Backbencher

As I was strolling through CNSNews.com, I saw a heading titled: Kyoto 'Flatulence Tax' Plan Causes Turbulence in New Zealand. I had to take a second glance to see if I was reading it correctly. I was. Apparently the government has made a proposal that farmers pay a levy on the flatulence released by their livestock! This all emerged from the Kyoto Protocol which is an international treaty that aims to reduce the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases which scientists believe could be the cause of global warming. The center-left government supports the Kyoto Protocol fully and wants to use the money raised, about $4.9 million a year, to fund research on minimizing the impact that the country's cattle and sheep population is having on the planet's climate. New Zealand differs from most of the countries in this treaty. They do not produce large amounts of CO2 from industrial means, instead they produce lots of methane from the 45 million sheep and 10 million head of cattle, as well as nitrous oxide from their dung and urine. The article had nice statistics of how the US has less than 10 million sheep and China, which seems to be in many of the NZ articles I have read, has more than 290 million sheep. The farmers are in an uproar over this proposal. For one, they will be losing money. Secondly, a small regional newspaper summed up the feeling in an editorial saying, "If it wasn't so downright stupid it would be funny."
At first I thought this was a joke, but as a read further I realized that this is serious business to the farmers of New Zealand. With such a small human population and such a large livestock population, this could be economically stressful on the farmers. I feel that the world is looking at this greenhouse effect problem of global warming in ways that should be redirected. Looking at the world's history climates do change, ice ages come and go, and according to the Discovery Channel, which I watch religiously, industry and livestock aren't even a big problem compared to the thawing of the permafrost in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia. The methane gas that will be released from these areas alone with catastrophically increase our climate.