To Nick Smith from Alan S 11 August 2009
Submitted by climaterealists on Sat, 19/12/2009 - 17:24
Dear Dr Smith
The National Party used to rely for its support on the Rural Heartland and I, and probably most other farmers, feel badly betrayed. You rightly point out that Agriculture is a big problem, but no other country is including agriculture in its emission reduction targets so therefore they have not yet come to the realisation that agriculture is not a net emitter, only a gross emitter. Cows, sheep, pigs, llamas, alpacas, horses, vegetables, fruit etc all recycle carbon which is already in the atmosphere or taken from the atmosphere to grow grass. Agriculture may be nearly 50% of gross emissions, but probably accounts for 75% of absorption from the atmosphere - in other words carbon negative.
There is very good reason to remove agriculture from the targets and from the ETS. The country that has performed the best on reducing agricultural emissions is Zimbabwe. You should hold this country up as the model you are trying to emulate.
Alan S
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