BBC at it again re meat and climate

[Ffermer Bach]

Look I love cattle & sheep.

But that is rubbish, how about cover crops & less maize silage & fodder beet.

I agree, I think a lot of maize can be bad for soil structure and erosion, as can all roots.

 

[wrenbird]

I agree, I think a lot of maize can be bad for soil structure and erosion, as can all roots.

A lot of the maize grown around us is not fed to any cattle or sheep….

 

[Oldmacdonald]

It is just as available to you as it is to me. If you want the information, go look for it yourself. Its your kind of procrastination that actually dooms farmers to be swamped by the absolute drivel and speculation that those that wish, even if they don't actually know it yet, to starve or otherwise create food in factories, completely bypassing the land and farmers. The land already being targeted for re-wilding and mass forestry.

Keep your hair on.

I cant find anything despite trying to find it. So, if you would like to share your sources please do so. Alternatively if you would like to keep them absolutely secret, then please yourself. But how do you expect anyone to be able to refute claims made on livestock numbers if you dont share.

 

[Cowabunga]

Yes, so the BBC complaints team are correct, more than half of global food emissions of GHG come from livestock, it says so on the NFU and AHDB websites. So why are folks laying into the BBC ?

I agree that the NFU seem to be totally naive and inept in the way they are tackling this. Give an inch and a mile is taken.

 

[Cowabunga]

Keep your hair on.

I cant find anything despite trying to find it. So, if you would like to share your sources please do so. Alternatively if you would like to keep them absolutely secret, then please yourself. But how do you expect anyone to be able to refute claims made on livestock numbers if you dont share.

You miss the point entirely. No surprises there. So does the NFU.
Which is why the propagandists are running rings around UK, and specifically UK agriculture which is being evicerated in the media and the public brainwashed to believe that farming is the root of all evil, rather than their profligate carbon-based lifestyles which they are being primed to believe will be mitigated by energy companies and airlines and shipping companies buying up land that already grows plants, to instead grow trees. The rest being seen as a candidate for rewinding rather than all grow the food that fills supermarket shelves and sustains their very lives.

 

[Oldmacdonald]

You miss the point entirely. No surprises there. So does the NFU.
Which is why the propagandists are running rings around UK, and specifically UK agriculture which is being evicerated in the media and the public brainwashed to believe that farming is the root of all evil, rather than their profligate carbon-based lifestyles which they are being primed to believe will be mitigated by energy companies and airlines and shipping companies buying up land that already grows plants, to instead grow trees. The rest being seen as a candidate for rewinding rather than all grow the food that fills supermarket shelves and sustains their very lives.

What was the point?

Where is your source?

 

[BrianV]

Yes, so the BBC complaints team are correct, more than half of global food emissions of GHG come from livestock, it says so on the NFU and AHDB websites. So why are folks laying into the BBC ?

But what they don't take into account is that the land, fields, hedges crops etc that are used to rear the livestock more than offset the emissions from livestock farming.
What other polluting industry or polluters have anything at all to offset their pollution!
This is not a fair comparison & is totally misleading the gullible general public!

 

[Cowabunga]

What was the point?

Where is your source?

I've told you, go find it yourself or find something definitive that counters it. It is your kind of shear idiot, there's no polite way of putting it, that undermines UK agriculture at every turn.

 

[Oldmacdonald]

I've told you, go find it yourself or find something definitive that counters it. It is your kind of shear idiot, there's no polite way of putting it, that undermines UK agriculture at every turn.

Are you expecting every single journalist and farmers to individually search for this information?

If only there were a way to put forward a signpost of where to find it.



How am I undermining UK agriculture?

 

[Henarar]

Seen it they must of sarched the full uk to find a farmer that hasnt eaten any meat for think he said 2 years

Not so, @farmerclare has been vegetarian for decades, they could have interviewed her but I don't think she would sing from the required hymn sheet.
and yes she is a farmer, she keeps sheep which are also mainly vegetarian

 

[Cowabunga]

But what they don't take into account is that the land, fields, hedges crops etc that are used to rear the livestock more than offset the emissions from livestock farming.
What other polluting industry or polluters have anything at all to offset their pollution!
This is not a fair comparison & is totally misleading the gullible general public!

They are working on that. They are buying land to plant trees that they can call their own to mitigate their gross pollution and assuage their customer's guilt. Never mind that the land already sequestered carbon under the farmer's stewardship. That doesn't count I suppose.
Yes, the public are gullible and their gullibility is helped by people like Old MacDonald, who once had a farm [ee eye ee eye oh] and undermines the farming message, that is more based in reality than those that would turn our land into parkland and forests between cities, cut through by motorways and train tracks..

