In my post about 9-11 remembrance today, I pointed out “freedom from tyranny” as something to remember and be thankful for. In Western Australia, licensing a simple farming operation has become the victim of government imposed tyranny. Jo Nova has covered the plight of Matt and Janet Thompson in their effort to get a cattle farm up and running again. David Archibald and I visited with the Thompsons during my Australian tour and can attest that Jo Nova has it right in these stories:
Tyranny: How to destroy a business with environmental red tape
The whole issue boils down to an arbitrary sniff test imposed by a local green organization. Was their supposed “environmental defense” (PDF) worth the death of an individual? David Archibald tells this tragic tale which is worth reading, because farmers worldwide are also under assault from overregulation. Witness what is going on in New Zealand with Carbon Tax on farmers. – Anthony
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By David Archibald
My experience of the global warming debate has been a lot of fun. I’ve written a couple of books, had a couple of original ideas, influenced the debate, provided succour to the rational faithful around the world and have met the good and the great: Professor David Bellamy and President Vaclav Klaus. Others haven’t been as fortunate. What follows is a tale of death and destruction that was visited upon one West Australian business as a consequence of the owners’ doubts about the new green religion.
Matt and Janet Thompson own a feedlot business about 4 kilometers outside the edge of the town of Narrogin, about 200 km southeast of Perth.
In June 2008, when the global warming scare was in full swing, Matt attended a beef industry meeting which talked about the cattle industry’s contribution to global warming. He expressed doubt in that meeting about the veracity of global warming and handed out some rational literature.
Not long thereafter, the West Australian Environmental Defenders Office took an interest in complaints by Narrogin greenies against the Thompsons’ feedlot. The volume of complaints rose and the receiving body was primed to receive them: the West Australian Department of Environment and Conservation.
The Thompson’s feedlot business started operating in 2003 at a rated capacity of 1,000 head and an ultimate design capacity of 15,000 head. There is a need for feedlot capacity in Western Australia to level out the supply of cattle to WA abattoirs. In the dry summer, cattle lose body mass just walking around to get grass to eat. Bringing the feed to the cattle means that they don’t lose condition walking to get it.
In 2008, the Thompsons applied to the West Australian Department of Environment and Conservation for an increase in their licence capacity to 15,000 head. Instead of the increase requested, or even maintaining their then licenced level of 10,000 head per annum, the DEC cut their licence conditions back to 6,000 head.
The feedlot needs economies of scale to be viable, so the new licence conditions effectively closed the business. The feedlot remains closed to this day. Right next door to the feedlot is a vast, intensive piggery which continues to operate. You can hear the pigs but not see them, because they are kept indoors. There is another piggery between the Thompsons’ operation and the town of Narrogin.
The Thompsons’ feedlot had 20 employees at its peak. One of them, Mr Lindley Boseley (shown above), took the closure of the feedlot rather personally and suicided. That reminds me of another accidental death at the hands of the State of Western Australia. Last year, an aboriginal being transported from Leonora to Kalgoorlie died from heat stress.
The guards transporting him were distraught, and the WA Government recently undertook to give $3.5 million to his near relatives, who still have the option of suing the State Government for negligence. Similarly, most likely the Environmental Defenders Office, the Department of Environment and Conservation and the greenies of Narrogin did not mean to kill Mr Boseley, but it is very likely that he would still be a productive member of society, if not a completely happy one, if they had not started their campaign to destroy the Thompsons’ business.
The Environmental Defenders Office is jointly funded by the West Australian State Government and the Federal Government. The State Government has now been in power for two years and is halfway through its four year term. It could do well to review its funding of ideologically driven NGOs which, by word and deed, work against the people of Western Australia.
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You can read about the farm here at their website:
http://www.narroginbeef.com/index.htm
How much blood will the EPA have on its hands in the near future ?
typo ” New Zeland” – Shd be Zealand.
REPLY: Thanks, fixed, -Anthony
How is it possible that a small group of people with little if any mandate can take control of areas I’d our lives and then behave like dictators? Toe the line or they try to destroy you. They have little interest in the environment. They protect nothing and achieve even less. Apart from gaining money and power. This is not a question of science. This is a question of personal freedoms. Who is going to stand up to them?
You are equating a possibly onerous government regulation with mass terrorism. Hard to get more alarmist than that.
This is a dangerous period for dealing with governments. Most people will side with humans and oppose what happened. Today we also remember wickedness elsewhere.
The last election tells us eyes are opening and seeing regulation is choking business and people.
The war between Common Law and Political Law was proclaimed with the first recent Tea Party. The battle between freedom and tyranny has begun.
Knowing the many Ranchers that I do, they know their First Amendment Rights
are protected by the Second….
So do the politicians…
One of the benefits of living in the USA…
Anybody watch the latest Survivorman shows? In it he lives with those that are living in subsistence conditions. Your heart goes out to them and their daily struggle for food … existence. They spend their entire day trying to find food and water. My what a difference electricity would make.
I don’t think it was intended, but it portrays the perfect liberal life style. Watch if you get a chance, then scoot on over to “firemapper” and see through the eyes of MODIS what using wood for fuel does to the planet. The number of man set agricultural fires is astounding.
How long will it be before the official greenies (EPA) go after farmers using the “Eminent Domain” laws? Not long I suspect.
The tyran’s schemes are not only limited to shake people out by sky rocketing energy but include taking away their land and properties and starve them to death when they’ve lost all.
