From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
Northern Ireland will need to lose more than 1 million sheep and cattle to meet its new legally binding climate emissions targets, according to an industry-commissioned analysis seen by the Guardian.
The large-scale reduction in farm animals comes after the passing of the jurisdiction’s first ever climate act, requiring the farming sector to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and reduce methane emissions by almost 50% over the same period.
About a third of human-caused methane emissions come from livestock, mostly from the burps and manure of beef and dairy cattle. Analysis by KPMG, commissioned by industry representatives including the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU), estimates more than 500,000 cattle and about 700,000 sheep would need to be lost in order for Northern Ireland to meet the new climate targets.
Separate analysis by the UK government’s climate advisers suggests chicken numbers would also need to be cut by 5 million by 2035. Both the pig and poultry sectors in Nothern Ireland have seen rapid growth in the past decade.
Agriculture accounts for about 27% of Northern Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions, with the vast majority coming from livestock. Its heavily export-driven meat industry principally supplies Great Britain, but it also exports to China and North America.
Chris Stark, CCC chief executive, told the Guardian that a switch to arable farming would probably be necessary if food production levels are to remain the same in Northern Ireland. “A condition in our modelling is that we produce the same amount of food per head in 2050,” he said. “But it’s very difficult to do this unless you see a change in farming practice, and especially unless you see a shift in arable farming versus livestock.
Not only does agriculture account for a large slice of NI’s emissions (and Ireland’s too), it also accounts for a lot of its GDP, directly and indirectly.
There is a reason why Ireland is dominated by pastoral rather than arable farming. It is because most of the land is unsuitable for growing of crops, certainly to a profitable extent. Much of the land is rocky and the climate is far too wet. That was why Ireland was so reliant on potatoes at the time of the Great Famine.
Currently only 4% of N Ireland’s farmland is arable.
https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/landing-pages/statistics
Although farm labour only accounts for 7% of the country’s labour force, many more depend on the rural economy. Altogether the rural population makes up about 40% of the total in N Ireland. Destroying a large part of farming sector there would be catastrophic for the rural sector. Replacing the meat and dairy sector with, for instance, potatoes would decimate incomes and lead to mass migration out of the countryside.
Perhaps the most shocking part of the Guardian’s report is the reaction of Chris Stark, who is more interested in his modelling than in people’s lives. It also raises the question of just how all of this will be enforced. Farmers certainly are not going to give up willingly.
Shades of the infamous Soviet Land Reforms?
I’m happy they’re not trying to regulate how many livestock there can be, because the pain this entails means people waking up and questioning the BS climate line.
Yes , the whole world is now full up with very stupid people.
More than half* of all adults have below-average IQs. Many of them find they have no real skills that anyone is willing to pay for, so they go into politics.
*This is accounting for traumatic brain injuries in vehicle crashes and war, brain cells destroyed by alcohol poisoning and habitual recreational drug use, and senile dementia.
Below-median, I believe.
It’s a slightly left-skewed Poisson distribution anyway – there are more idiots than psychopaths. They tend to chop off the bottom part of the Bell curve on graphs so it shows as a normal distribution.
Unfortunately, we still clearly have too many psychopaths in places of influence.
Its worse than we thought: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/466262/sea-levels-rising-twice-as-fast-as-thought-in-new-zealand
So the fake crisis of Global Warming alarmism will create a real food crisis. #ClimateScientology at its finest.
The UK gov signed a bloody methane pledge! They didnt ask anyone, they just cowered at the feet of the Vegan lobby! Disgusting, methane is a NONT event as a GH gas, saturated, short life time, and Wiens law states the earth doesnt even produce much energy at the frequency methane absorbs at! I am SICK AND TIRED of the UK govts cowtowing to these MINORITY, extremist, lying, unscientific groups!
