Concentration camps and global warming

[Milkfloat]

It's Big Pharma that are really scary!

It's just a little prick.

 

[mudsticks]

Playing devils advocate here - do we actually know that a million head of cattle is worse for the entire environment in one location rather than spread out over many, many smaller farms? My logic says that assuming standards are exactly the same then the area around the intensive farm with a million head may be totally screwed but that is offset by economies of scale that would mean far less inputs compared to the total of the smaller farms.

I am not saying that intensive pastoral farming is good, but just don't fully understand the figures. I know that @mudsticks concentrates on growing things that don't run away, but I bet she can help me out.

I do mostly concentrate on things that don't run away atm, but I also do and have done extensive / low input livestock keeping too

The numbers are complicated, and like any stats they can be cherry picked depending on what you want to 'prove'.

So there is 'default methane' which was there from all the herbivores that existed wild and farmed before the industrial revolution.

They are not the problem.
The amount of methane and nitrous oxide, and CO2 from fossil fuel usage from intensively farmed livestock, and it's long supply chain model are definitely a problem.

Plus of course even more so is the fossil fuel usage from all the other transport energy heavy industry etc

Factory farming of animals, and intensive arable using fossil fuel inputs to grow, and transport that feed is bad on just about every level , and would cease in an ideal world.

But people demand cheap meat and dairy, that's what they buy overwhelmingly
Even if they have the choice, and resources to buy better, .

Well kept livestock , with well managed grazing, even on peat uplands can sequester carbon into soils .
And are a very valuable part of agroecological farming systems, when designed for specific soils, to recycle nutrients, build healthy biodiverse soils (like healthy biodiverse intestinal biomes) and need to be designed for specific climatic situations.
A lot of this is old knowledge that just needs honouring and bringing up to date with a bit of new science input

(To explain in detail would take pages here, I've written loads* about it already)

But this good grazing methodology is not always practiced, as it is not encouraged or known about, or even possible within the food system and economy as it presently exists in our 'profit before all else' mindset.

These high quality products in the form of nutrient dense chemical free meats and milks in our diets are not valued highly enough.

We need to eat less meat and dairy for sure, but much better quality, and waste far less.
Short supply chains can help massively with reducing waste.
Any surpluses I have are either processed on the farm, or go to our local food bank.

Look up silvopasture, agroforestry, calf at foot dairying, agroecology, community supported agriculture, etc for further details.

Some of these terms are starting to be coopted by bigger agri business as greenwashing for 'business as usual'

Which is annoying, as it takes away from the reality and complexity of what is truly good practice, but it does show that "they' know that this is the way we need to move .

Trouble (for them) is these low bought in imput systems , which require good knowledge, skill and husbandry are not good for extractive capitalistic agriculture, so are discredited or ignored by the present big players, they are contrary to everything they stand for...

But they can work really well.

I agree with much of what George Monbiot says regarding environment issues but his blanket statements about getting all livestock out of the uplands are too broad brush, and does take a whole system approach.

Mixed livestock farming with lower stocking densities can work really well, done right.
For the wider environment, flood prevention, landscape preservation, and rural communities


Where I am right now (in the Pyrenees) trees and natural vegetation, are integrated with productive cattle horses and sheep, people living and working here, and have been so for centuries.
like they say "it's the how not the cow"

I totally agree that the bald uplands, causing erosion, and downstream flooding, of much of UK are wholly unnatural, and come about as a result of our patterns of land ownership, grouse shooting deer stalking etc .
The headage payment on ewes which increased stocking densities in the seventies and eighties were removed years ago, so talk of 'subsidies' on sheep is inaccurate. It's far more complicated than that.

Many (but not yet enough) upland farmers are changing to lower input, lower stocking densities, and encouraging tree regeneration.
But need supporting
In part by longer term thinking in farming policy .
But also by consumers , if there are direct sales involved .

Although a lot of the crossbred lambs produced on the uplands go to be hardy ewes, in turn producing good lambs on lowland farms .
This is why upland farming doesn't look so directly 'productive' if you're a journalist looking at numbers regarding meat directly produced in those places..
Just number crunching like that, doesn't give the whole picture.



The highest expense by far on my farm is labour.
The farming I was 'educated' in at Ag college suggested go big, go for mechanisation and chemical inputs, specialise, get rid of people.

Whilst other industries are lauded for 'job creation' we are told that people are 'inefficient'..
How soul destroying is that?
Particularly when so many people' would like to do meaningful, active, convivial even, work for a fair days pay, on a farm like mine.?

I'd far rather pay motivated people with real skills to input their time, alongside me, than rely on chemicals, and souless expensive tech which ties me into the system of dependancy on corporations like Bayer, and Microsoft.