Charles S. Opalek, PE, September 11, 2010 at 1:03 pm is right.
“The battle between freedom and tyranny has begun”.
But at this moment in time tyranny is on a winning streak.
To many people are still ill informed and sleeping.
Sound the alarm bells, they are steeling your future.
http://green-agenda.com currently executed globally.
The exact same thinking is in California where they shut off irrigation water for raising crops. We are dealing with extremely irrational thinkers.
Pink slip as many of the bums as possible.
November to Remember.
There seems to be a discrepancy in the article. Early on it says: “The Thompson’s feedlot business started operating in 2003 at a rated capacity of 1,000 head and an ultimate design capacity of 15,000 head” yet later it says “Instead of the increase requested, or even maintaining their then licenced level of 10,000 head per annum, the DEC cut their licence conditions back to 6,000 head.”
So which is it? Were they initially licenced for 1000 head or was it 10,000? Because it makes a big difference if the intial licence was 1000, and that was increased to 6000, than if it was 10,000 and that was reduced to 6000.
As today is the anniversary of 9/11 when religious fundamentalists/fanatics attacked New York, we should also remember there are greenies and there are environmentalists. The latter are usually quite reasonable people, but some unfortunately turn fundamentalist and become greenies, aka Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth etc.
You can reason with environmentalists, but no one can reason with them once they have turned fundamentalist and become greenies.
The same logic applies to real scientists and climate ‘scientists’. The latter have a fundamentalist faith in an extreme version of AGW and it is impossible to reason or debate (also, they won’t turn up!) with them. One of the weaknesses of the human psyche is that the woolly and weak minded like to be thought of as being ‘chosen’ or ‘enlightened’ and are easily attracted to extremist causes.
Anyhow, we all end up paying for the stupidity of the greenies and the greed of their self-appointed leaders – usually in the form of greater taxation and large, pointless bureaucracies, but occasionally with our lives as in this instance.
Pat McLaren asks, “How is it possible that a small group of people with little if any mandate can take control of areas I’d our lives and then behave like dictators?”
I think the uncomfortable answer is “Because we let them.” Most people won’t stand up personally against tyranny. They just want to “get along”.
Mike @ 12:44 pm:
~200,000,000 dead Third World residents, thanks to the “consensus-driven onerous government regulation” (Read: “banning”) of DDT, would beg to differ.
“You are equating a possibly onerous government regulation with mass terrorism. Hard to get more alarmist than that.”
Mike,
How many innocent people have been killed by terrorists, compared to Governments? Without getting to deep into the politics of the terrorist, illegal invasion of Iraq, and the blatant lies that led to it, there was a situation in which a 9/11 was inflicted on Iraq every month, on the back of a pack of blatant lies.
Even that pales into significance when you examine the words of the leaders of the world’s environmental movements. They want to kill BILLIONS of innocent people, just because they happen to be alive and consume Gaia’s resources. That is in their OWN words.
I shall not list all the quotes here, but this is a link to them and they are truly monstrous.
http://ken-hall.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-hitler-killed-millions-he-was.html
Do not talk to me about alarmism, when the Climate Alarmists want to make Al Qaeda look like the keystone cops by comparison!
Don’t think this type of tyranny isn’t being practices by the US Department of “Justice” in this Administration against Arizona.
The DOJ has three ongoing lawsuits or investigations against Arizona, the latest involves Colleges requiring non citizen job seekers to show their green card. This along with the investigation of the Maricopa sherrif and the recent Arizona law regarding police checking the immigration status of those stopped for traffic violations or criminal acts.
“Washington Post: The Justice Department filed another lawsuit against immigration practices by Arizona authorities, saying Monday that a network of community colleges acted illegally in requiring noncitizens to provide their green cards before they could be hired for jobs.”
http://lonelyconservative.com/2010/08/doj-sues-arizona-colleges-for-requiring-green-cards/
All this while the DOJ dismisses voting place violations against thugs at a voting place in Philadelphia during the last election while refusing to allow DOJ employees to testify on the incident..
B.C. says:
DDT was only banned for use in agriculture, not for control of disease vectors.
I hope that whenever the environmentalists get a complaint about animal smells in the town they can answer where it is now coming from as there are no cattle left at the Thompsons feedlot. They had a state of the art feedlot, waste control, wormfarm’s the lot. The smells weren’t coming from the farm, they attacked the wrong people.
It is a tragedy that another farmer has died, the greenies have a lot to answer for. Hopefully they will be found out now they have a seat in Australian Government, they will have to explain their policies instead of sitting on the fence. The Greenies want to close down the power stations, shut down intensive farming and bring back death taxes.
Greenies grow best in concrete, the representative that got elected lives in the midst of Melbourne, is about as far away from farming as it is possible to get.
B.C. says:
September 11, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Before someone jumps on you & says DDT wasn’t banned…
DDT was effectively banned by refusal of aid to 3rd world countries who didn’t ban DDT use.
DaveE.
Don Shaw says:
September 11, 2010 at 2:35 pm
I am not a US citizen. I think it would be remiss of any US establishment not to check my status before employing me, ie, checking my green card.
DaveE.
Don Shaw says:
September 11, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Actually…
Isn’t it illegal to employ an illegal immigrant?
How do you ascertain that without checking the green card?
DaveE.
