Cats, Not Cars, Cause...Climate Change?

Well, you can save your money and forget about buying that Prius. Because apparently cats, not cars, cause "climate change." That's the latest according to some research studies.

The problem is reportedly due to a cat "epidemic" in the U.S., where the entire feline population has tripled in the last four decades to some 600 million furry critters. The studies report that "global warming" prompts cats to breed like, well, rabbits, and once there's an "overpopulation," our furry feline friends start killing off eco-saving birds en masse.

Sounds like a lose, lose. Right?

MotherJones reports:

Domestic cats, officially considered an invasive species, kill at least a hundred million birds in the US every year—dwarfing the number killed by wind turbines. (See "Apocalypse Meow," below.) They're also responsible for at least 33 avian extinctions worldwide. A recent Smithsonian Institution study found that cats caused 79 percent of deaths of juvenile catbirds in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Bad news, since birds are key to protecting ecosystems from the stresses of climate change—a 2010 study found that they save plants from marauding insects that proliferate as the world warms.

MJ even provides a video on this eyebrow raising theory:

But wait, the theory is about to get a little more whacky.

An earlier report from LiveScience says prominent pet adoption groups also believe the spike in the cat population is due to global warming:

Droves of cats and kittens are swarming into animal shelters nationwide, and global warming is to blame, according to one pet adoption group.

Several shelters operated by a national adoption organization called Pets Across America reported a 30 percent increase in intakes of cats and kittens from 2005 to 2006, and other shelters across the nation have reported similar spikes of stray, owned and feral cats.

The cause of this feline flood is an extended cat breeding season thanks to the world’s warming temperatures, according to the group, which is one of the country’s oldest and largest animal welfare organizations.

So, cats cause global warming, but global warming causes more cats.

Either way, cats aren't taking the news lying down. See one cat-activist fight "the lies" about the felines' role in climate change -- even though ironically, global warming is what supposedly helped them come into existence in the first place: