If you're a carnivore feast your eyes on the photograph because, if Lord Stern of Brentford gets his way, we will be halting our production of meat and all becoming vegetarians in order to save the world. I don't have a problem with non-meat eaters or vegetarians. If someone doesn't want to eat it then it's fine with me. I don't eat much of it myself.
But this is not to do with leading a healthier life. It is to do with climate change you see and Lord Stern is, according to the Times, a leading authority on climate change because he led a team which published the Stern Report back in 2006. As an economist and banker I'm sure he's well versed in the various methods of translating numbers.
Lord Stern: "Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better."
He also said a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.
Is Lord Stern is calling for the destruction of our livestock farms and suggesting our farmers revert to growing grain and vegetable crops? Doesn't he realise meat is one of the biggest exports in the UK? Is he suggesting that grain would become a replacement export?
Grain is in short supply worldwide, in part due to America reducing its exports because it is intent on reducing imported energy and has taken to producing its own biofuels. Earlier today the BBC reported President Obama had announced their biggest investment into the US grid system. The Americans are serious about ensuring they are self-sufficient.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and Lord Stern may well be right about food never being so cheap again, but I don't see America turning their whole country into livestock free States. They too rely heavily on meat exports as part of their economy.
Neither do I see the UK population becoming vegetarians, do you? Even one of the climate change believers thinks Stern's approach is unsatisfactory.
The more I read about climate change the more sceptical I become because the whole exercise appears to be an attempt at mass brainwashing - 'living will cost you dearly if you don't do as we say'.
It's obvious people have to be sensible in their uses of energy but the climate change lobby needs to take into account different needs and also realise how government has encouraged excesses in everything for the past 30 odd years. Some lobbyists are calling for a large price hike in energy costs and I have no doubt they will get their way eventually. After all, the energy companies have doubled their last year's profits, yet there has been no attempt by government to insist they reduce their customer's costs. We're being ripped off by these companies and our politicians know it.
The UK may well return to a rationing system before I kick off my stilettos. Draconian? You bet but it won't stop the obsessed.
Meanwhile China and other major countries pay lip service to the believers then go about their daily business as normal. They are only concerned with actions which save them money not the reverse.
Surely we have a mechanism somewhere within our political system to slow down this disintegration of our country.
Posts
18 comments:
Lord Stern, the Economist, fails to point out that cows ( and other ruminants )are the only way that hummans can obtain sustinance from those large parts of the worlds suface that can only sustain grass.
Someone pointed out somewhere recently " If you want to see what a population and an economy depending mostly upon vegetation looks like, go to Sub-Saharan Africa".
Stern does suggest that world food prices will continue to rise because of The Climate Crunch which is utterly disingenuous ( = lie ) because the reason there is a worldwide food shortage ( not that we in the west really have to notice, it falls on the third world, natch ) is because of the vast area of farmland ( old and recently logged for the purpose ) now given over to growing bio-fuels as a reaction to the panic mongering of the Warmistas themselves.
Such bio farming has been found to be extemely profitable and, from the Pentagons point of view, might enhance fuel security for the US.
Washingtons Power Elite thus in cahoots with the Eco-Warriors for a change.
Lord save us from well intentioned – idiots!
Let us take Scotland as an example, as I’m sure it interests us all. Scotland has, despite it vast expanse of countryside, less than 10% of ‘usable’ agricultural land suitable for growing crops.
If all of Scotland were to turn vegetarian, by choice or decree, the country could not sustain its own population. In order to survive more and more food would have to be imported, but at what cost?
I happened to be in a well known supermarket recently and could not help but notice the ‘source’ of many of the fruit and veg on offer. Vegetables from Kenya and Peru; fruit from Madagascar and South Africa. The ‘air miles’ in bringing these products to us is excessive, not to mention the pollution of the flight.
Please save us from verbose m’lords who produce more hot air than any farm animal.
Climate change is and always has been with us. What we do have is a planet infested with one very nasy creature. Cull that animal, (eat them?) and the survivors would be back in balance eating only so much. be it meat or grass would be irrelevant. Of course, fewer people equals less power available for those born with a surfeit of the arrogant, hubris and nastiness genes.
Why are socialists so unpleasant? It's in their DNA.
My grandson has recently started school (at 4 years old) My daughter has a list of foods he is not supposed to eat.
I said best not bring round anymore.
My wife bought(and buys) child meals(all very healthy apparently) from mark and spencer at about £3 to £5 each
I asked why don't he eat the same as us(like what we did at home with mum and dad)
dad had an allotment mum cooked most things herself nearly all the veggies were from local farms in local shops (nowadays it is seen as a middle class way of living) and that was more years ago than i care to admit.