The grass that grazing animals eat breaks down into CO2 and into methane (which in turn breaks down into CO2) just the same when the grass dies of old age as when grazing animals eat it and leave it as cow pies. Being digested by livestock makes no significant difference whatsoever in the return of plant-borne CO2 to the atmosphere.
“But the grass would not have been grown in the first place if it weren’t for the livestock industry,” an eco-moron might say. True, in which case something else would grow, and if nothing else grew, if they salted the earth, then the CO2 would never be removed from the atmosphere in the first place. Even eco-morons know this don’t they? Everyone who went to high school knows about the carbon cycle.
Thinking that the lifecycle of animals adds CO2 to the atmosphere is the same as thinking that plant life adds CO2 to the atmosphere. It’s beyond stupid. ALL life on earth is carbon-based. Yet the eco-lunatics are actually trying to get rid of the animals to keep them from returning their carbon to the atmosphere!
personally i’ve never eaten mutton. sounds gross
Slow spit roasted leg of hogget is mmmmmmm.
It’s just like lamb, but tastier.
This will give a major boost to the Reform party – formerly UKIP. The next big agenda will be trashing net-Zero. And after that trying to avoid being invaded by the USA, who under their Irish president hate Britain even more than the EU do.
Just make all the Ulster folk refugees and repopulate the place. Problem solved!
Depopulate…
A water vapor (WV) molecule is more effective as a greenhouse gas than a CO2 molecule. Measurements of both show WV molecules have been increasing 7 times faster than CO2 molecules. NASA/RSS reported WV (TPW) monthly since Jan 1988 but stopped reporting after Dec 2021
A simple analysis
Grass, barley etc eaten by the animals requires C02 to grow. Animals expunge CO2 and methane. Methane breaks down into CO2 in 5-8 yrs Grass etc absorb CO2
Cycle repeats (ok the methane is stronger green house gas but if it remains constant cumulative amount does not increase)
But # people increase and there is the root of the “greenies” problem they won’t address
The Irish people may soon wake up to the fact that the government is taking away their cars, and their electricity and now their food in an effort to fight climate change. Maybe they will come to realize the proposed solutions to climate change are far worse than climate change.
Carbon Credits: Irish Farmers Being Paid to Destroy Their Fields
WattsUpWithThat November 2020
The people of Northern Island are well-armed. Just a thought.
I tend to think of Irish folk as a very intelligent and highly literate population. How on earth did they have enough people willing to vote for this idiocy? If their aim is to reduce the herds of sheep, they may want to focus on the two legged type, or at least try to convert them from sheep to critical thinkers.
I have long suspected the push to Green targets is in part driven by Russian and Chinese interests. The target is to destroy the Western economy. It has been a phenomenally successful program.
The is the ridiculous situation of Europe eliminating fossil fuel production, and importing coal oil and gas from Russia.
Try and buy stuff not made in China. To meet Green targets, manufacturing is shut down, and transferred to China. China has done very well out of this.
Now food production is the enemy. Will we import our food from Russia and China as well?
The idea that livestock (sheep and cattle) contribute to increases in methane (greenhouse gases) is utter nonsense. The non effect of these gases is clearly outlined in a rough web site at http://www.climatebynicol.com. However, beyond that, even if GHGs were a problem methane in particular is created by these animals from plant matter which the year before it is eaten, had sequestered all of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and breaks down into carbon dioxide and water to half the quantity in about 7 years time. Thus after a period of from 30 to 50 years, the methane produced by a given number of ruminants will only replace the same amount of methane that has decayed in that year, providing NO INCREASE in GHGs. Claims that Australia’s herds provide 14% of our GHG emissions are absolute nonsense.
There are now several reports on the internet which confirm this fairly obvious fact. Calls for people to eat less meat only contributes to rises in meat prices and also damages one of Australia’s most important industries. It is quite ridiculosus to suggest that Ireland will need to reduce its . . , stock numbers to meet its obligations. Jihn Nicol (Physicist)
Peasants eating meat? The outrage!