Forests will not help: study urges rethink on global warming issues

Just another example proving we know so little about global warming.

"HEIDELBERG: Scientists here did a double take when they found plants emitting methane – one of the gases blamed for global warming.

A chance finding can turn a long held belief system upside down as was proved by Frank Keppler and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics. Keppler, an environmental engineer first noticed signs of methane emissions by plants in normal air.

The incredulous scientist and his colleagues then placed grass and leaves from tropical plants in methane-free chambers.

The tests were repeated with living plants and the results are enough to make the community of environmentalists to do a rethink on the role of forests in controlling global warming.

At a rough calculation, the plant population around the world could be contributing between 10 percent and 30 percent to the world's total methane emission, i.e. about 600 million tones a year, they said. In the last 150 years, methane content in the atmosphere has almost tripled and large concentrations of the gas have been seen above tropical forest areas when observed from space.

Methane is considered second only to carbon dioxide for causing the greenhouse effect i.e. trapping the sun's energy in the atmosphere. Until now it was believed that forests serve as the lungs of our planet generating oxygen for living organisms and maintaining the atmospheric balance and temperature.

The scientific community was less inclined to believe that plants could emit methane and had classified very few natural sources of methane, such as swamps, rice paddies and environments with low oxygen levels where a combination of plant and bacteria activity produced methane. Other examples of methane contributing environments include coal mines, farting or belching animals, city rubbish dumps.

The results have also nudged the community of environmentalists to reconsider their stand on environmental issues."