Ranchers and farmers should learn the science of global climate change, even if they have trouble believing in it, a pair of researchers advise.

Regulations are being made and lawsuits are being tried based on scientific studies that blame emissions from livestock for contributing to the gases believed to cause global warming, said Frank Mitloehner, a livestock air quality specialist at the University of California-Davis.

Rather than simply dismissing all talk of climate change as hogwash, people in agriculture should at least become familiar with the data so they can debate it, Mitloehner said.

"The best weapon you can have is data," he told a room full of cattle producers in Palo Cedro, Calif., on Aug. 25. "It's much better to be regulated with data than without data."

Larry Forero, a University of California Cooperative Extension researcher and farm advisor in Redding, Calif., agreed.

"I think it's way better to have the scientific information and deal with it," Forero said.

Mitloehner is part of a team of researchers who are about to publish a rebuttal to the 2006 United Nations report titled "Livestock's Long Shadow," which claims that livestock emits more greenhouse gases worldwide than cars.

In agriculture, he has found an industry that is perhaps the most skeptical among any of manmade global warming. He used to be skeptical himself, he said, but he changed his mind after witnessing research that shows the polar ice caps are shrinking.

As the permafrost heats up, it releases methane, which further contributes to global warming, Mitloehner said. While studies have shown a cooling trend since 2000, overall the ice caps are shrinking "to the point that within a few years, there will be years when there won't be any ice over the North Pole," he said.

Mitloehner stressed that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone are natural in Earth's atmosphere.

"Without these greenhouse gases, we couldn't live here. It'd be too cold," he said. "The problem is that now we have too many of these molecules."

The reason for global warming is that decaying plant material in the ground is being pumped up and burned for energy, and now it is in the atmosphere, he said.

Where Mitloehner remains skeptical, however, is the degree to which farm and ranch animals contribute to greenhouse gases and to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which combine with oxides of nitrogen to produce smog.

"Oak trees are among the biggest VOC producers in the state, but you can't do anything about these," he said. "The only problem I have is your bulls and steers and cows are also nature, but they're not considered nature. They're considered human activity."

Armed with the proper understanding of climate change, Mitloehner has been able to battle regulatory restrictions and legal challenges on an even footing. For instance, he found that the California Air Resources Board's listing of dairy cows as the Central Valley's No. 1 source of VOC was based on a study that was done in 1938, and he had it corrected.

He was an expert witness last month on behalf of a dairy in Washington state that was being sued by an environmental group over its emissions. The suit was later withdrawn.

He said regulators used to ignore opposing arguments and rely on antiquated data, but that's changed. However, he lamented that agriculture isn't at the table at talks about a climate treaty set for Copenhagen later this year.

The unwillingness of agriculture to participate in such discussions has to change, he said.

"There are five stages of climate grief," he said. "No. 1 is denial, No. 2 is anger, No. 3 is bargaining, No. 4 is depression and No. 5 is accepting."

-- Tim Hearden