Meat we used to from nose to hoof nowadays it has to the best cuts and the rest who knows what they do with it.
I read that somewhere too banned.
As Evans-Pritchard says the world food shortage is partly due to America stopping much of its grain exports, keeping it for their bio-fuel processes.
Banned, we both know that Washington's Elite will join forces with anyone who can display financial gain for them.
I wondered the percentage of Scotland which was usable and you've answered that John. We both live in areas which have swathes of quality farmland but the west isn't so lucky.
With the demise of hill-farming the agricultural industry was hit hard and has worked hard to retain a sustainable balance.
For the past couple of years I haven't bought any fruit or veg from sources other than UK or, in the case of oranges, Spain. It's not the air miles that was my prime concern, but the freshness.
This would be a bit like Maggie's closure of the pits wouldn't it? 'We don't need to produce coal because we can import it cheaper'.
Two years later we were paying twice the price for the imported stuff compared with the cost of mining it ourselves.
You've sent shivers down my spine OR. I can't think of any food worse than minced labour. Urgh!
What's your daughter playing at Niko? No wonder the wee lad's a fussy eater.
Any pre-prepared supermarket food has preservatives as we all know so not as healthy as stuff from your own garden (or a neighbour).
You possibly lived the same as me when young. We ate veg in season, root veg in winter and the rest at the appropriate time. Apples were eaten when they fell off trees and shops were then full of them and the same with plums, pears etc.
Meat was bought from a butcher who knew where it came from. Every bit was used for something.
Fish came from a fishmonger who trailed to the fish market every middle of the night, just to ensure we had our piece of haddock for our tea.
Bread was freshly baked in the baker's shop and not part-baked and sent to supermarkets to be finished off in browning machines then called 'baked on the premises'.
I wonder why Noble Lords find it necessary to produce these reports. It seems they are invariably filled with unworkable rubbish which sounds splendid on paper
Would it not be better for them to concentrate on the things they are best suited to? Sleeping and fiddling expenses. Or are they paid vast amounts of public money for doing them?
Have a wee glance at Lord Stern's Wiki entry Tris. One of the boys he is.
In the sixties, I was until aged eighteen a ward of court. Then, it was quite common (although that practice was dying out) to send youngsters to farms as trainees to earn their keep and learn an occupation that would ensure that they were not a burden on the state, making them fit like to earn a livelihood for the rest of their natural. Glasgow Corporation was well known for this practice amongst others then.
I was sent to the Isle of Arran for two years and placed under the instruction of a tyranical farmer who was not renown for his knowledge of TLC!! After the age of eighteen I could please myself and I did. I, with some considerable effort and my own merits obtained an electrical engineering apprenticeship after yon experience. A farming was not for me.
During that time I lived and worked on a small farm engaged in fishing, lobster fishing and farming where I learnt skills you will not see used on many farms these days. Most of the farm machinery was pre second world war and the binder,tattie harvester, ect were originally horse drawn but then had their half shafts cut off and converted to a draw bar and wee grey Fergie usage. We even stooked and threshed by a belt driven mill in a threshing yard. All our veg, curly kale, cabbage, carrots and tatties didn't have the air miles, that's for sure. Nor did the bacon or milk, nor the bruised and rolled oats for the porrage either.
...and much of our produce, including lobsters,crab, herring in season, salmon and other sea food graced the tables of a well known local hotels, one being the Lagg Inn. Life was hard and thrifty, indeed bloody dangerous at times when out to sea in small boats I went. Ever faced a protective coo with calf and a wicked set of horns and hooves out to do grevious mischief? But I wouldn't have missed those experiences of yesteryear farming practices for the world. Well maybe some of them I would give a miss; like meandering over a field with a pail collecting stanes for the dyking and to rid the binder's teeth of obstructions come harvest time in all weathers when the farmer was at a loss for myself to be engaged in doing something more useful. Couldn't have the hiding in the bothy or barn being idle in bad weather now, could we? Those two years would be good for the character forming, or so I was told leastways.
Anyways I digress. Even in the sixties many houses had a bit of land set bye for the vegetables and sometimes for the chickens and a pig or two as well. But a few years ago I returned to Arran as a visitor and there was little sign of land put bye for the vegetables.
...and I will have to say this;
The concerned can rant, rave and preach till the coos come hame about the merits of self sufficiency. But until folk have the necessity thrust apon them, Little notice will be taken or acted apon by the majority who take their ease and convenience at the abundance of store bought
produce with the air miles price tag attatched.
