UK livestock needs action on methane now to avoid ‘soundbite’ solutions

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
I think threads like this are started by tff from press releases, rather than by the actual organisation (someone can maybe correct me on that) but they are now definitely following the posts.
If they are indeed following this thread then they'd be better off following a few other threads on here rather than this one. They might learn something, which they desperately need to do.
 

delilah

Member
What would happen if nobody cooperated with this guff?

Unless you do direct sales you wont have any choice. Your national bodies are working on making it an industry standard. To be used as a stick to be hit with by the cartel. It's the new red tractor.

edit: and even if you do do direct sales they will still have you. If AHDB are allowed to carry on down this line there will be a methane element to the levy.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Written in The Guardian earlier this week......

“Make no mistake, the money is here, if the world wants to use it,” said Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor who today serves as UN climate envoy, while also representing an alliance of financiers sitting on a pile of $130tn worth of assets. So, what does the world want? If only humanity had the power to organise a global poll based on one-human-one-vote, such a species-wide referendum would undoubtedly deliver a clear answer: “Do whatever it takes to stop emitting carbon now!” Instead, we have a decision-making process culminating in the colossal fiasco currently unfolding in Glasgow.

The failure of Cop26 reflects our failed democracies on both sides of the Atlantic. President Biden arrived in Glasgow as his people back in Washington were pushing his infrastructure bill through Congress – an exercise that decoupled the bill from any serious investment in renewables and funded an array of carbon-emitting infrastructure such as expanded roads and airports. Meanwhile in the European Union, the rhetoric may be painted in bright green, but the reality is dark brown – with even Germany looking forward to copious amounts of Russian natural gas in exchange of green-lighting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The EU should be creating a pan-European Renewable Energy Union, but alas our leaders are not even debating this idea.

There are three reasons Cop26 is proving such a spectacular debacle. The first reason is a planet-wide collective action problem over “free-riding”. Large businesses, as well as states, take a leaf out of St Augustine’s prayer, “Lord please make me chaste but not just yet”. Everyone prefers a planet on which no one emits carbon to a planet that sizzles. But everyone also prefers to delay paying the cost of transition if they can get away with it. If the rest of the planet does the right thing, the planet is saved, even if you selfishly postpone your own conversion to environmental probity. And if the rest of the planet does not do the right thing, why be the one sucker who does?

The second reason is a global coordination failure. In one sense, Carney is correct: mountain ranges of cash are lying idly in the global financial system, its ultra-wealthy owners keen to invest it in low-carbon activities. But a private investment in, say, green hydrogen will only return profits if many other investors invest in it too – and so the investors all sit around waiting for each other to be the first. Meanwhile, corporations, communities and states join this waiting game, unwilling to take the risk of committing to green hydrogen until big finance does. Tragically, there is no global coordinator to match the available money, technologies and needs.

The third reason is simply: capitalism. It has always gained pace through the incessant commodification of everything, beginning with land, labour and technology before spreading to genetically modified organisms, and even a woman’s womb or an asteroid. As capitalism’s realm spread, price-less goods turned into pricey commodities. The owners of the machinery and the land necessary for the commodification of goods profited, while everyone else progressed from the wretchedness of the 19th century working class to the soothing fantasies of mindless petit-bourgeois consumerism.

Everything that was good was commodified – including much of our humanity. And the bad externalities that the same production process generated were simply released into the atmosphere. To power the capitalist juggernaut, carbon stored for millennia in trees and under the surface was plundered. For two centuries immense wealth – and corresponding human misery – was produced by exploitative processes that depleted “free” natural capital, carbon in particular. Workers around the world are now paying the cost to nature that the capitalist market never bore.

Free-marketeers would like us to believe that business has now yielded to science, and is ready and willing to step into the void of government inaction. We must not believe this for a moment. Yes, Carney is right that the money for the belated green transition is available, and it is ample. Those who possess it will undoubtedly invest it to supply, say, green hydrogen if we, society, pay them to do so. But at the same time, they will not voluntarily cease production processes that continue releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

This is why polluters adore net zero targets: because they are a brilliant cover for not restricting emissions. In exchange for non-verifiable offsets, they are allowed to continue plundering the planet’s remaining stored carbon, until the point arrives when their marginal private cost surpasses their revenue from the last unit sold. By cynically placing net zero at its centre, Cop26 became nothing more than an expensive cover-up for continued toxic emissions. Hiding behind Cop26, the great and the good lie to the young, lie to vulnerable people and even lie to themselves by repeating the truth that the “money is there” to be invested in the planet’s salvation.

What needs to be done? Two things at the very least. First, a complete shutdown of coalmines and new oil and gas rigs. If governments can lock us down to save lives during a pandemic, they can shut down the fossil fuel industry to save humanity. Second, we need a global carbon tax, to increase the relative price of everything that releases more carbon, and from which all proceeds should be returned to the poorer members of our species.

