Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Farmers in the Netherlands have reacted with fury to government demands they cull their herds to help Holland meet their nitrogen emission targets.
Incredible Pictures: Thousands of Tractors Shut Down Highways in Farmer’s Anti-Green Madness Protest
Thousands of farmers shut down highways in a go-slow protest converging on the Dutch capital Monday, as they protested being victimised by a government trying to meet European Union emissions laws by cracking down on agriculture.
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The day of protest is the thirds of its kind and follows another at the start of October. At the time, Dutch media reported the protests were against a call by the government that herds of animals reared for food should be culled so the nation could meet its European Union-imposed nitrogen emission targets.
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The Dutch police and army, on the instructions of the centrist-globalist prime minister Mark Rutte, attempted to shut down the main roads leading into the capital Wednesday, but using the off-road capabilities afforded by driving a tractor, the protestors simply drove around the blockades, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports. Rutte called on farmers to “keep the peace” and follow the instructions of police.
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Read more (Lots of pictures): https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/10/16/incredible-pictures-thousands-of-tractors-shut-down-highways-in-farmers-anti-green-madness-protest/
Telling farmers to cull herds built up over generations, destroy their own livelihoods, just to please some bureaucrats in the EU and meet absurd nitrogen emission targets. Yep, that was always going to work.
The EU nitrogen targets are a heavy handed out of touch bureaucratic effort to tell farmers how to manage their fields. Just as it was in Soviet times, city based EUSSR bureaucrats believe they have a much better understanding of farming than the people who actually work the land, and have no qualms about setting unrealisable targets and making unreasonable demands.
Just try to take away a subsidy or tariff protection though and there will be instant revolution.
What is the carbon footprint of a bonfire?
Subsidies and cash payments will be used to get compliance. Of course later when the food is gone or too expensive to buy there will be an emergency for the EU to correct. Sheer madness
Q. Why are politicians brains worth so much more that farmers brains?
A. Politicians brains of course.
Do you realize how many politicians you need to make up a kilo of brains?
1,000 would be my guess.
or did you mean a kilogram of brains?
😉
Kilogram.
Lazy use of the truncated unit.
I was gonna say supply availability
Politician brains are a rare commodity
Q. Why are politicians brains worth so much more that farmers brains?
A. Politicians brains of course.
They are brand new. Never used!
Och munn, It’s NOT ONLY in the Netherlands, but also in Germany,and to some extent, here in the UK, that we have to comply with lot of this nonsense: partially OK in terms of soil-borne pollution via run-off into streams, BUT farmers generally wouldn’t want to be wasting their valuable fertiliser resources. Catch & Hammer the cowboys, OK, but not rule with a heavy fist. Seasons ( Note: – not climate) change annually and to set operations by a calendar date is just nonsense. Reminiscences of a soviet era etc etc as mentioned all above.
Nitrogen emissions?
I have no idea. Three quarters of the atmosphere is nitrogen. There are lots of nitrogen fixing plants. Maybe those plants should become illegal.
It sounds like ‘carbon pollution’ which is a dog whistle for atmospheric CO2. ie. complete BS propaganda
It is that the nitrogen ends up in a water body where algae then bloom same as phosphorus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication
The obvious and easy fix is simply limit farm fertilizer use of these things to prescribed limits and that is what is done in most developed countries 🙂
As Jaap Titulaer points out below:
I’m pretty sure the natural nitrogen concentration in the soil is way more than 1 gram per hectare.
Just don’t plant peas or pee…
They’re worried about ammonia. BFD so far as I’m concerned.
It probably oxidizes to NOx and falls in the rain as fertilizer.
Meanwhile soil bacteria fix about a gazillion tons of nitrogen per year, turning N2 into ammonia, right there in the ground. Where, of course, some of it wafts up into the air.
Maybe Brussels will pass a law against Azotobacter.
Perhaps ban N fixing crops…..goodbye peas, goodbye soybeans [at least that would mean the end of the soy latte], goodbye shamrock
Here is the real story: the Dutch are already at or below the EU target levels!!\
Have been since a few years after a 25% decline in less than a decade.
So there is no crisis. That is the sick part of this shit show.
But the stupid politicians do not have relevant degrees, so they did not understand the RIVM data.
I’m sorry but even with a non-Beta degree or non-university degree: how can you NOT understand the basics???
You see, at the same time, they had a related law kicked out by the supreme court (RvS). That was a typical NL law that was aimed at allowing certain officials to grant permits to simply circumvent all rules (unnecessary because NH3 was already declining enough.
But they thought they really needed that.
And apparently some idiot lawyer changed the limit per hectare from ca. 30 kg per hectare to 1 GRAM per hectare! An issue with a few zero’s….
Maths is difficult.
But anyways, it was destroyed by the RvS. So now the stupid politicians thought they had an issue, oblivious to the fact that the RIVM data showed that the goal had already been achieved!
Calling upon science, which they do not understand, and after ordering the ‘independant’ (scientific) RIVM to shut up and follow their marching orders, they decided that a lot had to be done.
Because there is a CRISIS! (There isn’t but, you know alphas).
So they decided to withdraw (unilaterally) any permit already granted to farmers. At least any space ‘not used yet’. Oddly enough that pissed of the farmers (…).
So you have a permit for 100 cows, but you only have 70, natural growth in existing stables will bring that to 80 soon, and you have the permit for 100 because you are going to replace your stables to newer and slightly bigger ones. And the bank wants to see a permit before you get the loan, so you have the permit,
OK?
And then the government suddenly pulls the plug. That is unlawful, and they would lose in the courts in say 5 years time, but by then you are bankrupt!
Hence the farmers are pissed.
People like me have been working on it and a presentation by experts in parliament left the politicians in great confusion.
They had just been told that their suppositions as to the technical details were wrong (no crisis, models are wrong by 30% at national level and locally up to 100%, etc) and the second group were the lawyers, who explained that the actions they were taking would not stand up in court (true, but only after many years of litigation).
So that is what happened.
We’ll hear on December 1st what the next plan is. some of the politicians have now been educated, but it’s a long road ahead because it seems we have to start with the basics.
How can you NOT understand this:
(the dotted line is the EU-limit.)
I hope they have read my posts and similar explanation by people who have actual relevant degrees from the world’s top 50 universities.
If not, well …
Jaap Titulaer
Brilliant to hear that the farmers are being listened to and may be able to carry on earning a living… I am a vegetarian from birth due to religion, but I’ve never had a problem with anybody eating, meat/fish/eggs…
…and is farmers who diversify to produce your vegetables!
Yikes,
He’s describing a Catch 22.
Poor Science understanding related to policy decisions without due diligence!
I’m off the Climate Etc to see if the comments are more insightful.
I’m surprised, so far this isn’t being covered on Climate Etc.
Well done, this is a great 2nd day follow up article. Consider submitting an article here so it can vetted and tweeted around the world.
Also, consider submitting your research to the EU directly to give them a chance to correct the issues. If they ignore the research the news headlines will demand EU member nations to respond.
Jaap Titulaer,
Please post a link or two to similar explanation[s] so I can forward comments to the Breitbart author “Oliver” to improve his “Twist”.
Your framing of the issues is far more insightful.
Thanks,
John
Now can any of you explain why Brexit is a bad idea?
But But your Nitrogen emissions ….. how dare you.
BINGO
Sending Farage to the EU and vetoing their budget every year would be a blessing to the regular citizens of Europe.
ORANJE! Lang leve de Koning! Lang leven de boeren!
WAY TO GO Farmers…..!!!!
I wonder how long it would take before the Extinction Rebellion clowns began to complain about disrupted infrastructure if the farmers were to keep this up.
“….’cause the taxes on the farmer feeds us all”
Oh, well, after all only about 80% of the air we breathe is N2. Good luck regulating that.
That’s why they tax N2O emissions in a scheme that Ponzi would be proud of.
NH3 is an invisible gas. Hence it is a mysterious boogie man and the knee-jerk superstitious Dark Age moron ruling class is weepingly afraid of it.
NH3 cannot be measured with any precision or accuracy because it floats around in swirls and plumes and dissipates into the entire atmosphere and dissolves into the rain.
But you can’t see it. Is it there? Maybe… Panic attack! Let’s shut down the farms. Kill all the cows! Ban milk, cheese, ice cream. The peasants can starve to death, and that will SAVE THE PLANET from all the boogie men.
