Plants Exhale Methane, Contribute to Warming, Study Says

Grasses and other green growth may produce 10 to 30 percent of Earth's annual methane output, a new study reports, making plants a surprisingâ..and potentially significantâ..contributor to global warming.

Until the data were unveiled in this week's Nature, scientists had believed that plant-related methane formed only in oxygen-free environments, such as bogs.

But a team of European researchers identified a large range of plants that release methane under normal growing conditions. The gas also seeps from dead plant material.

David Lowe is a study co-author and an atmospheric chemist with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Wellington, New Zealand.

According to Lowe, "We now have the specter that new forests might increase greenhouse warming through methane emissions rather than decrease it by being sinks for carbon dioxide."

Plants Exhale Methane, Contribute to Warming, Study Says

• Nissan LEAFâ.¢ and the Polar Bear

  Anyone else get a little misty-eyed at the end of this ad? Presumably this was the only man spared of its wrath. YouTube - Nissan...

• It's so Cold, there can't be Global Warming

  Or can there be? Yes there can. YouTube - It's so Cold, there can't be Global Warming...