Rice Paddies of Destruction

The global warming crowd is always looking for new villains. We've heard the evils of SUVs and flatulent bovines, and now it's rice paddies:

Methane emissions from flooded rice paddies contribute to global warming just as coal-fired power plants, automobile exhausts and other sources do with the carbon dioxide they spew into the atmosphere.

In fact, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting this week in Bangkok concludes that rice production was a main cause of rising methane emissions in the 20th century. It calls for better controls.

"There is no other crop that is emitting such a large amount of greenhouse gases," said Reiner Wassmann, a climate change specialist at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

Given that far more people rely on rice as a daily staple (maybe 2 billion) than drive SUVs, I don't think you'll see a call to stop rice farming. It'll just be something else for the warmies to complain about.

I wonder if this means that Rice-a-Roni will no longer be the San Francisco treat?