Get excited everyone! Monbiots new book

[vantage]

Hes the environmental Katie Hopkins

What? He’s had a lip and boob job too?

 

[J 1177]

What? He’s had a lip and boob job too?

Well he is a collosal tit

 

[O'Reilly]

I thought he said that all food could be grown in giant vats of algae or yeast or some such powered by solar panels? Then we could rewild everything else. Didn't sound like it needed any soil management. But then, he flip flopped over the issue of eating meat, for a brief period he thought that eating mob grazed meat was ok, then he went back to veganism.

 

[DrDunc]

I don't think he will be.

Anyway its already be called the most important book of the century by Prof Sir David King and Greta Thunberg gives it her blessing and the bloke who warbles for Radiohead, and Brian Ferrys keyboardist from the 80's

Would have been nice to send a few farmers some advance copies though seeing as it is us he needs to convince

No, it isn't farmers he needs convince of his crackpot contributions

Convert enough believers with bugger all better to do than badger their politically inept parliamentarian, lo and behold, he creates policy

Moonbeam emulates religious leaders of old; he crusades not to better the future of the planet, but instead to better his current finances

 

[Vader]

I think you might underestimate the number of people who take his stuff as gospel.
Bet you it's all over BBC soon enough.

Princess nut nuts for 1...

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

I rather took to him having read his book, "Feral".

Of course he doesn't say everything farmers do is wrong but a lot of farmers take that to be his meaning. He certainly rubs a lot of people up the wrong way.

It's very difficult to make room for nature when margins are so all, every square inch must be farmed to make things pay.

If farming was more profitable perhaps it would be possible to make a bit more room for nature

 

[Cowabunga]

I rather took to him having read his book, "Feral".

Of course he doesn't say everything farmers do is wrong but a lot of farmers take that to be his meaning. He certainly rubs a lot of people up the wrong way.

It's very difficult to make room for nature when margins are so all, every square inch must be farmed to make things pay.

If farming was more profitable perhaps it would be possible to make a bit more room for nature

What ARE you talking about. Have you not noticed the large field margins and wilderness areas, ponds and similar that by far the majority of farmers have had for the last two decades? The amount of new hedges planted? Some of which is even compulsory and inspected by the great and the good with the threat of financial penalties if not compliant.

 

[ollie989898]

I don't trust the bloke because he clearly has an agenda. Will never forgive him for claiming sheep cause flooding, either.

 

[Red Fred]

I don't trust the bloke because he clearly has an agenda. Will never forgive him for claiming sheep cause flooding, either.

That is perfectly true, we were flooded once when one of the neighbour's sheep committed hari-kari and got stuck in a water meadow culvert.

 

[DrDunc]

That is perfectly true, we were flooded once when one of the neighbour's sheep committed hari-kari and got stuck in a water meadow culvert.

That's what the likes of Moonbeam don't grasp about sheep

They aren't just there as part of an ecology enhancing, sustainable, renewable food production system that also produces material for hard wearing, wonderful, fossil free fabric.....

..... No, sheep are also kept for their ability to learn amazingly innovative new ways of dying

And dying in the most awkward, destructive place possible

Moonbeam thinks we keep them for profit?????

 

[PSQ]

George Monbiot changed his mind over nuclear energy, when it became obvious that the intermittent nature of wind and solar wouldn't be sufficient to power the country on their own.

But I wonder if he's twigged that 'regenerative agriculture' needs lots of livestock, and glyphosate, to be able to meaningfully sequestrate CO2 and balance the carbon account against new emissions.
I know I keep saying this on here, but there is "no such thing as a (guilt) free lunch". Virtue signalling about 'vegan alternatives' (etc) means nothing if the carbon footprint is only externalised, to be counted on a South American or sub Saharan African balance sheet instead of our own.

Just look at the efforts taken to satisfy the shareholders of the countries biggest manufacturers and retailers, greenwashing® their own Carbon Footprint from the public conscious. Innocent Drinks (Coke) 'greening' Trafalgar Square, and Tesco (etc), all selling their 'plant based' ranges in thick plastic packaging, they really should hang their heads in shame. Instead the media gives them a free pass to pull the wool over the nations eyes.

Also, George likes to reference his sources extensively in his articles (no matter how reliable, or otherwise), so be prepared to see your 'moonboot' / 'moonbeam' comments thrown back at you if he decides to attack British Ag in front of the entire BBC Breakfast audience, or the readership of the Guardian. Play the ball, not the man.

(Edited to shorten the post)

 

[ollie989898]

George Monbiot changed his mind over nuclear energy, when it became obvious that the intermittent nature of wind and solar wouldn't be sufficient to power the country on their own.

