Farmers bring central Dublin to a halt with tractor protest

BdClark

Coincidentally I sent this letter to the producers of the BBC programme ‘Farming today’ earlier this week;

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Charles Mackay -born 1814- wrote the book ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” commenting: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

This chimes with todays mass climate hysteria, so we seem to have learnt nothing in two centuries. The reference to herds is apt, bearing in mind i want to comment on the BBC’s extensive coverage of climate change and its impact on farming. I have no farming background but like to listen to Farming Today and think it is very noticeable how farmers are really catching it in the neck for their Co2 emissions. Can I point out a number of facts which seem to be constantly downplayed by the media in their desire to find culprits, such as farmers?

According to UK govt and IPCC figures (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) it should be noted that ;

Only 3% of Co2 emissions come from man, the rest is natural. Britain’s share of the world’s Co2 emissions is 1.2% of this 3% . Of this, UK Agricultures share is 8.64 per cent of this 1.2% of this 3%. Cattle are responsible for just 2.03% of this 8.64 percent of this 1.2% of this 3%. Sheep are….well you get the picture. The numbers are trivial in the extreme.

Incidentally, digital activity such as streaming Netflix or using social media provides 4% of global emissions and are set to double in 10 years. Now, which is more useful, producing food or posting a video of your cat sleeping, to social media?

Greenhouse gases; Co2 comprises 410 parts per million of the atmosphere. 97% of all CO2 comes from natural sources, not man. (We are being accused of producing that little bit extra which is more than the bio system can absorb) The effectiveness of CO2 as a Greenhouse gas diminishes logarithmically with increasing concentration, with the first 100 ppm being the most effective Natural water vapour at 60,000 ppm is by far the dominant greenhouse gas .

The full IPCC climate report confirms all this, but nowhere states we have ‘Only 12 years to save the planet’ as activists claim. As regards methane, whilst more powerful than Co2, it is measured in parts per billion and its component parts break down after 8 years, so it hardly warrants the obsessive farming attention being paid to it.

Theresa May committed £1 trillion to facilitate actions that will save 3 hundredths of a degree in 50 years, according to New Scientist magazine. Lobbying our govt or blaming our famers is pointless as we are all completely irrelevant players. If our nation disappeared overnight, others would take up our all Co2 output within six months. Environmental protestors would be best to voice their concerns at China with 30% and rising, of global emissions.

UK temperatures The Met office maintain a database called ‘Central England temperatures’ (CET) said to be a good, but not perfect proxy for the Northern Hemisphere, it is the oldest in the world dating to 1659. From it we can see the depths of the latter stages of the Little ice age, the general rise in temperatures from 1695 and that we reached the ‘maximum’ 1.5C Paris agreement guidelines in the 1730’s, 1820’s 1870’s 1930’s and in the modern era from the 1990’s. Intriguingly, CET shows that no one living this century in the UK has known a warming climate, the temperatures in fact have marginally declined from a high plateau since 1998. The Met Office also maintain rainfall records that again demonstrate that there is no sudden increase in rainfall. Not that you would know that from the media hysteria. The temperature figures are here;

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/limate

The IPCC 1.5 degree Centigrade limits for the Paris agreement were bizarrely measured from ‘Pre industrial’ times, generally pre 1750, which coincides with the Little Ice Age. Why are we so worried about currently being marginally warmer than the LIA, the coldest period in the entire 10000 year Holocene? Climate changes. it warms, it cools, there are droughts and floods, as Met Office records demonstrate.

The past climate; Our modern bouts of amnesia regarding previous climatic conditions can be seen to be nothing new by examining the annals of Dumfermline Scotland from 1733/4, when it recorded that wheat was first grown in the district in 1733 for the first time ever, as the climate warmed. However, older records records show enough wheat had been grown further north in the very warm early 1500’s to sustain an export trade.

Climatically there is nothing new under the sun. The last ‘climate emergency’ prior to this modern one, was declared in Parliament by King Charles in January 1661 due to the ‘unseasonableness’ of the weather, following a series of very warm winters and very hot summers. This ended abruptly in the decade of bitter cold in the 1690’s often chronicled by Samuel Pepys. Equally the ‘emergency’ may have been reflected in the extreme hot weather of the 1540’s or the extreme cold weather of the 1560’s or the two years of incessant rain from 1315, providing five times the annual average rainfall with devastating floods and famine. Coming more up to date; A farmer from Buchan in North East Scotland, one of the snowiest parts of lowland Britain, wrote in the agricultural section of the local newspaper during the exceptionally mild winter of 1933/34.
“1934 has opened true to the modern tradition of open, snowless winters. The long ago winters are no precedent for our modern samples. During the last decade, during several Januarys the lark has heralded spring up in the lift from the middle to the end of the month. Not full fledged songs but preliminary bars in an effort to adapt to our climatic change.”

It then goes on to say; “It is unwise to assume that the modern winters have displaced the old indefinitely” and also; “Our modern winters have induced an altered agricultural regime”

Is veganism the answer? I am a life long vegetarian and observe that many vegans appear intolerant of other peoples lifestyles and want to force them to change, citing ‘saving the planet’ as the reason, which will impact fundamentally on beef and dairy farmers. Vegans seem to be given a free ride by those who should be inquiring as to how vegan foods have achieved their mythical ‘planet saving’ status, despite many vegan ingredients being imported –often by air-bearing huge carbon footprints.

For example, “320 litres of water are required to grow one avocado. On average, about 283 litres of applied water are required to produce a kilogram.” Much is grown in land from cleared forests in S America with a journey taking 3 weeks by boat- the most Co2 polluting transport known to man. The contents of many Vegan smoothies or meal ingredients do not bear close scrutiny as regards their environmental footprint. How is all that more sustainable and better than using UK produced food?

Farmers and soil It is true that farmers were culpable in the past for depleting Co2 in soil. However they can become heroes instead of villains by adopting practices that will store much of the Co2 emitted by humanity, as we have striven over the last century to live more comfortably and escape the often short, cold , brutal, impoverished and unhealthy lives of our forefathers. In this respect I thought this article was interesting as it illustrates the amount of Co2 currently sequestered in soil and the huge amount more the soil could absorb;

https://seeedcollege.org/soil-carbon-sequestration-dr-rattan-lal-director-carbon-management-and-sequestration-center-ohio-state-university/

“Soils constitute the third largest C pool (2,300 Gt or billion tons), after oceanic (38,000 Gt) and geologic (5,000 Gt) pools. The soil C pool is directly linked with the biotic (600 Gt) and atmospheric (770 Gt) pools. Change in soil C pool by 1 Gt is equivalent to change in atmospheric concentration of CO2 by 0.47 ppm. Therefore, increase in soil C pool by 1 Gt will reduce the rate of atmospheric enrichment of CO2 by 0.47 ppm. “

The past ecological damage caused by over zealous farming practices such as cutting down trees and hedges, encouraging large open fields, filling in ponds and over use of insecticides affecting insects and wildlife is another matter, and one that does need urgent attention.

However, this aspect has become conflated with claims of a unique man made ‘Climate emergency’ which, when looking at the broader sweep of history, is impossible to discern and is precipitating hasty actions that harms our economy, our hard won gains in human welfare and is specifically targeting our food producers, which is something that we will come to regret.