of anthropogenic GHG-emissions on global temperature). Why? Because all the CO2 emitted by forage digestion and respiration had previously been captured from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Therefore, not a single CO2 molecule is added additionally to the atmosphere that had not been there before, recently.

2) This is also true for the methane produced by internal fermentation. Methane derives from organic substances originating from recent photosynthetic processes. And - as Richard Douthwaite from Ireland correctly points out in his letter (page 11) - methane molecules in the air are oxidized to CO2 and water at the end of their residence time in the atmosphere, closing the cycle. As a matter of fact the methane concentration has stabilized or even passed its peak just at the beginning of the new millennium. So obviously, just as much methane is oxidized in the atmosphere as is added to the air per unit of time. The resulting CO2 is available to be re-captured by photosynthesis. Therefore animal borne methane (how much its proportion ever may be among the total global methane emissions), just like CO2, forms part of a natural cycle, and not a single methane molecule is added additionally to the atmosphere by rumen fermentation that had not been there before, recently, unless livestock numbers increase.

I would even quibble with the last bit. It doesn't matter if livestock numbers increase, and so consume more forage, since the bacterial decomposition of organic matter takes place in any case. It makes no difference whether biomass rots in a rumen or on the ground. But when it rots in a rumen an animal gets a benefit. It extends and enriches the recycling of energy captured by photosynthesis. Waste not, want not.

3) The European satellite ENVISAT measured over a three years period the world wide close-to-the-surface-methane-concentrations. The average values are shown in figure 2 (source: University of Bremen ). Not even international organizations like the IPCC or FAO seem to have taken notice of the fact, that even the humid tropical forests do obviously emit far more methane than grazing cattle. How can the big grazing areas of the world (Australia, Southern Latin America, South and East Africa, and Western United States with hundreds of millions of cattle) and even India with the highest cattle density worldwide show such low methane concentrations? Something wrong with the theory?

The IPCC and FAO are merely political organizations. They use science selectively to advance political agendas, just as any other political org (i.e. governments) abuse science for instrumental purposes, usually venal ones. Once we grasp that these political orgs are criminal enterprises for profit it's much easier to develop and hold more rational views. If you think that GHGs are worrisome - as I do, though I may well be mistaken - then management efforts must be directed to anthropogenic sources such as fossil fuel mining.

There is one land use issue for emissions. The loss of soil carbon due to tillage is a major source of GHGs. CO2, methane and other gasses are released in huge quantities when land is cultivated. This impoverishes the soil and clogs the atmosphere. Plowing up the grasslands of the world for cropping has released carbon sequestered over centuries and eons. We would be in much better shape if those grasslands has been left as permanent pasture for the ruminants who co-evolved with the grasslands and co-created them, building the finest most carbon rich soil in the world.