This is exactly what happens to university professors in the sciences who dare to speak out in support of universe and living things that are the result of purpose, intent, and design by a creator. If you’re a scientist and you salute that flag in public you’re a I know dozens of such professors who have to keep their beliefs private out of fear of having their careers derailed; physicists and astronomers to geologists and biologists. I know several who didn’t keep their mouths shut and either got denied tenure and/or contracts not renewed, sources of funding dried up, conspired against by coworkers, in one case a biology prof with his doctorate for over 40 years and tenure for 30 teaching at the same university for most of that time had his classes cancelled, his lab privileges restricted, and his salary frozen for a decade finally accepted a buyout offer on his tenure 10 years ago. It’s horrible what ideologically driven environmentalists and anti-religion academics will do to innocent peers for failing to pay proper homage to the idols of their shabby soft science narratives. In all my years in the computer industry I never once witnessed behavior of this sort and until 5 or 6 years ago had no idea what kind of despicable bullying was going on. It makes me angry and at the same ashamed that the love of my life (science) has such a dark side. Maybe it was always there in one form or another and I just never saw it because in engineering with hard science and practical matters not esotoric unproven toy models and narrative paleo-reconstructions of the distant past. Our stuff either works or it doesn’t and if it doesn’t heads will roll if its a costly mistake because there’s no such thing as tenure in industry. One of the religious physicists I know whose been discriminated agaisnt works in the same building as Roy Spencer and has a long history with NASA in space exploration programs. Another guy, Guillermo Gonzalez at the tender of 30-something ready to be tenured, who pioneered the search and discovery of extra-solar planets, got the cover story of Scientific American for an article entitled “The Galactic Habitable Zone” (a well known term he coined), had more publications than the head of astronomy department, co-authored and advanced astronomy textbook used in many universities, had the temerity to write a book called “The Privileged Planet” which made the point of how exceedingly rare the earth is and how it is perfectly positioned for observing the universe and implying something that rare might be the result of design, which was then made into a documentary where both the book and the documentary were funded by an intelligent design organization (The Discovery Institute) was conspired against by his peers and ultimately denied tenure which amounts to getting a 1-year notice to find another job. Gonzalez was another victim of NASA. His name and work was plastered all over nasa.gov but as soon that controversial book and documentary were made his funding from NASA came to a screeching halt. I have no respect at all left for NASA between that and their participation in the CAGW hoax. NASA used to be a source of intense pride and admiration given I grew up watching the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs unfold. Today I’d vote to dismantle it from the top down and start over from scratch.
Sorry to rant but this is what got me involved in the CAGW wars in the first place. The same kind of shabby bandwagon science-dogma and despicable tactics to censor critics
Mike : “You are equating a possibly onerous government regulation with mass terrorism. Hard to get more alarmist than that.”
Well, you could start by seeing what Vaclav Klaus has to say about the similarities between climate alarmism and communism. http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/1664
Jim : “There seems to be a discrepancy in the article. Early on it says: “The Thompson’s feedlot business started .. at a rated capacity of 1,000 head .. yet later it says “.. their then licenced level of 10,000 head per annum ..”
So which is it? Were they initially licenced for 1000 head or was it 10,000?”
Maybe “rated capacity” and “licensed level” are not the same thing.
Peter Miller : “.. we should also remember there are greenies and there are environmentalists. The latter are usually quite reasonable people ..”
I hope so, I consider myself to be one. In an argument with local greenies/climate-alarmists, over a global warming article (“just another scare campaign“) that I had published in a local paper, I took some pleasure in pointing out my “green” credentials (mud-brick house, geothermal and solar heating, watercourse protection, wildlife corridor, tree-planting) where my critics had none.
Actually, I suspect that many or most of the posters on WUWT are environmentalists.
Jim says:
September 11, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Seems to be saying the facility was ultimately sized for 15000 head, started operating with a permit for 1000, had grown its facility and business and been granted a license for 10,000 head, was fully and deservedly expecting to be licensed for full design capacity, and then instead had its licence downsized to 40% of design capacity for no valid reason. If they’d already invested in capacity for 10,000 such a downsizing would probably collapse the business as they’d still have to pay the capital costs on the now largely idled production line.
Feedlot as in “factory farm and cesspool”? That’s what we have to thank for antibiotic resistant food borne pathogens. It’s time to see such antiquated bogs of filth go by the wayside.
REPLY: You are making an assumption (erroneously) that this particular feedlot was operated in line with your stereotype. I’m met the people, and they do (did) it differently. You don’t know anything about this operation, but you are ready to spout nonsense from your anonymous coward comfort zone. – Anthony
David,
If you’d had difficulty in choosing a name for this thread, I would have suggested:
First they came for the beef producers.
Here’s an LA Times article on the federal suit seeking damages from Phoenix Arizona community college district for asking for documentation of legal right to work in the United States:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/04/nation/la-na-immigration-employers-20100904
The New York Times ostensibly prints everything that’s fit to print. The LA Times prints everything else so take it for what it’s worth.
According to LAT it’s illegal to hire an illegal immigrant while at the same time its illegal to impose additional documentation burdens due to non-citizen status i.e. if a driver’s license and social security number are good enough for citizens then it’s good enough for non-citizens. The justice department has quite obviously singled out Arizona for going against the will of the US chief executive (otherwise known as “The One” who will heal the planet) giving them their marching orders. The USDOJ is making an example out of Arizona so that other states will know what furious wrath and anger will fall upon their house if they don’t obey the commandments of the new messiah.
