Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Even the green leaning Australian ABC is concerned about the arrogant ignorance, of Aussie city politicians lecturing farmers how to improve their farms, by letting the weeds grow.
New South Wales Farmers president Derek Schoen said he was “very disappointed” with the Labor environment spokesman Mark Butler’s approach to climate change policy.
“It is, again, sort of demonising farmers as environmental wreckers, which we definitely are not,” Mr Schoen said.
“We have a vested interest in maintaining the environment and our properties in a sustainable manner, and to again be targeted by Labor, it just proves that some within the party are very slow learners.
“I’m not even sure if Mark Butler has actually put a foot on a property to actually see first-hand how farmers operate their properties in a sustainable manner.”
But the Federal Labor candidate for Calare Jess Jennings, an agricultural consultant, said the Nationals were “scaremongering” on the issue.
He said the policy would encourage farmers to look at ways of reaping the financial benefits of carbon farming and protecting native vegetation.
“The reality is that this vegetation-clearing opportunity represents a positive financial benefit that farmers can tap into,” Dr Jennings said.
“Yes, it’s a different mindset, but I think it’s long-overdue that farmers be recognised for the value that they create in maintaining biodiversity and native vegetation, and Labor’s policies will promote that and reward that.”
…
“When you look at the climate predictions for the central west and the fact that the countryside is going to be getting hotter and drier, I think the last thing that most farmers will be looking at doing is clearing more and more land back to bare dirt.
“The more carbon that you have in the soil, the more protection that farmers are going to have from those hotter and drier climates.”
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-03/labor-defend-climate-change-policy-after-concerns/7378188
During the early years of Australian farming, ignorant government policies enforced total land clearance. Soldiers returning from war were pressured into clearing land granted to them under various returned soldier schemes.
The result of course was an ecological disaster.
The farmers who survived those early years learned from the mistakes. Farming in Australia is now an exact science – vast resources are devoted to working out how to minimise ecological damage, while maximising yields. The last thing any owner of a productive farm wants, is to degrade their valuable land into unproductive desert.
For politicians with little to no farming experience, to waltz into this mature industry with their heads full of green ideas, and lecture farmers on what they are doing wrong, harkens back to the political idiocy of the early years of Australian farming, when armchair bureaucrats with no personal stake in the industry dictated what farmers were allowed to do with their land.
Reading this thread reminds me of the idocy in Zimbabwe when the beuracrats decided that shooting 40, 000 elephants would save the environment.
When they saw the error of their ways, they decided that destroying their stockpile of confiscated ivory would end the poaching of elephants; as opposed to driving the market price for ivory so high that poaching has become even more profitable.
Every time I think I have seen the ultimate in beurocratic stupidity, they fool me and establish a new record.
I am pretty sure that was Kenya.
Every post i read which promotes Sustainability, Green, Smart Growth, comes from the UN Agenda 21 – just Google Rosa Koire, and she’ll tell you all about it. – Phil
Australia, unfortunately, is still technically a British colony, and sometimes that translates to a ‘holier than thou’ attitude by politicians, not to mention academics.
Technically a British colony–what colour is the sky on your world?
It is a constitutional monarchy.
Every post I read a post which promotes Sustainability, Green, Smart Growth, it comes from the UN Agenda 21 – just Google Rosa Koire, and she’ll tell you all about it. – Phil
Modern farming is a capital intensive business — land, machines, “inputs,” buildings. A farmer that doesn’t look after his/her land will quickly become a former farmer.
“…when armchair bureaucrats with no personal stake in the industry dictated what farmers were allowed to do with their land.”
And yet that very principal is a core tenet; not just a suggested feature or something that only some countries have done at various times, but a central “feature” of any socialist organization of government.
And yet in spite of the myriad ecological disasters caused by this mindset, we still have millions of people in the West demanding we abandon the capital/democracy model and wholeheartedly embrace socialism.
It’s an insanity I have a hard time understanding.
Peter Morris commented: “…we still have millions of people in the West demanding we abandon the capital/democracy model and wholeheartedly embrace socialism….”
I don’t think it’s “millions” that even understand what is happening. It’s a well orchestrated and funded plan taking place world wide since the turn of the 19th century. Up until the AGW scare began the UN was a well hidden advocate of destroying Capitalism in favor of one world government masked by “wealth redistribution”. They are very open about it now and getting away with it because Democratic and Capitalistic countries are too complacent and believe the unending onslaught of MSM propaganda either bought by Socialists or owned by Socialist controlled governments. Vote while you can.
Decadent college students, professors, and administrators.
Read:
From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present, Jacques Barzun
Leftists believe that they are so smart that all they have to do is study something for 10 minutes, and they become world class experts in that subject.
The one interesting thing about all these folk that want sustainable anything is that all they want to do is use resources more slowly. How does that solve any problem? You are going to run out anyway.
So the only issue is: will you have developed a successor technology that will support the human race at a higher standard of living and intellectual development so that future is capable of developing the NEXT successor technology for the survival of the human race.
This has only been done in human economy by employing technologies that are more energy dense than previous modes of production. THAT has been NATURE’S answer to the survival and prosperity of our species It will require even more energy and husbandry for us to preserve significant scenic Parks for future generations to enjoy not less. Humanity was become the dominate species on the planet by personifying and complying with the laws of Nature. We and what we learn and decide is evolution in action there is no going back to some fantasy equilibrium. Earth has not been in biological equilibrium since it cooled enough to have liquid water!
“When you look at the climate predictions for the central west and the fact that the countryside is going to be..”
The career path of anyone deducing ‘facts’ from climate predictions should be limited to flipping burgers.
It seems the Dunning-Kruger Effect is working in the Australian Government. It is particularly strong among Liberals and Progressives.