As the auld sang goes," the cares of tomorrow will wait till this day is done."
.
Hi SR
Lord Stern is an. No ,I wont say it but plenty will have. I hope he is better as an economist, but I'm not hopeful.
As for cows causing CO2, consider that homo sapiens also emit CO2 etc, now how many homo saps are on this planet,5 billion, 6, ?? and how many cows?. Maybe the answer is reduce the saps in the world. Cos there is more saps than cows.And less saps would leave more resources for the elites, which is what it is really all about.
No, the whole global warming scam, for that is what it is,is based on opinion based on myth and lies, and trying to turn it into a religion that people dare not disagree with, thank God it is starting to fall apart,MSM rarely report this but it is happening.
There are too many of the likes of Lord Stern who produce papers with required political results and not a clue as to the unintended consequences of their rubbish!
OR might have the solution,long pig I was told tasted just like pork..!
Wisnaeme, interesting and enjoyable comment on the "old ways".Spent my childhood days on farms ,we were surrounded by them (in the 50's in Aust,) could we go back if we had to? a lot of the old knowledge of how to do things is gone and how to improvise is lost.
A very interesting thread.
D.
Smashing story wisnaeme, just great.
Here in this town there are many older men who worked on farms all their lives and have some wonderful stories to tell. In fact, I was talking to one just the other week because he was off to a farm sale. One of his pals, who had eventually managed to buy his own farm, had died and he wanted a souvenir. I hope he managed to find something small enough to get in his car because he was talking about rather large items.
You're right though about self-sufficiency. I do a bit of salad, courgettes and the like, but I've given up growing tomatoes. One reason is even though home grown they've still not real taste and another is it's so much cheaper to buy them in a shop.
Luckily I know a small holding which grows onions, cabbage, turnip etc so I'm one of their customers but not everyone's so luck to have somewhere like that locally.
I never buy anything with daft air miles attached now.
Smashing story wisnaeme, just great.
Here in this town there are many older men who worked on farms all their lives and have some wonderful stories to tell. In fact, I was talking to one just the other week because he was off to a farm sale. One of his pals, who had eventually managed to buy his own farm, had died and he wanted a souvenir. I hope he managed to find something small enough to get in his car because he was talking about rather large items.
You're right though about self-sufficiency. I do a bit of salad, courgettes and the like, but I've given up growing tomatoes. One reason is even though home grown they've still not real taste and another is it's so much cheaper to buy them in a shop.
Luckily I know a small holding which grows onions, cabbage, turnip etc so I'm one of their customers but not everyone's so luck to have somewhere like that locally.
I never buy anything with daft air miles attached now.
Hi Apogee. He's part of the elite of course and been given the remit to brainwash us all, for the benefit of the few.
Had to laugh at your excellent reasoning, great idea. Problem is, without us around to pay the taxes for them to live they way they do, then they may have to dirty their hands for a living. None wants to do that.
Yes Apogee, many of the old farming skills have gone as wisnaeme says and they'll never return because farming can no longer afford to be labour intensive. That's why so many small holdings went to the wall and are now cheap looking homes.
Being brought up in the city I was lucky because my granny's sister and her husband had a small farm in Aberdeenshire and I spent every school holiday there for years. I didn't get to have a go with the plough etc though, picking peas, cabbages, tatties and helping with the mass of hens was my job. Oh, I also had to collect the water, in two enamel pails, from the well which seemed miles away but it was only at the back of the barn.
Eventually they piped the water indoors but they didn't bother putting in a toilet for some reason. I think it was because my 'aunty' didn't like pipe smoke and my uncle used to smoke in the 'lavvy'. The smoke dispersed quicker in an outdoor wooden hut I suppose.
Oh happy days.
Hi SR
That shower work? hell, they would'nt work in an iron lung!.Can you imagine any of the elites using a spade industrially (without laughing).
Talking about food producing, have you noticed how much good farmland is now used for housing? Why not build in the hills, just as good for holding up houses, and not much use for anything else;just a thought.
D.
Hi Apogee, I said something about that earlier I think ie smallholdings having to be sold because supermarkets had put lots out of business. Usually they were sold to developers. It's happened all over Scotland.
wisnaeme.that was great and I believe that I understood every word of it. Spent my earliest years on the very edge of a small town in the South Penines so saw somethiing of what you describe. Looked it up on Google Earth the other day but sadly the heart of the town which was the twice weekly cattle market now has horrid little houses all over it.
Post a Comment