Are a lot of younger professors, researchers vegatarian/vegan?

[GeorgeC1]

Once you understand how the system works in academia, it's not hard to understand why they attack farmers the way they do:

1. You can't criticize China or India because half your students come from there and they pay big money.
2. You can't criticize big power generation companies because they fund your research and your title of professor is de facto "bought" by bringing in research funding from industry.
3. You can't criticize air travel because you fly all around the world to preach at conferences.
4. You can't criticize government policy because that risks your seat on the next big committee and your subsequent knighthood.

So who does that leave? Oh yes, you criticize farmers because you reckon there's not many of them in academia so you won't be challenged and the leftist media outlets already hate them so they'll lap it up.

Not true, the push to green energy has been led by academia.

 

[Top Tip.]

I believe that the NFU Chief adviser on "renewable energy and climate change" has swallowed the whole meat and climate change story and believes it. I would like to be proved wrong.

We have the same problem up here with NFUS the policy managers are scared to challenge the climate change debate because they are terrified of being labelled as climate change deniers which is seen as being something akin to lepers in biblical times.

 

[Jackov Altraids]

Not true, the push to green energy has been led by academia.

If what @TechWise had said wasn't true, we should have weaned ourselves off fossil fuels decades ago.
If you listen to some wise academic's, they have been long espousing their fears of 'research' in a capitalist age. They are almost all paid to find evidence to support a predisposed view.
They have also complained that it is almost impossible to get research that suggests previous results are wrong, published.

 

[Oldmacdonald]

Okay. Help me out here.
I want to believe ruminant methane doesn't affect the environment. But.

Cow inhales oxygen.
Produces methane.
That methane hangs about for a number of years before being broken down to carbon dioxide.
The methane has a warming effect 28 times higher than CO2.


Where is the inaccuracy?

 

[yellow belly]

If what @TechWise had said wasn't true, we should have weaned ourselves off fossil fuels decades ago.
If you listen to some wise academic's, they have been long espousing their fears of 'research' in a capitalist age. They are almost all paid to find evidence to support a predisposed view.
They have also complained that it is almost impossible to get research that suggests previous results are wrong, published.

So most people on the ground will see through this eventually and ignore / turn off when they spout
The evidence for this is all the surveys
Surport farmers
Most people still eat meat
Jeremy clarksons programme has high ratings
Macdonald’s we al always has a que
Ect ect

 

[Hindsight]

Well if lots of educated people and researchers say we need to do something there must be something to it

Naivety borne of ignorance or blind faith. I do not know you so cannot tell.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Rewilding is the buzz word up here ,leave it to the beaver ,lynx and wolves. There are folk with deep pockets who are willing to throw vast sums at achieving this ambition.

so, something like Covid happens that disrupts the global food system (for example Cuba with the break up of the Soviet Union) and we have destroyed our native food production system ~ we only have to look at the world wars as examples of this ~what do the population of this sceptered isle do? trap and eat beavers or lynx?

 

[Hindsight]

so, something like Covid happens that disrupts the global food system (for example Cuba with the break up of the Soviet Union) and we have destroyed our native food production system ~ we only have to look at the world wars as examples of this ~what do the population of this sceptered isle do? trap and eat beavers or lynx?

The eating beavers comment lends itself to some interesting interpretation. But I will not go there! Nor Google for an inappropriate photo!

 

[BrianV]

How about if we sent all immigrants back to where they came from our carbon emissions would be a lot lower due to a smaller population.

But you can’t say that because the woke generation and the BBC would have you on toast for it.

Some aspects may be uncomfortable and that’s why animals are being targeted,because they can’t answer back.

Noticed yesterday that over 5million EU residents have now applied for UK citizenship, considering that number does not include the millions who have arrived from the rest of the world is it any wonder there is a housing shortage & over population of this island.
No one seems at all concerned about this but our few animals that idiots consider are ruining the world are headline news, we seem to be living through a time when the world especially so called politicians are going mad!!

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Well if lots of educated people and researchers say we need to do something there must be something to it

so, in the 1930's all the chattering classes and educated people advocated eugenics, I suppose you would have been in favour of that too if you had been around at that time then?

 

[Jackov Altraids]

Okay. Help me out here.
I want to believe ruminant methane doesn't affect the environment. But.

Cow inhales oxygen.
Produces methane.
That methane hangs about for a number of years before being broken down to carbon dioxide.
The methane has a warming effect 28 times higher than CO2.


Where is the inaccuracy?

Deliberately misleading rather than inaccurate.

Climate change is due to changes in atmosphere.
Methane has an affect for 7 / 8 years.
If the number of cattle do not change over that time, the amount of methane does not change.
The number of ruminants on the planet is not thought to have changed hugely over millennia so is immaterial to the 'climate emergency'.

 

[Oldmacdonald]

Deliberately misleading rather than inaccurate.

Climate change is due to changes in atmosphere.
Methane has an affect for 7 / 8 years.
If the number of cattle do not change over that time, the amount of methane does not change.
The number of ruminants on the planet is not thought to have changed hugely over millennia so is immaterial to the 'climate emergency'.

But its therefore undeniable that reducing ruminants on the planet would reduce the methane. Which still has a hugely higher warming effect than CO2.

