From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
We must end our dependence on eating.
Why does anybody treat this nutter seriously?
Perhaps before he makes a fool of himself next time, he might like to check what the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation have to say on the matter:
ABOUT 60 PERCENT of the world’s pasture land (about 2.2 million km2), just less than half the world’s usable surface is covered by grazing systems. Distributed between arid, semi arid and sub humid, humid, temperate and tropical highlands zones, this supports about 360 million cattle (half of which are in the humid savannas), and over 600 million sheep and goats, mostly in the arid rangelands. The distribution of livestock over the different ecological zones is provided in Annex Table 2.
Grazing systems supply about 9 percent of the world’s production of beef and about 30 percent of the world’s production of sheep and goat meat. For an estimated 100 million people in arid areas, and probably a similar number in other zones, grazing livestock is the only possible source of livelihood.
Grazing can be visualized as beautiful cows in lush pastures in north-western Europe or New Zealand-livestock in harmony with nature. Indeed, livestock can improve soil and vegetation cover and plant and animal biodiversity, as described in this chapter’s case studies of widely different conditions in Kenya, the western United States and Guinea. By removing biomass, which otherwise might provide the fuel for bush fires, by controlling shrub growth and by dispersing seeds through their hoofs and manure, grazing animals can improve plant species composition. In addition, trampling can stimulate grass tillering, improve seed germination and break-up hard soil crusts.
However, many people associate grazing animals with overgrazing, soil degradation and deforestation. To them livestock keeping in arid regions of the tropics provokes images of clouds of dust, bleached cow skeletons and an advancing desert. The two most quoted sources are the Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (Oldeman et al., 1991), which estimates that 680 million hectares of rangeland have become degraded since 1945, and Dregne et al., (1991) who argue that 73 percent of the world’s 4.5 billion hectares of rangeland is moderately or severely degraded. In humid areas, livestock are associated with ranch encroachment and deforestation of tropical rainforests and competition with wildlife.
Prolonged heavy grazing undoubtedly contributes to the disappearance of palatable species and the subsequent dominance by other, less palatable, herbaceous plants or bushes. Such loss of plant and, in consequence, animal biodiversity can require a long regenerative cycle (30 years in savannas, 100 years in rainforests). Excessive livestock grazing also causes soil compaction and erosion, decreased soil fertility and water infiltration, and a loss in organic matter content and water storage capacity. On the other hand, total absence of grazing also reduces biodiversity because a thick canopy of shrubs and trees develops which intercepts light and moisture and results in overprotected plant communities which are susceptible to natural disasters.
The environmental challenge is thus to identify the policies, institutions and technologies which will enhance the positive and mitigate the negative effects of grazing. Environmental challenges, issues and options differ significantly according to climate and land capabilities. Livestock-environment interactions are therefore described separately for the arid, semi-arid and sub-humid, humid rainforest, and temperate and tropical highlands grazing systems respectively. As will be seen, that differentiation is particularly important for the arid eco-systems. As aridity increases, so does variability of rainfall, to the extent that the periodicity of rain becomes the single most important factor affecting the state of the natural resource base. Classical concepts of vegetation succession and climax vegetation do not apply in such environments and new concepts are required.
https://www.fao.org/3/X5303E/x5303e05.htm
Forget climate change and all the other things that Monbiot rambles on about. His only real concern, as he makes clear at the end of his rant, is that farming takes up too much land, which he thinks should be rewilded.
And he is evidently happy to condemn billions to starvation to do it.
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“Domino effect of system collapse…”
If you stop all livestock farming in Ireland tomorrow Mr Moonbat you would create a system collapse… for the Irish!
He has no qualms about spouting his heinous diatribe on an Irish state owned television station, in a country known for having endured a terrible famine.
Stop producing food and let the re-wilding begin.
Monbiot rarely makes any sense
What’s “climax vegetation”?
It has a big smile on its face.
That’s when you bump her brains out?
This man is dreaming of the world of “Soylent Green”.
Kibble: Dry compound feed, especially when used as dog food or cat food
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibble
This is one possible method which might be used to discourage people from eating meat.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11774887/Scientists-want-gruesome-cigarette-style-warnings-MEAT-buyers.html?ico=related-replace
We must end our attention to idiots like Monbiot.
Unfortunately, too many people take cranks like Monbiot seriously. That’s why we now have beavers reintroduced to stop floods and reduce climate change! Wolves are on his list to reintroduce too, but that makes sense as something needs to control the beavers. We’ll then need bears to keep the wolves in check!
And then re-introduce humans to manage it all.
In US most beef and port are raising in grain feeding systems not grazing feeding systems. Still have to grow the grain to produce meat or meat analog. What does he want….a totally industrialized food system based on grain farming? This is already arrived in spades in the US.
Another pie in the sky mountebank who has no heart. He wants to reduce the food supply to humans and has no respect for family land ownership or self determination.
The only reason people like this are scary is that in the US too much of the farm land is centrally owned by China and Oligarchs like Gates. Take land out of the hands of average citizens puts average citizens at the mercy of megalomaniacs and ideological mountebanks.
We need land reform fast.
Here are a couple more quotes showing Moonbat’s wisdom:
” …every time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.”
“It is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves”
Monbiot the Idiot.
Back in the ’90’s I spent time on an Animal Rights/Animal Welfare forum.
The water use argument was used by the ARs to end raising and eating animals.
I don’t have the numbers from the USGS anymore but what was always ignored was the water that was then returned to the receiving waters (let alone returned to the atmosphere to then fall as rain).
They argue as if once a cow drinks water or the water in grass it eats suddenly disappears never to be seen again!
Earth, our planet, is a very efficient recycling machine. It can and has even handled Man. Best not to mess with it!
Mr. Moonbat, I’d like to introduce you to Miss Reality.
I don’t think the two of you have ever met.
He is a Guardian newspaper contributor mainly on Green issues and climate change ( man made global warming theory ). His nickname is Moonbat for all of his looney pontifications. He has a dangerous psycho look in his eyes and face when someone disagrees with him. A true fanatic who believes that anything ‘bad’ happening in the world is due to ‘wicked’ mankind and/or capitalism.
First of all, how much did this fricking idjit invest in fermentation vats?
Steve Milloy always called this clown Moonbat.