I can’t wait to see The One try that crap with Rick Perry and the state of Texas which is way too big to be told what to do by an over-reaching over-extended financially insolvent federal government. We’ll secede and take every red state along with us for the ride including Arizona.
Green tyranny, red tyranny, whatever color tyranny is the same.
Get control of government or it will get control of you.
Thanks Anthony, excellent post for this day.
Mike Jonas says:
September 11, 2010 at 3:19 pm
“Actually, I suspect that many or most of the posters on WUWT are environmentalists.”
I can affirm it my case. An environmentalist but not an enviromentalist whacko. I feel a twinge of guilt for cutting down a tree that’s in my way… but just a twinge and think very hard about whether it really needs to be removed because it’s a lot more time consuming to grow a tree than to cut one down. I burn all the wood I harvest in my outdoor fireplace or campfires for light and warmth. I xeriscape (no non-native vegetation or artifical irrigation) to preserve the natural habitat and save precious fresh water even though I live on a lakeshore and can pump all the fresh clean water I want for free out of the lake to support an enormous green manicured lawn like most of my neighbors do. I don’t have any incandescent lights anymore, I use clean burning propane for heating and cooking, I religiously turn off appliances I’m not using and open/close windows as often as possible to help regulate indoor temperatures without electricity, I sunk my newest home addition deep into a hillside to take advantage of the thermal mass of the earth here (72F year-round ground temperature below about 3 feet deep), I preferentially build everything I can with wood instead of metal or concrete, and where I can get away with it I don’t pave but instead use locally dug roadbase and gravel for vehicle and pedestrian paths, so I guess that makes me more an enviromentalist than most of my peers.
Not sure what the policy is Anthony, but the story was reproduced in its entirity here:
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/171/153/Death_of_a_Feedlot_Operator.html
David’s call I presume?
I have friends that work at the CSIRO and at agriculture related government bodies. They are aware of the growing body of evidence which runs counter to the AGW orthodoxy, but have told me that to publicly express their concerns, even in private conversation, at the office would be career suicide.
There is now a standardized language to be use in the Australian bureaucracies, which insulates “Climate Change” from any errant thought deviations or scrutiny. Not only is questioning AGW theory not tolerated, the new official Climate Language with its limited vocabulary and built-in assumptions makes it difficult to even think rationally about possible alternative paradigms.
My friends at the CSIRO, for instance, find solace in the new climate language. They don’t really have to think about the actual science around AGW anymore. It’s settled. It’s the elephant in the room whose name can’t be mentioned, because it has no name anymore! It’s a cognitive dissonance that they push out of their conscious awareness so that they can get on with their daily jobs. When pressed on it, they admit AGW is a dead man walking, but what are they to do? Be a hero? Heroes don’t work at big government technocracies.
Another one of my mates works in a federal bureaucracy in Canberra pushing a mouse in a job only remotely related to any kind of climate concern. He’s a skeptic, like me. Once over beers in a pub in downtown Canberra frequented by the gov.au crowd we discussed the CRU emails with hushed voices, scanning around the noisy bar room paranoid that some one might hear us and recognize him. It was bloody ridiculous. He assured me that he could never use his work computer to visit Watts or CA or Jennifer Marohasy’s website for fear of being outed.
When I chided him on his cowed attitude, he say, look, mate, I got a wife and kids and mortgage. I owe it to them not to trash my career over friggin’ politics. “I’d sooner download gay porn on my work computer than click on WUWT!”
The same atmosphere of fear and self-censoring of thought exists at all our universities, only amplified because academics can be real bullies on high moral crusades to ensure total ideological purity. And not just in science related schools, but right down the so-called “creative industries,” with education being the most intolerant discipline of all. The only people in Australia who feel safe speaking out against AGW are those with nothing to lose: the retired or wholly independent, plus a smattering of contrarian pundits.
For the thousands of Australian academics, technocrats and researchers who have had to learn how to talk, walk and think correctly about “Climate Change” to prosper in the brave new Australian thought gulag the election of a Labor-Green government will only mean increased pressure to purge dissenters from their ranks.
And now they are coming to get free thinking feedlot owners too?
SolarHeat, it is obvious you have not even bothered to follow the links or read the story. Do some research, look at the measures they have taken to protect the environment and the cattle then post something sensible. They jumped through hoops to please the council etc. Agencies drove past other farms who were not managing fuel storage correctly in order to have a go at the Thompsons. The fertilizer from the worm farm could have been used in the local wineries. Think about that when you are discussing your comments over a bottle of wine and a nice steak…
(Feedlot as in “factory farm and cesspool”? That’s what we have to thank for antibiotic resistant food borne pathogens. It’s time to see such antiquated bogs of filth go by the wayside.)
At the Joanne Nova link, Janet Thompson writes:
“We obtained a Works Approval (#3600) from the Department of Environment in 2002, and final go-ahead in 2003, after being on hold over a year. That works approval (permission to build) was site-specific. We received permission to construct a 14,940 head beef cattle feedlot in this location. We’ve had 5 licences so far, and had staged our development, so there is a different throughput noted on each one. We have built to a capacity of 10,000, and operated at that level prior to 2008, when the DEC cut our throughput to 6,000 head max. ”
Hope that explains the differing numbers. Apparently the initial licence was for 1000, but over the years new licences where issued, increasing capacity to 10000. The statements in the original account are not contradictory, but refer to different licences (c.2003 and c.2007).
