The 3 experts who have addressed this issue missed by Prof Garnaut are, Geoff Russell (a mathematician and computer programmer), Peter Singer (Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne) & Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Professor of Climate Change at the University of Adelaide).
They conclude by stating,
“Just stop breeding so many sheep and cattle in Australia. And because methane is such a huge contributor to climate change, this is not just an “earth hour” stunt. This is the real deal”.
See the complete Age story here
If the real climate change culprit *is* methane gas from cows and sheep, how can they be exempt from carbon taxing or carbon trading?
When the second-largest current climate change contributor is coal and it gets mentioned 272 times in the Garnaut report and methane from cows and sheep only get mentioned once in the appendices, don’t just think, “We’re safe because we’re special”. Because in a World obsessed with carbon poisoning, no-one is considered special and there are a lot of very influential people out there working on these issues who won’t think you’re special either. If you don’t address it before someone else does it could be to your detriment.
This information is almost certain to get the shock-horror 60 minutes and A Current Affairs shows ranting and they might have a point.
However, I suggest that the World’s farmers work damned hard at ensuring their vegetation can be carbon valued and carbon traded in order to offset the methane production imbalance. If Holden and Coal miners are going to be able to buy carbon credits from forestry plantations then why shouldn’t farmers receive credits from their investment over a couple of hundred years in Australia’s vegetation on their tax-paying farms?!
What do you think
Please leave your comment below
Geoff Russell said
I agree entirely that the Australia’s animal industries should have full lifecycle evalution of their land use impacts included in any carbon trading system. E.g., the 400,000 hectares per annum cleared by (primarily) the cattle industry should be included. The impacts of 6000 cancer cases and about 40000 heart disease cases should also be included, together with the greenhouse impacts of the meat industry’s load on the health system. The bowel cancer cost of
red meat alone is worth about $5 billion (based on estimates from Access
Economics and the Victorian Cancer Council and the World Cancer Research
fund).
Mike H said
Geoff,
It is heartening to hear someone who seems so dogmatically opposed to meat production agreeing with farmers being encouraged to assist further with natural carbon sequestration via carbon credits for their vegetation.
(I’ll leave the cancer to the medicos and purchasers e.g. developing countries, that seem to think the benefits of red meat protein far outweigh its detriments).
rumAnync said
It’s amazing
Global Warming is a HOAX said
Sadly the farmers are too busy out working and getting dirty to understand the SHIfT change that has occured via the communist regime of Rudd.
It is now time for scientists and researchers and critical thinkers to stand up and expose the fraud that is going on with the Carbon Trading and Emmission regulations, in Australia and world wide.
In America, the Farmers are already uniting, here iis Wall Street Journal Article this week.
” Cow Tax’ Uproar Underscores Greenhouse-Gas Divide ”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122913405823603643.html
Mike H said
The article you just referenced doesn’t seem to say anything about farmers uniting. (?) I think it is wishful thinking that farmers might unite on anything much. Gee, they let processors/buyers rip them off weekly and can’t even get together to stop the bloody stock tax (levies) that go to that undemocratic MLA crowd that they don’t even vote for!
The US article does however, say;
“An EPA spokeswoman says the agency “is not proposing a cow tax,” and notes that the document published in July states that the Clean Air Act “does not include a broad grant of authority for EPA to impose taxes, fees or other monetary charges specifically for” greenhouse-gas emissions. David Bookbinder, an attorney for the Sierra Club, says the idea of a cow tax is “a fantasy designed to whip up opposition to regulation,”
I guess you’re one of those people who think the Dodo is still alive in its thousands as well, are you?
Look, whether global warming is true or not, pollution of the planet can’t be good under any circumstance. And at the moment, carbon is our biggest poison. Do you agree with spitting or pissing in the street? Do you agree with trying to cut-back the amount trucks belch-out in black, poisonous fumes?
If our animals are excessively polluting (and recent research has shown that apparently it can be prevented through good farming practices e.g.cell grazing type operations), then we are going to have to face facts that in the modern World we are going to have to address it.
Mate, King Canute couldn’t turn-back the tide!
What did you think about that other comment about gaining tree growing credits to offset the methane production?