Government Policy towards net Zero

[Foxhollow]

As many posters have said most of these policies are just ideas which have not been worked up into workable and sensible solutions. All these politicians are only looking upto the next election and then they can say we have put into place policies for saving the planet. But as these policies need 10 to 20 years to actually be delivered then they will never be taken to task. Also when the government say they will spend x amount on each of these policies what they mean is that they will add additional levies to pay for them. How many people actually know that the way that subsidies for renewables is actually being funded is by the electricity and gas bills to deliver silly ideas like Drax and its wood pellets coming from the states.

 

[manhill]

Headless chickens comes to mind.

 

[willy]

I am no communist but....capitalism relies on constant growth, this includes constant growth of manufacturing, services, population etc these are all the things that are driving climate change. How do you reduce human activity without collapsing the world economy.

 

[Simon Chiles]

Basically-

Plant this country full of trees and cut down the Amazon to grow our food.

Whilst that does appear to be the plan I suspect that nobody’s thought about how much extra CO2 an acre of wheat grass etc. ( with an optimum amount of fertiliser on for growth) extracts over an equivalent area of trees/wildflower meadows. I’d like to know the exact figures but I’d take a wild guess that converting all the prime agricultural land to scrub would increase the UK CO2 emissions by 10-15%.

 

[BrianV]

Cutting meat consumption is a government policy as of now. How well has the meat industry prepared for this? Livestock producers need to face up to accounting accurately for all associated emissions without that data countering the “factory protein” argument Johnson was promoting will be very difficult.

In that case thank god livestock producers can cut back on arable feeds & pass the cut backs on to the arable sector!

 

[roscoe erf]

Small progress I know, but the BBC is saying that farming is only responsible for 10% of emissions.

And the feckers we feed the other 90%

 

[ski]

I am no communist but....capitalism relies on constant growth, this includes constant growth of manufacturing, services, population etc these are all the things that are driving climate change. How do you reduce human activity without collapsing the world economy.

May I be a little pedantic.
'Capitalism' is the focus of commercial activities to accumulate capital. You can accumulate capital without growth, ie, if you accumulate more of other peoples capital. You are growing they are shrinking. For example, a man might but and sell farms or machinery to do so with out employing any labour. However, capital in the pre fiat era could only be brought into existence by the efforts of labour, now however capital is invented by banks via the fractional reserve system, which depends on growth as the capital is invented when the money is lent via a loan. ( so when a customer of a bank borrows lets say £100k, the bank need only have about 10k of the loan on deposit, so 90k has just been invented, but the interest on the loan has not and has to be paid out of, in essence, other capital already invented or yet to be invented. Indeed without this constant supply of new invented money the system will collapse. In essence it is a government backed ponzi scheme.
No system can produce constant growth, only growth until available resources run out. However if you have entropy in the system then some will be growing whilst others declining. We see this in natural systems everywhere.
It appears to my thinking that we far to much centralised (big company) capitalism and not enough decentralised or distributed capitalism. Our current tax and corporate structures favour the status quo. G K Chesterton coined the term 'distributism' which promotes the idea that tax and governance should favour an economy in which there is free trade but with masses many more small businesses. Whilst it is true that there are some things that only big corporations can do much of what they do would not be missed. ( iPhones for example, how many of us would prefer a life without.)

 

[Bald Rick]

Times suggesting the following:

“Intensive beef and dairy farms could be subject to tougher environmental permits, which require them to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Farmers could be required to use feed additives made from seaweed, garlic and other substances which reduce methane emissions from cattle.
The strategy is silent on the issue of changing diets despite the Climate Change Committee advising that people should eat 20% less meat and dairy by 2030 and 35% less by 2050.
An official said that the strategy aimed to ‘work with the grain of consumers so not restricting people’s choices.’ ”

 

[willy]

Sad but true

 

[PostHarvest]

Farmers could be required to use feed additives made from seaweed,

Yet another report was published in the last couple of weeks stating the advantages to the environment of feeding cattle seaweed instead of a corn based feed. Of course the "research" was based on US feed lot operations and not European grass fed farms, yet the gullible media over here just repeat it verbatim. But just how do they intend to transport any quantity of seaweed, which presumably grows on the coast, to the feed lots which are in the mid-west of the USA? They can't do it with Elon Musk's electric trucks because he's only built a few and those are busy hauling around their own batteries. Presumably Bald Rick has any amount of Red Tractor approved seaweed on his doorstep, but the majority of farmers do not. In my view there is a distinct shortage of joined up thinking.

 

[willy]

A military coup led by Clarkson is what we really need.

 

[DaveGrohl]

Times suggesting the following:

“Intensive beef and dairy farms could be subject to tougher environmental permits, which require them to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Farmers could be required to use feed additives made from seaweed, garlic and other substances which reduce methane emissions from cattle.
The strategy is silent on the issue of changing diets despite the Climate Change Committee advising that people should eat 20% less meat and dairy by 2030 and 35% less by 2050.
An official said that the strategy aimed to ‘work with the grain of consumers so not restricting people’s choices.’ ”

Do we know yet what the downsides are of interfering with the natural biome processes of ruminants? Or are we just playing God yet again? Presumably if methane goes down then something else goes up? Carbon dioxide for instance? Nitrous oxide? Or do we not know because we're not bothering to look?

 

[Bald Rick]

Do we know yet what the downsides are of interfering with the natural biome processes of ruminants? Or are we just playing God yet again? Presumably if methane goes down then something else goes up? Carbon dioxide for instance? Nitrous oxide? Or do we not know because we're not bothering to look?

Please do not interfere with research science grants .....

WTF there is big money to be made from climate change mitigations

 

[DaveGrohl]

Yet another report was published in the last couple of weeks stating the advantages to the environment of feeding cattle seaweed instead of a corn based feed. Of course the "research" was based on US feed lot operations and not European grass fed farms, yet the gullible media over here just repeat it verbatim. But just how do they intend to transport any quantity of seaweed, which presumably grows on the coast, to the feed lots which are in the mid-west of the USA? They can't do it with Elon Musk's electric trucks because he's only built a few and those are busy hauling around their own batteries. Presumably Bald Rick has any amount of Red Tractor approved seaweed on his doorstep, but the majority of farmers do not. In my view there is a distinct shortage of joined up thinking.

Leaving aside the inconvenient notion that feedlot cattle spend most of their lives not on the feedlot, I was under the impression that when they're on the feedlot their methane emissions are lower than for grazing/forage fed cattle. Am I misinformed or does this seem a bit cockeyed?

 

[DaveGrohl]

Please do not interfere with research science grants .....

WTF there is big money to be made from climate change mitigations

Sometimes it's difficult for me to forget stuff I was taught at school. I should probably do what everyone else does in the media and believe any old bollox and be relieved I don't have to learn any more now I'm not at school.

 

[Still Farming]

On BBC 1 News about eating LESS Meat to reduce effects of climate change and how many less cars on the road if people reduced meat every week allegedly???