Australia, listen up: You can have a Tea Party (or its equivalent) too….
Richard Telford @ 2:40 pm:
Tell that to the hundreds of millions of people who have died since the “non-ban” was put into place in 1972.
Here’s just one of the many accounts of the history of the “non-ban”. (There are many more out there that are newer, but this one will suffice, for our purposes.)
Call it what you will, but “blackmail” equates to “ban”.
Yes, DDT isn’t a “magic bullet”, but, when used within a well-planned Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program, it is THE single most effective tool in the war against malaria. The tyranny of the early “green” movement condemned hundreds of millions of the poorest people on the planet to excruciating deaths, due to junk science and blind faith in the infallibility of the cause’s “prophets”. Sound familiar?
I don’t know Anthony,looks like the cattle are standing in their own filth in that picture.Is he going to spray the cattle with that hose?He certainly can’t be cleaning the ground.
looks like “bringing the feed to the cattle”means keeping cattle penned in a small area,just like dairy corporations do here in Tasmania.
The only reason to keep cattle in that condition is money,understandable when there is limited space,but that is not so in WA,and not so here in Tasmania.
It’s a bit rough to blame his suicide on environmentalists,they used dirty tactics to close the business down,but suicide is a bit of an over-reaction.
My sneaky suspicion is the environmentalists succeeded because the couple are American.
Can’t have those yanks bring their bad practises down here,especially after their government killed millions in Iraq and tortured men mercilessly.
I met a woman at a party the other day,her daughter was off to America.”I don’t like Americans” she says,I refrained from asking her how many she’d met(welfare dependent,never been out of Australia),and just said I do,no reason to dislike them.
Mike says:
September 11, 2010 at 12:44 pm
You are equating a possibly onerous government regulation with mass terrorism. Hard to get more alarmist than that.
Actually, tyranny and terrorism are allied but not identical. Terrorists tend to be would-be tyrants.
One of the things that upset me about the Thompsons feedlot saga was a written complaint about the smell emanating from the feedlot BY THE PRINCIPLE OF THE NEARBY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. He claimed the school was losing enrolments due to the smell.
An agricultural college FFS. These kids are gunna be knee deep in cowchit when they graduate yet they don’t like farm smells? Bullchit. He is just a green advocate.
By the way, the manager of the feedlot felt responsible for the debacle, hence took his life. A farmer commits suicide every 6 days here in Oz. Shame on us.
Larry Fields says:
September 11, 2010 at 3:43 pm
With respect to the etiology of the title, it is a literary allusion to “Death of a Salesman”. I hope somebody got it. Thanks for the suggestion. The Greens are pretty indiscriminate about who or how many they kill. In February 2009, 187 people in Victoria died from being burnt to death in bushfires. Most of those deaths, and perhaps even all of them, would have been avoided if controlled burning of forests had been undertaken. Every leaf and twig and branch in an Australian forest is destined to burn, it is only a matter of when and how hot you want that fire to be.
The Victorians weren’t particularly outraged by all those deaths and even returned a Greens MP at the last election. It begs the question of what the public’s pain threshold is.
“One of the things that upset me about the Thompsons feedlot saga was a written complaint about the smell emanating from the feedlot BY THE PRINCIPLE OF THE NEARBY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. He claimed the school was losing enrolments due to the smell.
An agricultural college FFS. These kids are gunna be knee deep in cowchit when they graduate yet they don’t like farm smells? Bullchit. He is just a green advocate.
By the way, the manager of the feedlot felt responsible for the debacle, hence took his life. A farmer commits suicide every 6 days here in Oz. Shame on us.
”
To echo what Anthony said in reply to a post higher up, you don’t know anything about this operation, or the college principle involved, or the college, but you are ready to spout patent nonsense from your anonymous coward comfort zone. – Peter
REPLY: Being from Australia, he might know just a bit more about it than you do, being from the UK. – Anthony
“The Greens are pretty indiscriminate about who or how many they kill.”
What a horrible accusation David. Can’t we debate things here without accusing people of being killers?
REPLY: Being from Australia, he might know just a bit more about it than you do, being from the UK. – Anthony
He might, he might not – he’s anonymous, how are we to know? I’ve been involved in the industrial farming industry all my life – industrial farming is, I can say to you from personal experience, a unpleasant, smelly, and (for the animals concerned) degrading business.
But, yes, I don’t know everything about the case involved. That doesn’t mean those who ruled against the people concerned are killers, or fascists, or part of some supposed tyranny – it’s absurd hyperbole to use such words when one things of the reality of places like Stalin’s USSR, WWII Germany, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia.
REPLY: “He might, he might not – he’s anonymous, how are we to know?”
Well, he’s not anonymous to me, I’ve met him, shaken hands, and spoken at length. My suggestion is rooted in experience, yours is not.
Also speaking from experience, the local greens (BEC) here in my town fought the improvement of a major highway intersection for ten years, throwing every roadblock they could in front of it, causing studies, escalations of fees, escalations of public monies.
Meanwhile people kept getting killed on that road and intersection while greens battled the improvements. One day, a little boy 2 years old was killed when the car he was riding in with his mother was broadsided at the intersection. That was the straw that broke the camels back, and people said “enough” and our local Congressman pushed it through.