Hooray for the brave bureaucrats. But what they don’t realize is if the peasants get hungry enough, they will EAT the bureaucrats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hot sauce futures are on the rise.
Brexit is a great idea, and I strongly hope it comes to pass. Extending it to the other nations and disbanding the EU would partially correct the evils the EU has accomplished, so I’d be for that also. The whole idea of delegating home rule to a bunch of bureaucrats from halfway across the continent should be horrifying to any freedom-loving person, but I suspect the whole of Europe has been led to this situation by honey-tongued Communists. The Netherlands tractor rebellion is a good sign, but much more needs to happen!
If the tables were turned and these farmers were instead, climate change protesters, would the Army have been called in? Seems to me that left wing protesters get more free passes.
Spot on !
Instead of the traditional execution of being pulled apart by 4 horses perhaps we will get to see the green politicians pulled apart by 4 tractors.
The real world is colliding with models and millenarist fantasies.
So EU Mercedes are no match for Danish tractors? Who knew?
Nitrogen emissions?
We need a strong anti-green movement. People need to know that they are not alone when they ignore the global warming fallacy and other deceptions that fill elite’s pockets.
Did you see how little critics Greta got? We are too submissive against bullying. Let’s fight back.
Nitrogen is not a pollutant, Nitrates in ground water are.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, carbon (particulates) in air are.
See how they confuse and rule.
Contrary to what the Greens might think, farmers love and care for their livestock and telling them to destroy their herds is like killing a family member.
When my father in law sold his herd, he cried for days: much more than when either of his daughters got married.
The members of the 2e Kamer (or dutch congress) don’t know how Lucky the have been. I have heard that the first plans included pumping a couple of Thousand gallons of manure in too the main room. I think that the farmer where concerned with the wellfare of the politicians because of the lack of shit for them to play in LOL
The frustration is more about nullifying previously granted permits by the courts, ruling that government used an inadequate assessment model to calculate emissions. But foremost the farmers feel provoked and rightly so that no consistent agricultural policy has been in place for decades. Cattle numbers have been cut by over 70% the last four decades whereas other nitrogen sources have risen by magnitudes and still the pressure is on the farmers. Furthermore, The Netherlands have so many assigned protected natural areas that it is almost impossible to be further than five miles away from the nearest nature reserve! Thus numerous farmers have to comply with highly restrictive emission thresholds that apply in the vicinity of natural areas. I believe the main cock up lies with the court,the court should never have questioned the accuracy of the assessment model,for which no better alternative is available, but only have looked the overall decision making. The national courts are not there to impose international treaties on citizens.
the Dutch farmers have been bombarded by new rules and registrations for decades, forcing them to invest.
A huge gap has grown between the city- and the rural populations.
60% of the soil in the Netherlands is the property of farmers.
The Netherlands is densely populated and also short of houses.
So it is not hard to imagine, that government and banks wants to buyout farmers with public money and sell the ground to project developers. The climate- and environmental laws make this all possible, superseding democracy and honest government.
Just to complete the suggestion made above:
Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbour.
Communism: You have two cows. You give them to the government, and the government then gives you some milk.
Fascism: You have two cows. You give them to the government, and the government then sells you some milk.
Nazism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
Climatism: You wish you had two cows.
Soviet-style Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them, and then makes you wait in a long line for some milk.
The one I heard was –
You have two bovine animals, in California.
You have a cow and a bull.
The bull is depressed.
It has spent its life living a lie.
It goes away for two weeks.
It comes back after a taxpayer-paid sex-change operation.
You now have two cows.
One makes milk; the other doesn’t.
You try to sell the transgender cow.
Its lawyer sues you for discrimination.
You lose in court.
You sell the milk-generating cow to pay the damages.
You now have one rich, transgender, non-milk-producing cow.
You change your business to beef.
PETA pickets your farm.
Jesse Jackson makes a speech in your driveway.
Cruz Bustamante calls for higher farm taxes to help “working cows”.
Hillary Clinton calls for the nationalization of 1/7 of your farm “for the children”.
The Governor signs a law giving your farm to Mexico.
The L.A. Times quotes five anonymous cows claiming you groped their teats.
You declare bankruptcy and shut down all operations.
The “cow” starves to death.
The L.A. Times’ analysis shows your business failure is Bush’s fault.
The NY Times’ analysis shows your business failure is Trump’s fault.
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