Maybe because cow fart studies *are* bogus. Do you really want to solve "global warming"? If the answer is yes then cows are miles down the list.

How do you know that? Methane is an important and potent greenhouse gas. Livestock emissions are a significant contributor to methane emissions. As you acknowledge, other efforts to restrict many other types of direct emissions from burning fossil fuels (like shutting down global air travel for two weeks) would be very disruptive. So isn't it worth studying other sources of GHG emissions to see whether there are other opportunities to reduce those emissions that might not be as disruptive? Studying livestock emissions to see if changes in diet, breeding stock, environment, enclosures, or anything else might be a lower cost per unit of reduction than something as drastic as grounding global air travel? You don't know unless you study it.

Food for thought.

Again, it's easy to take the most esoteric and weird - but super-tiny part of an organization's activities (the flamethrowers! the burnt hair cologne! the cow fart studies!) and say they're wasteful or stupid. But since those things are trivially small parts of the organization's spending, and further the goals of the organization (even in weird or longshot ways), there's not really much point to getting worked up over them. The presence of those side projects matters doesn't detract at all from the overall organization, and eliminating them wouldn't have any material benefit.