Had the intersection been improved ten years ago, that accident and many others would not have occurred. Do I and many others blame the greens and their pointless delays for some endangered plants (which were mitigated anyway) over public safety? Yes. Have they apologized for their delays which resulted in continuing fatal accidents? No. – Anthony
Dave springer,
You do us no favours by comparing our struggle against Mann Made Global Warming ™ as being the same as those religious extremists who believe in creationism!
In fact a better analogy would be between the warmists and creationists! After all, they have both attempted to undermine education with their religious stench!!!
Mailman
They spent a full twelve months getting their Works Approval for 15,000 head. That’s different from an Operating license. They need both.
At the time they got the hard won Works approval to build, they didn’t even need an operating license – they could run as a registered operation. But things changed. They were later deemed to need a license, and the cattle head number in it was progressively lifted year after year. Things went ok until Matt spoke out as skeptic in 2007. About the same time, emails from the department suddenly increased, and their approval for 10,000 was then reduced to 6,000, which meant they were forced to run at a loss.
They had applied for the bigger licence 11 months in advance, and yet it was 4 months late and far smaller than hoped. When they appealled it took another 14 months for the appeal to be decided in their favour (on a 2 year license there was only 6 months left!) There was not enough time left to take out loans and make it work.
They had already arranged contracts for massive water deals and feed they would not use but had to pay for. They had no idea it would take so long to appeal. The uncertainty, and fickle, unpredictable rulings would break any business.
Don’t bring your investment money to West Australia.
The Thompsons ran a profitable business, filled in every form, complied with every ruling, and broke no laws, and they look like they will lose everything.
I am ashamed our government has done this to them.
When we started discovering large amounts of uranium in the Northern Territory, 250 km ESE of Darwin, we became unpopular companies. We, likewise, had filled in every form, gained every permission, complied absolutely with the law and its letters.
On one hand we had numerous mineral leases granted by the Commonwelth, that required us to spend money on each lease. On the other hand, we had a new greenie Act about World Heritage, masterminded by yet another haughty Pom, which would make it illegal to mine anything on any land so declared. So we went to the Federal Court, where we won our case before the sole Judge. The Commonwealth appealed to the Full Bench, but note the “trick” – they changed the Act to make it impossible for us to win again. See in the Reasons for Judgement later:
“The enactment by Parliament of the National Parks and Wildlife
Conservation Amendment Act, 1987 should be noted. This Act inserted s.10(1A)
in the principal Act providing:
“(1A) No operations for the recovery of minerals shall be carried on in Kakadu National Park.”
The amending Act was assented to on 18 May 1987, that is, after the
proceedings before the primary Judge in this case were heard and determined.”
The Main Opinion was written by one Judge Murray Wilcox, a former President of the Australian Concervation Foundation without the manners to decline to hear the case because of conflict of interest.
It’s at http://www.law.mq.edu.au/Units/law404/Peko%20FCA%201987%20case.htm
if you are interested.
In the outcome, a great deal of potential and a few hundred million dollars of the day in uranium were lost to the concept of world heritage, perhaps 10-100 times that. One day in the future this will be reversed, but it’s yet another case of a blinkered Government of the Left persuasion taking away the rights and considerable intellectual and financial investment of the private sector. There was no recovery of our legal costs ordered – we had to pay the Government’s.
The creation of world heritage has made no positive difference to the land or its values. It merely attracted more tourists with attendant damage and long flights in aircraft to get there. Immediately adjacent on similar land a fence apart is an Army base later created so tanks could roar around and let loose with big live ammunition.
I’d hate to be a threatened duck in the shooting season desperately looking for the fence line, with limited logic about why some people do incomprehensible things.
Gerry says:
September 11, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Australia, listen up: You can have a Tea Party (or its equivalent) too….
Sorry Gerry
the sad fact is that because we have been so politically laid back “she’ll be right mate” trusted our academics, scientists and while a bit rebellious against the government and paying taxes. pretty naive. We just didn’t see the build up of left leaning academics filling kids heads with Eco Warrior rubbish in the guise of making your guilty parents responsible to our environment and daring to give our kids a better education than we could. And life and opportunity generally was better than in most other places of the world (complacency)
Then there was the massive buildup of government employment particularly in the enviro “sciences” and I agree with Wes George, those places are so dominated by those pushing a government and economist line, based upon the discredited CAGW meme, that any sceptical comment or reasoning could lead to your employment contract not being renewed.
All this crept up on most of us and most didn’t see it coming, as the left wingers have control of most main stream media along with our ABC National Television outlet. Its sad because you can speak with an individual journalist, or privately with a scientist employed at the BOM or the CSIRO, and while they agree CAGW is a hoax of monumental proportions, they are afraid to go out in the open for fear of the irrational religious fervour that is pushing these issues to “save the Planet” from us low life humans.
Older Australians in the main are indignant, but after a lifetime of trusting government, scientists and educationalists, and I might say, distrustful of the elitist far right, its fat chance that individuals will be motivated to form a milk shake party, lest alone a grass roots Tea Party.
Similar in the UK and certainly a factor that enable the rude and crude whitewash of the various inquiries (climate gate) to politically survive. Media scrutiny is almost non existent apart from a few courageous journalists.
I’d like a “tea party” grass roots push, but sorry I can’t see it happening in Australia.
The US is about to go down the same path with the EPA’s new rules regarding dust. Yes, the government wants to regulate man-caused dust.
http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=12899662
I am praying that US voters turn around this insanity before it is too late. If the Democrats retain their power, we are doomed.
