I have severe reservations about the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Emissions that came out of Copenhagen. I believe it is a poisoned chalice. It is headed in totally the wrong direction.
The suggestion that something needs to be done about our livestock emissions is suggesting there is something wrong with them now. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our animals are as near to clean and green as it is possible to get. To change their emissions is to make them less green.
Those pushing the need to reduce livestock emissions are damaging our clean green image. It is remarkable how many urban people know human produced global warming is a myth, but in the next breath say we need to do something about those dirty cows and their methane. The Global Alliance as proposed is only going to reinforce this misunderstanding.
By holding it up as something that looks positive our focus is taken off the reality. True, methane does represent energy loss to the system. But there is no guarantee reducing it will improve efficiency. For example a horse produces only a third as much greenhouse gas as a cow, but its feeding efficiency is way inferior, with completely undigested food passing through its system.
At this stage the most likely lines of research are vaccines and genetically modifying the gut bacteria. I believe there is a real risk small gains may be found in digestive efficiency that only equate to the cost of implementing the technology.
However farmers will now be deemed to have the means to reduce emissions so will no longer be able to argue against being in the ETS.
Farmers will be forced to adopt the technology to avoid the carbon costs, which we know are irrelevant anyway. The carbon costs will make it uneconomic to opt out of the technology in order to supply a market that wants unmodified, more natural products. I am sure some of our top end consumers will not want these modified products any more than something with a high carbon footprint.
We need to look at what is really behind the move to tax our livestock. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, has said ‘less meat, less heat’. He said nothing about the methane production of the rice paddies in his homeland of India, nor of the millions of sacred cows there.
People in Europe are being encouraged to have meatless days to reduce their carbon footprint. Nicholas Stern goes one step further by calling for us to become vegetarian. Now a couple of environmental advisors in the World Bank want to tax the carbon dioxide the animals produce as well.
The whole concept is about global control of the food supply and through that, control of the people. The people pushing this Alliance are not interested in the truth.
If our government wants to take any initiative it should demonstrate that livestock farming does not contribute to global warming.
Secondly, they should show more CO2 in the atmosphere enhances agricultural production.
CO2 is not a hazard to health, as the US Environmental Protection Agency has just ruled, and does not need to be reduced as some organisations desire.
The New Zealand Government will be hosting a meeting about agricultural emissions in Wellington in March that will be attended by about 20 countries. Already the Green movement, smarting after their failure at Copenhagen, are holding workshops and training camps to prepare for action.
What are you prepared to do to stop this brainwashed minority dictating the future of our industry and the ultimate destruction of our country?
Don’t be like the possum watching the headlights bearing down. Become part of the solution.
Neil Henderson