To earn a shot at rising to the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, we must first confront both the funders and the owners of the fossil fuel industries. Though this clash will not guarantee our future, it is a necessary condition for us to have one.

Yanis Varoufakis is the co-founder of DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement)
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Just quoting myself here.....

Seems it's to do with US emission only, Dr Frank Mitloehner mentions it in a piece I found by accident:

"And, he says another study found that if the entire country participated in meatless Mondays…”that would lead to 0.3 percent reduction of our carbon footprint in this county. They also looked at the extreme what would happen theoretically if all 330 million Americans went vegan, that would lead to a reduction 2.6 percent.”
Quoting myself YET AGAIN, yeah soz for that.....
Here you go:


Interesting that Americans would be worse off nutritionally without beef, and that's a nation that's the most obese on Earth.
 
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holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Remember they introduced milk quotas once upon a time
30% Methane cut announced/agreedat COP
Get ready
What a mess COP26 ended up!

Agreement to seek to stop deforestation except from those countries doing most of it.

Agreement to cut methane emissions by 30% but no detail around how or the impact.

Couldn't even agree that coal use must end despite every climate scientist pointing to it as the biggest offender of all, only to "phase down" its use. Weasel words that are designed to allow each country to interpret their actions as compliant. The BBC is reporting "Last Wednesday, the Xinhua news agency trumpeted the fact that the country produced more coal than ever before on a single day"

"Some of the real-world pledges signed here were beyond a joke. South Korea was named as a country due to give up coal in the 2030s. But the government in Seoul sheepishly pointed to a clause in the pledge saying "2030s or as soon as possible thereafter" to say they'll stop burning in 2049."

COP26 seems to have been attended by absolute masters of wordsmithery of whom Sir Humphrey would be proud......
 
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Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
What a mess COP26 ended up!

Agreement to seek to stop deforestation except from those countries doing most of it.

Agreement to cut methane emissions by 30% but no detail around how or the impact.

Couldn't even agree that coal use must end despite every climate scientist pointing to it as the biggest offender of all, only to "phase down" its use. Weasel words that are designed to allow each country to interpret their actions as compliant. The BBC is reporting "Last Wednesday, the Xinhua news agency trumpeted the fact that the country produced more coal than ever before on a single day"

"Some of the real-world pledges signed here were beyond a joke. South Korea was named as a country due to give up coal in the 2030s. But the government in Seoul sheepishly pointed to a clause in the pledge saying "2030s or as soon as possible thereafter" to say they'll stop burning in 2049."

COP26 seems to have been attended by absolute masters of wordsmithery of whom Sir Humphrey would be proud......
now you know why it is called cop out
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Agreement to cut methane emissions by 30% but no detail around how or the impact.
How to assess this........

1. It is finally dawning on them that GWP100 is finally being shown as the smoke and mirrors con trick it always was, and that they know the truth will out at some point and they'll have to start grasping the fossil fuel nettle at last.

2. Much laughter around option 1 but seriously, let's look into this seaweed idea. We just need to think of ways to keep them yokels quiet long enough til there's none of them left.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
How to assess this........

1. It is finally dawning on them that GWP100 is finally being shown as the smoke and mirrors con trick it always was, and that they know the truth will out at some point and they'll have to start grasping the fossil fuel nettle at last.

2. Much laughter around option 1 but seriously, let's look into this seaweed idea. We just need to think of ways to keep them yokels quiet long enough til there's none of them left.
We need to bang the GWP* for methane drum as hard and often as possible, preferably combined with pointing out that the target is a temperature one so measuring emissions without a clear linkage to temperatures is irrational.

One this sinks in the CCC and others would be shown to be contradicting the science in their "advice".
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
How to assess this........

1. It is finally dawning on them that GWP100 is finally being shown as the smoke and mirrors con trick it always was, and that they know the truth will out at some point and they'll have to start grasping the fossil fuel nettle at last.

2. Much laughter around option 1 but seriously, let's look into this seaweed idea. We just need to think of ways to keep them yokels quiet long enough til there's none of them left.

Option 2., AR activists' wet dreams!
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
We need to bang the GWP* for methane drum as hard and often as possible, preferably combined with pointing out that the target is a temperature one so measuring emissions without a clear linkage to temperatures is irrational.

One this sinks in the CCC and others would be shown to be contradicting the science in their "advice".
The CCC? Christ alive, what a shower of sh...
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
We need to bang the GWP* for methane drum as hard and often as possible, preferably combined with pointing out that the target is a temperature one so measuring emissions without a clear linkage to temperatures is irrational.

One this sinks in the CCC and others would be shown to be contradicting the science in their "advice".

Reading their recommendations it's clear that they weren't given enough scientific resources to work with. All heavily weighted towards the vegan worldview?
 

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