Mike says:
September 11, 2010 at 12:44 pm
You are equating a possibly onerous government regulation with mass terrorism. Hard to get more alarmist than that.
_________________________________________________
So if it was worldwide would you equate it with terrorism?
How about A Farmer is Committing Suicide Every 32 Minutes How does that sound?
Because the problem is world wide:
Former President Clinton told a U.N. gathering Thursday that the global food crisis shows “we all blew it, including me,” by treating food crops “like color TVs” instead of as a vital commodity for the world’s poor.
July 26, 2002: Report Finds Fundamental Flaws in WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy report argues that the Agreement on Agriculture fails to account for agri-business’ monopoly over global agricultural trade. http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/891.html
2001 Polish entry into the European Union: EU Chair states intent to remove 1 million Poles from their land, 60% of Portugal’s farmers already gone: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/savePolishCountryside.php
2002 Effect of policies on farmers in USA and Mexico: Between 1995 and 2000, the prices US farmers receive for corn declined 33 percent, 42 percent for wheat, and 34 percent for soybeans… since NAFTA went into effect 33,000 small farmers in the US have gone out of business— more than six times the pre-NAFTA rate. According to a study by Jose Romero and Alicia Puyana carried out for the federal government of Mexico, between 1992 and 2002, the number of agricultural households fell an astounding 75% – from 2.3 million to 575, 000 http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/ftaa/topten.html
Farmer suicides in India: Now the full toll—surely among the largest sustained waves of suicides in human history—is becoming apparent. And as Sainath emphasizes, these numbers still underestimate the disaster, since women farmers are excluded from the official statistics… It is important that the figure of 150,000 farm suicides is a bottom line estimate…. As Professor Nagaraj puts it: “There is likely to be a serious underestimation of suicides…what has driven the huge increase in farm suicides, particularly in the Big Four or ’Suicide SEZ’ States? “Overall,” says Professor Nagaraj, “there exists since the mid-90s, an acute agrarian crisis. That’s across the country. In the Big Four and some other states, specific factors compound the problem…. Cultivation costs have shot up in these high input zones, with some inputs seeing cost hikes of several hundred per cent… Meanwhile, prices have crashed, as in the case of cotton, due to massive U.S.-EU subsidies to their growers. All due to price rigging with the tightening grip of large corporations over the trade in agricultural commodities.” http://alternatives-international.net/article1394.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/sainath02122009.html
You want examples of Government agents terrorizing farmers?
http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/mad_sheep:hardcover
http://www.readthehook.com/Stories/2006/10/05/COVER-boarSlaughter-F.doc.aspx
Heck they are even attacking little old ladies and churches!
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/5051/happy-easter-state-of-pennsylvania-plays-grinch-on-catholic-church-pies/
Just because MSM is not covering the “war against independent farmers” does not mean that war is not happening. I imagine you and the rest of the mollycoddled politically correct will only wake up to this insidious war when you find you can no longer buy cheap, readily affordable food. But once the farmers are gone, one it is illegal to grow your own food, once all the good farm land is owned by multinational giant corporations it will be too late.
It’s the same with the mighty EU and its regulations. They take years to bring into being as everyone and his wife must have a say and then when they are introduced they are used to bad result with those in charge unable to do anything because everyone needs to agree any changes.
The way fish are conserved by throwing back all the ones not in the quota is foolish but that is the law, to see perfectly good fish thrown back dead or dying is heartbreaking but if the fishermen bring them in they can lose everything as laws to claim the assets of drug dealers can be used to take their boats, homes and cars.
“Onerous” (murderous) government regulation can be worse than terrorism: terrorists, at least, risk their lives, while criminals in the government hide behind the law and armed forces.
The Environmentalist jihad against animal husbandry in Australia is not limited to the Thompsons. Here’s a link to a news story about the plight of a family-owned chicken farm in New South Wales.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/feathers-fly-over-council-complaints-20100515-v5dh.html
I think that a proactive solution to the ‘noise problem’ would have been stronger disclosure laws on residential real estate. Then the newly-arrived NIMBYs could still shed crocodile tears, but they would not get any political traction in their quest to screw a farming family, in order to improve residential property values.
Anthony and David, thank you for further exposing our plight.
Thanks, too, for those of you who have taken the time to comment…even the ones opposed to us, as it gives us a chance to respond in a public forum. We appreciate that heaps.
I see what we all fight as being very fundamental: Centralised control versus individual freedom and responsibility. Everyone should know that this is not just about us. These policies are affecting productive people everywhere, and good people must be aware of it.
Seeing as how a few people insist on taking this issue off-topic (and onto animal welfare issues), I’ve copied the following response I put up on Jo Nova’s site, FYI…
******
There is much talk of whether feedlotting is a safe and responsible production practice. I believe that this is not an appropriate tack within the context of this discussion or our over-all problem, but since detractors will continually bring it up, I’d like to respond.
First, feedlotting is not an illegal practice, and any animal welfare or food safety issues should be dealt with separately from environmental issues. Animal rights activists make up a good portion of the movement against us. We welcome genuine people interested in the truth. The animals in our facility were treated very well, fed freshly-produced feed every day, and had an unlimited supply of clean, fresh water. They were happy, content, and always treated humanely. When one of our enemies reported us to the RSPCA, I proudly gave the inspector a 1.5 hour tour of our place. She was highly complimentary, and said farmers should get their story out more, because ours was a very good story.
