In the late 1980s and very early 1990s, when scientists worldwide began to highlight global warming as a problem that needed urgent attention, pointing to carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning as the most potent cause, there emerged a counter-discourse that laid the blame of global warming squarely on another greenhouse gas, methane. Then in 1990, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) published a report holding India responsible for an annual production of 37.8 mt of methane from rice paddies.

The connection is clear. Though rice fields and livestock do emit methane, India