It appears that recently there is a concerted effort by the green lobby to further alienate farmers and in particular farm organisations, so that any message that challenges their views will be dismissed as vested interests. The organisation I represent “The Beef Plan Movement” is funded completely on members subscriptions and all activity to-date have been provided on a 100% voluntary basis. In contrast members of the Environmental Pillar group have seen massive increases in funding from the current government and somehow, we are portrayed as a vested interest.
Like Trump’s ‘fake news’ defence, anyone who challenges their view are laggards, denialists or more recently far-right supporters. I believe that climate change is happening, but to properly address this we must be honest in recognising the causes of the GHG (Green House Gas) build-up to-date. Too much of what is being presented as a solution is not based on science but rather politics. I often wonder if environmentalists are becoming the new accountants. We shouldn’t burn peat in our power stations, but its ok to import wood chip from Brazil instead. We stopped production of peat briquets, but imported ones are now available. In effect we are offshoring our emissions by shutting down production in Ireland and importing the products instead at a higher environmental cost, which might be ok on paper, but won’t save the planet. The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has already highlighted that Irish emissions are 75% higher when based on consumption instead of production. Maybe it is easier for urban TD’s to blame the culchies, rather than to ask their own constituents to cut back on their consumption.
The selective science of the green lobby will only delay our ability to address the real issues facing the planet. For example, they refuse to recognise the huge stores of carbon that farmers have built up in their soils through permanent pastures and that if we plough that land to produce vegetables, that carbon will be lost to the atmosphere. They also will not acknowledge the carbon stored in trees and hedgerows on Irish farms. Why is it that a tree in a forest is considered to sequester carbon, but a tree in a field doesn’t?
More importantly they refuse to acknowledge that methane produced by cows is part of the fast carbon cycle, no different to the methane from rice production, trees, or wetlands. These emissions must be treated differently to fossil fuel emissions because no additional carbon is added to the atmosphere. The methane from all the cows that lived on the entire planet prior to 2010 no longer affects our climate, but some of the CO2 from the industrial revolution still does. Professor Alice Staunton from the Royal collage of surgeon’s has highlighted that meat-based diets have a lower carbon footprint than plant-based diets, when you measure food based on its nutrient density instead of weight, but that science doesn’t count either.
The real focus on farmland is not because of the emissions associated with farming, but rather the emissions associated with other sectors. The target set out in the Climate Action Bill is not to have no emissions, but rather have net zero emissions by 2050. This means that certain emissions will be permitted to continue, but actions will be taken to remove (sequester) the equivalent amount of carbon from the atmosphere. Carbon capture technology has failed to-date to deliver as a real solution, so the only way to sequester carbon is through land use. If none of the current carbon removal by farmers is counted, then any change of land use in the future, is considered a 100% gain. (Accountants call this profit-shifting)
A major flaw in their accountancy rules was recently exposed, when it became apparent that all of Ryanair’s emissions will be counted in Ireland. As a result, Ireland will have to reduce its own emissions or sequester carbon so that Ryanair can continue to fly German tourists to Spain for their holidays. There have been some rumblings that those emissions should be counted in the country where the fuel is consumed; if that were to happen, why would you not do the same for food?
If some emissions are deemed so necessary or so lucrative that they are allowed to continue, then the actions to offset these emissions should be equally lucrative. Ideally those who benefit from the emissions should be taxed to offset the payments for the sequestration. If farmers are going to stop food production to offset these emissions, they need to get an income for that work, not a short-lived grant to transition. Most of the schemes proposed to date involve payments for a limited time period, after which there will be no further income, but the carbon removal by the land use change will be continuous, so the income should be continuous. Farmers who availed of the forestry grants in the 90’s received a grant for a fixed number of years but after that the planted land can never transition from forestry and to add insult to injury the government are claiming the carbon credits for the forestry and none of those payments are passed to the landowner.
If we are to save the planet there needs to be less rhetoric and more honesty around what is scientific and what is not. To succeed we need to carefully strike the balance between looking after the planet and providing for all the people who live on it. We also need to promote dialog between the groups affected by this crisis rather than alienating groups you disagree with. We are not right-wing; we are rural and you literally cannot achieve your goals without us.