We’ve actually given many tours to the Ag School classes, we’ve spoken to the classes at the school (as late as late 2009!), and we’ve had many students work with us. Our relationship with the students and staff of the college has been wonderfully positive. Not so with the few administrative people who are philosophically opposed to progressive agriculture, and the top guy who is an adamant global warming advocate and attacked us at one liaison group meeting for our greenhouse gas emissions.
Second, the feeding of grain is commonplace, whether animals are in the paddock or in a feedlot. We would not have the necessary year-round supply of cattle to keep abattoirs in operation were it not for this practice. The feeding of grain to cattle is proven safe and effective, and it has allowed us to greatly improve efficiency, which is great for the environment and for continuing to feed the world. I’m very proud to be an environmentalist and one of the true “greenies,” who understands that the better we get at producing efficiently, the more land and resources are available for environment.
Food Inc has been mentioned, which is an atrocity of mis-information. We use antibiotics to treat sick or injured animals that have bacterial infections. We probably use antibiotics more responsibly than humans do, because we recognise that they will not be effective against viral infections, and would waste money were we to treat all with antibiotics. Our wonderful employees (and us, too) walked each pen every day to check for sick or injured animals. We taught animal handling techniques based on Temple Grandin’s “flight zone” concepts, and animals were calmly and quietly pulled out of the pen for treatment. A high tech and sophisticated regime for every possible health problem was in place, and a “hospital” was available for those animals that needed additional care or treatment and who could not go “home” immediately.
And, we’d like to point out, our well-designed and well-run feedlot is not the exception. We’ve been to many feedlots the world over, and have worked extensively in feedlots and saleyards. The overwhelming majority of producers care deeply for the animals in their care, and spend significant resources training employees in how to properly care for these creatures. Cattle in feedlots are happy and content. If that were not the case, they would not perform well, and everyone involved would lose money. So, just as getting better at production is good for the environment, taking better care of our animals and employees is good for the bottom line. It truly is a win-win situation. How exciting is that!?
****
Matt and I are happy to answer any genuine questions you might have. Many questions have been asked and answered at Jo’s site (there are two stories on there), but we’re happy to clarify anything for anybody.
Thanks again…!
Kind Regards,
Janet
It needs to be recognized that Matt and Janet Thompson are people of exceptional integrity who operated a business that was outstanding in every respect. No expense was spared and no stone left unturned in their pursuit of production of a first-class product in a state-of-the-art establishment, in which the needs and welfare of the cattle as well as of their family and their employees was paramount.
No business was more deserving of success. However, it is clear that it was after they committed the ‘unforgiveable sin’ of seeking to expose the fraud of AGW that they came under severe attack. They are not alone in suffering this fate. It has also been the experience of many dissenting scientists and others who have been unfairly ostracized and cruelly persecuted after speaking out against this fallacy.
As well, the livelihoods of numerous other farmers are being impaired through restrictions due to legislation enacted in conformity with AGW agenda. Nothing must stand in the way of its global objective. As Vaclav Klaus has asserted, the climate debate is essentially a debate about freedom.
The agenda is control, and freedom and justice are the casualties, and thus many innocent persons suffer.
Mike says:
September 11, 2010 at 12:44 pm
You are equating a possibly onerous government regulation with mass terrorism. Hard to get more alarmist than that.
No – a group of green mafiosi-apparatchiks, taking the green light from government regulation, conspired maliciously to close the Thompsons’ successful and growing feedlot business leading to the suicide of L Boseley. They drove them off the land for unacceptable political views.
In 2008, Narrogin was Zimbabwe.
That’s a thought – Joe Romm should ask Robert Mugabe to make a guest post on Climate Progress – Mugabe has curteiled capitalism and reduced CO2 emission in Zimbabwe – a model green president.
Oh – except that his economy is propped up by China. Hang on – so is the economy of Australia!
The animal welfare theme on this thread is a pure red herring and distraction.
Matt and Janet Thompson were evidently good and conscientious feedlot operators. But by and large they were feedlot operators like all decent Australian feedlot operators.
They were not lynched for being feedlot operators and being (supposedly) nasty to animals. They were lynched for expressing anti-global warming views.
ANTHONY!!!!! Urgent!!!!!!!!!!!
UPDATE, Banks given the family 4 Days to go.
breaking the Dec 31st stated before.
http://agmates.ning.com/group/propertyrightsaustralia/forum/topic/show?id=3535428%3ATopic%3A135892&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic
URGENT!!!!!!!!!!!
The four days notice is four calender days, not four working days. The notice was served on a Friday afternoon. This makes it hard to make contact with legal advice until the the notice is already half expired.
The Thompson’s have only 72 hours left to leave minus their land, business, car, furniture and what little money available in their bank account.
To find out more please go to the following links
http://www.agmates.com/herald/urgent-help-thompson-family-in-trouble/
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/09/4-days-notice-the-thompsons-are-served-notice-of-eviction/
Thanks, Noeleen.
It isn’t whacko to think of animals’ comfort.
AGW aside, feedlots look pretty gross. The political motive for closing this farm may be wrong, but I’m not so sure about the environmentalist one. We shouldn’t confuse the two or we’d be just as guilty of “going IPCC” as the rest of them.
Looks like the feedlot in the photo is so big, two more of them would stretch all the way to town. 4km is about an hour’s walk.
What’s the population of Narrogin?