 

[farmerm]

I think the problem is a cultural one, the BBC have a staff demographic that leans towards middle class, city living, Guardian readers. The result is some of the BBC output echos heavily on what the "researchers" take in from their Sunday morning reading.

 

[primmiemoo]

But what they don't take into account is that the land, fields, hedges crops etc that are used to rear the livestock more than offset the emissions from livestock farming.
What other polluting industry or polluters have anything at all to offset their pollution!
This is not a fair comparison & is totally misleading the gullible general public!

But Mike Berners-Lee has OK'd it with his biased measures of carbon footprint of meat, and he's written books and everything, and the Beeb go to him for expert advice, so that's all good. So ner!

Which is a broad translation of the dismissive email from BBC Complaints Dept, upthread.

 

[Cowabunga]

Are you expecting every single journalist and farmers to individually search for this information?

If only there were a way to put forward a signpost of where to find it.



How am I undermining UK agriculture?

You are not a journalist, you are just someone who likes to be contrary. You have plenty of time on your hands I'm sure to find information should you really want to. You don't.

That you don't see it is more than half the problem and why UK agriculture is fractious and doomed, and city food factories and imports will almost inevitably take over most of the UK food supply over the next few decades. You cannot even resist the temptation to undermine the simple fact that cattle do not increase greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Not even compared to prior times.

 

[Cowabunga]

I think the problem is a cultural one, the BBC have a staff demographic that leans towards middle class, city living, Guardian readers. The result is some of the BBC output echos heavily on what the "researchers" take in from their Sunday morning reading.

You don't need to go that far. They are here on this forum.

 

[Henarar]

Ruminants first evolved around 50 million years ago

Thats all anyone needs to know really.
If they were going to fry the earth they would have done so by now.


Odd you never see cows down coal mines or on oil platforms, you would think as they are supposed to be so committed to word destruction via warming they would be all for it

 

[Hindsight]

They are working on that. They are buying land to plant trees that they can call their own to mitigate their gross pollution and assuage their customer's guilt. Never mind that the land already sequestered carbon under the farmer's stewardship. That doesn't count I suppose.
Yes, the public are gullible and their gullibility is helped by people like Old MacDonald, who once had a farm [ee eye ee eye oh] and undermines the farming message, that is more based in reality than those that would turn our land into parkland and forests between cities, cut through by motorways and train tracks..

Yes, planting trees and building solar farms seems to be seen as the solution - and talked about all the time in press and audible media. I had reason last night to drive through London to take my daughter to Battersea as she starts work in Central London next week. First time for years I have been in London. For a country bumkin it is eye opening. The visible 'wealth' in terms of fancy cars as I drove towards Chelsea Bridge impressed me that the people who live these lives will not change, it will be the little people who are forced to change. For them I am sure buying a few fields to plant trees would not dent their wealth and would be a solution. What I found amazing is that I drove across the Low emissions zone yet all around me were Top of the range cars with large engines. I came home to rural Lincolnshire much perplexed.

 

[Oldmacdonald]

You are not a journalist, you are just someone who likes to be contrary. You have plenty of time on your hands I'm sure to find information should you really want to. You don't.

That you don't see it is more than half the problem and why UK agriculture is fractious and doomed, and city food factories and imports will almost inevitably take over most of the UK food supply over the next few decades. You cannot even resist the temptation to undermine the simple fact that cattle do not increase greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Not even compared to prior times.

Well no. I'm someone who, when conducting an argument, likes to have facts and not some made up crap.

Spent 10 minutes googling while having coffee. I've found nothing.

The important distinction is that if there are twice the cattle compared to 200 years ago , then there will be twice the methane production that has a higher warming effect than co2.
Is any of that incorrect?

 

[BrianV]

Well no. I'm someone who, when conducting an argument, likes to have facts and not some made up crap.

Spent 10 minutes googling while having coffee. I've found nothing.

The important distinction is that if there are twice the cattle compared to 200 years ago , then there will be twice the methane production that has a higher warming effect than co2.
Is any of that incorrect?

When you say twice the cattle do you only count domesticated cattle as I seem to remember there were millions of bison roaming the plains, millions & millions of wildebeest or do only our cows now take the blame for convenience sake!
Just looked it up it seems there were 50 to 60 million bison in the 1800s, I guess they ate nothing!

 

[Henarar]

When you say twice the cattle do you only count domesticated cattle as I seem to remember there were millions of bison roaming the plains, millions & millions of wildebeest or do only our cows now take the blame for convenience sake!
Just looked it up it seems there were 50 to 60 million bison in the 1800s, I guess they ate nothing!

he said "IF" there are twice the cattle