 

[Henarar]

Okay. Help me out here.
I want to believe ruminant methane doesn't affect the environment. But.

Cow inhales oxygen.
Produces methane.
That methane hangs about for a number of years before being broken down to carbon dioxide.
The methane has a warming effect 28 times higher than CO2.


Where is the inaccuracy?

Cows live on oxygen alone do they ?

 

[Henarar]

But its therefore undeniable that reducing ruminants on the planet would reduce the methane. Which still has a hugely higher warming effect than CO2.

It is not undeniable

 

[Top Tip.]

Deliberately misleading rather than inaccurate.

Climate change is due to changes in atmosphere.
Methane has an affect for 7 / 8 years.
If the number of cattle do not change over that time, the amount of methane does not change.
The number of ruminants on the planet is not thought to have changed hugely over millennia so is immaterial to the 'climate emergency'.

To take it a step further that methane converts into Co2 which is then absorbed by the grass which is eaten by the animal to be converted into edible protein .

 

[Jackov Altraids]

But its therefore undeniable that reducing ruminants on the planet would reduce the methane. Which still has a hugely higher warming effect than CO2.

An over-simplified conclusion.

Why should ruminants be removed so people can still use fossil fuels?

Do you propose culling deer, bison, antelope or goats?

Ruminants are fundamental to living sustainably.
They provide milk, leather, meat and thousands of other essential products using solar energy and no OIL.
They are also essential to maintaining ecosystems through their grazing and defecating.
I can't think of any subsistence living that didn't depend on ruminants.

 

[HatsOff]

Okay. Help me out here.
I want to believe ruminant methane doesn't affect the environment. But.

Cow inhales oxygen.
Produces methane.
That methane hangs about for a number of years before being broken down to carbon dioxide.
The methane has a warming effect 28 times higher than CO2.


Where is the inaccuracy?

No inaccuracy, but there is no 'new' carbon being introduced, so the full cycle needs to be told...

CO2 in the atmosphere
Grass/crops absorb CO2 to grow and convert into sugars
Cow eats grass/crops
(Grass that wasn't eaten by the cow, some will decompose to create methane and some carbon will be sequested into the soil.)
Microbes in the stomach(s) convert some to methane which is burped out
(Cow also breathes out CO2)
Cow gets made into animal products
Animal products get converted into energy and CO2 from people, or decomposes and releases methane
Methane released breaks down to CO2.
CO2 in the atmosphere

The idea is that if we were to suddenly remove all cows, there would be a significant reduction in CO2e overnight for the next 10 years, because of that additional warming effect of methane vs CO2. It buys you a one-off 10 year reduction in CO2e.

But in 10 years time this part of the carbon cycle would be back in balance and there would be zero net reduction in the CO2 or CO2e. You have also removed cows from the ecosystem (and cows may be an important part of grass carbon sequestion - e.g. the muck fertilising helps plants absorb more CO2), destroyed an entire part of the economy and removed an important source of food protein. It is, in short, an extreme option with scant evidence that it would help in the long run.

 

[jondear]

That's all we need, more fecking inputs to buy

That's what it's all about !

 

[DaveGrohl]

No inaccuracy, but there is no 'new' carbon being introduced, so the full cycle needs to be told...

CO2 in the atmosphere
Grass/crops absorb CO2 to grow and convert into sugars
Cow eats grass/crops
(Grass that wasn't eaten by the cow, some will decompose to create methane and some carbon will be sequested into the soil.)
Microbes in the stomach(s) convert some to methane which is burped out
(Cow also breathes out CO2)
Cow gets made into animal products
Animal products get converted into energy and CO2 from people, or decomposes and releases methane
Methane released breaks down to CO2.
CO2 in the atmosphere

The idea is that if we were to suddenly remove all cows, there would be a significant reduction in CO2e overnight for the next 10 years, because of that additional warming effect of methane vs CO2. It buys you a one-off 10 year reduction in CO2e.

But in 10 years time this part of the carbon cycle would be back in balance and there would be zero net reduction in the CO2 or CO2e. You have also removed cows from the ecosystem (and cows may be an important part of grass carbon sequestion - e.g. the muck fertilising helps plants absorb more CO2), destroyed an entire part of the economy and removed an important source of food protein. It is, in short, an extreme option with scant evidence that it would help in the long run.

And on top of that the numbers have been done by a study in the US I believe (sorry I don't have the precise source). They found that the overall effect of removing farmed ruminants from the planet would save 1.5% of global emissions for a period of about 10 years. The reasons why it's only that are many but allow for the consequences that the removal of said animals would result in. Then there are the mahoosive environmental problems that would result from removing those ruminants from the ecosystem.

And all the while the other 98.5% of emissions of NEW carbon continue. The cumulative aspect of carbon emissions is what is causing the problem. Ruminants don't add to the cumulative aspect in any significant way. The science on this really isn't that difficult to understand. But the people with the power to influence things don't appear to have two brain cells to rub together. They just don't get basic science.

 

[HatsOff]

UK farming practises get lumped in with meat production around the world. Chopping down rainforests so you can feed cattle definitely has a negative impact on the climate.

Campaigners are totally right to raise this as a contributing factor to climate change, but we need to point out that UK farmers are not chopping down rainforests.