But I wonder if he's twigged that 'regenerative agriculture' needs lots of livestock, and glyphosate, to be able to meaningfully sequestrate CO2 and balance the carbon account against new emissions.
I know I keep saying this on here, but there is "no such thing as a (guilt) free lunch". Virtue signalling about 'vegan alternatives' (etc) means nothing if the carbon footprint is only externalised, to be counted on a South American or sub Saharan African balance sheet instead of our own.

Just look at the efforts taken to satisfy the shareholders of the countries biggest manufacturers and retailers, greenwashing® their own Carbon Footprint from the public conscious. Innocent Drinks (Coke) 'greening' Trafalgar Square, and Tesco (etc), all selling their 'plant based' ranges in thick plastic packaging, they really should hang their heads in shame. Instead the media gives them a free pass to pull the wool over the nations eyes.

Also, George likes to reference his sources extensively in his articles (no matter how reliable, or otherwise), so be prepared to see your 'moonboot' / 'moonbeam' comments thrown back at you if he decides to attack British Ag in front of the entire BBC Breakfast audience, or the readership of the Guardian. Play the ball, not the man.

(Edited to shorten the post)

He is going to attack agriculture- its inevitable. He can't stand anything about it, any part of it. He considers what the people of this forum do as being totally nuts as they are, in his view, doing something so obvious and irreconcilably daft he can't understand them.

Agriculture is an environmentally deleterious form of land use. There is no way of getting around this. I don't know why people can't just accept it. The human race needs to be very careful about how agriculture is conducted, where and how. Some agricultural practices and systems are extremely environmentally deleterious. But the food chain in general is hugely profitable business and its customer base grows every day.

We all know one way that would make it possible for agriculture to be scaled back in scale and intensity but no one seems to want to discuss that.

 

[PSQ]

Agriculture is an environmentally deleterious form of land use. There is no way of getting around this. I don't know why people can't just accept it. The human race needs to be very careful about how agriculture is conducted, where and how. Some agricultural practices and systems are extremely environmentally deleterious. But the food chain in general is hugely profitable business and its customer base grows every day.

Farmers are good at producing food, but we're not alchemists.
We can't create crops from thin air, at least not without lots of energy to power the Haber Bosch process, or until a scientist genetically modifies a wheat plant to have the nitrogen fixing capability of a legume.
That probably isn't too far in the future. But before then the comparatively rich 1st world will be protest in the streets at the thought of GM, while the 3rd world starves.

It's not if. It's when.

 

[egbert]

He will not be beaten with insults.
All it needs is someone lucid to put the counter arguments in the public domain.

I've tried, but he's slick.
Worse, the audience where I went were his adoring acolytes. When the first of our party tried to speak, he was shouted down, to GMs evident pleasure.

Leave aside the faux rational eco-thinker, (his understanding is, when you drill into it, very very limited), my real problem is that GM is a nasty little piece of work, who hates several categories of people - and I slot into several of the list.
He's said some really unpleasant things about my community, and, despite my generally being a balanced and empathic man..... I wish him nothing but ill. Nothing.

 

[ollie989898]

Farmers are good at producing food, but we're not alchemists.
We can't create crops from thin air, at least not without lots of energy to power the Haber Bosch process, or until a scientist genetically modifies a wheat plant to have the nitrogen fixing capability of a legume.
That probably isn't too far in the future. But before then the comparatively rich 1st world will be protest in the streets at the thought of GM, while the 3rd world starves.

It's not if. It's when.

I don't know which point you are trying to bring to this, I've stated that agriculture is inherently damaging to the environment, there is no escaping this fact. The counter to this point is that people need food to eat, fuel to burn and fibre to manufacture things. Twas ever thus. Human civilisation can't go back to being hunter gatherers.

 

[Yale]

GM is more than likely a narcissist with psychopathic tendencies,that’s why he gets himself to the front of the queue.

He can’t help it,he knows no difference.

 

[PSQ]

I don't know which point you are trying to bring to this, I've stated that agriculture is inherently damaging to the environment, there is no escaping this fact. The counter to this point is that people need food to eat, fuel to burn and fibre to manufacture things. Twas ever thus. Human civilisation can't go back to being hunter gatherers.

That we are farmers, not magicians. We can’t grow 14,000,000 tonnes of wheat in the UK without resources, no matter how far the ‘new puritan’ XR boomers spit their dummies.

 

[ollie989898]

That we are farmers, not magicians. We can’t grow 14,000,000 of wheat in the UK without resources, no matter how far the ‘new puritan’ XR boomers spit their dummies.

I agree. The fact of the matter is that in terms of energy used, carbon emitted and fuel burnt, agriculture is a few percent of fudge all and since it is an activity that feeds everyone I don't see there will be much to gain from putting the thumb screws on it.