In turn I capture the full food pound by selling direct, so the likes of Te$¢o don't get their cut.

And I even get to skedaddle of on holiday, knowing that there are concientioys sorts doing a good job of looking after it all..

When I started doing all this for myselfover twenty years ago , I was seen as quite 'fringe' a bit of a weird oddball even.

Now I'm delighted to see that this kind of farming model is proliferating albeit patchily countrywide. We even have whole Regen Ag events..
I can only hope it becomes far more the standard way of doing things

But there are barriers that need removing, such as access to land, finance, training, secure markets. Curbing the overwhelmingly extractive power of the multiples.

This is in part going to come about via policy change, which is where lobbying via larger organisations such as unions comes in .

But it's also down to having an informed food citizenry actively making better food choices where they can..

And yes we need more milkfloats like yourself to do local deliveries..

T; dr ??

Well you'll never get understand even the half of it, it is complicated, farore complex than can be explained in a post on a forum.

Over simplification, is the enemy of good farming and food production practices..

*Ha and there I go again..But you caught me on a 'hiding from the rain, with access to electric and wi fi day' day - So count yourself lucky..

...or not, as the case may be.. 😊

 

[dutchguylivingintheuk]

Congratulatiins. I give you the Michael Fish award.

Yeah because otherwise you have to think for yourself,

Yea right it's all nonsense lol.

Runing ''scientific calculations'' is indeed nonsense, don't get me wrong it's an great way to prove your correctness, it's just that if you really want to put it into real life facts so many other factors come to play that it's really doesn't work that way.

To whom?

You are aware that the term "concentration camp" is very closely associated with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust?

The animals and to an extent humanity but yes i'm aware of that, it;s indeed uite an heavy term.

Playing devils advocate here - do we actually know that a million head of cattle is worse for the entire environment in one location rather than spread out over many, many smaller farms? My logic says that assuming standards are exactly the same then the area around the intensive farm with a million head may be totally screwed but that is offset by economies of scale that would mean far less inputs compared to the total of the smaller farms.

I am not saying that intensive pastoral farming is good, but just don't fully understand the figures. I know that @mudsticks concentrates on growing things that don't run away, but I bet she can help me out.

ssstt, that's what the XR kids don't understand, you making sense now, they only understand how to press the plus button on the calculator, but yes indeed spreading makes nature more able to deal with challenges, hell nature even loves co2 just not to much.

 

[mudsticks]

Yeah because otherwise you have to think for yourself,

Runing ''scientific calculations'' is indeed nonsense, don't get me wrong it's an great way to prove your correctness, it's just that if you really want to put it into real life facts so many other factors come to play that it's really doesn't work that way.

The animals and to an extent humanity but yes i'm aware of that, it;s indeed uite an heavy term.


ssstt, that's what the XR kids don't understand, you making sense now, they only understand how to press the plus button on the calculator, but yes indeed spreading makes nature more able to deal with challenges, hell nature even loves co2 just not to much.

Thing is, I am with the XR kids too.

For so much of it
Especially the woeful neglect of this life threatening issue, perpetrated by previous generations .
They're correct, their futures look bleak, and it's happened on 'our watch'.

I was made aware of it in the 1970's , and since then??

So much kicking of cans down the road in pursuit or allowing of short term profit

I and many others have spent years and much energy campaigning, coming up with solutions, modelling differently, but always getting push back from vested interest.

Whilst the capitalistic fossil fuel party continued, one way or another.

I don't agree with the simplistic 'go vegan to save the planet' mantra , it's far too broadbrush, but it comes from a largely urbanised population uneducated in farming.
No wonder they're uneducated in these matters, how often do they get to visit a well run farm, and understand its systems??

But I'd totally back doing away with industrialised factory farming.

And giving far more people access to land, and to the chance to produce good food better.

So I'm standing with the XRs , the protestors, the activists , the youth who care , and want some hope for the future.

I may not be glueing myself to things, or living in the trees atm, though I've done it in the past..

Right now I'm doing the more 'boring' political activism stuff , because my age and experience gives me some access to those spaces.
But I wouldn't rule out ever seeing me chained to a fracking rig in the future, still fighting for a livable future for our youth..

 

[Milkfloat]

I do mostly concentrate on things that don't run away atm, but I also do and have done extensive / low input livestock keeping too

The numbers are complicated, and like any stats they can be cherry picked depending on what you want to 'prove'.

So there is 'default methane' which was there from all the herbivores that existed wild and farmed before the industrial revolution.

They are not the problem.
The amount of methane and nitrous oxide, and CO2 from fossil fuel usage from intensively farmed livestock, and it's long supply chain model are definitely a problem.

Plus of course even more so is the fossil fuel usage from all the other transport energy heavy industry etc

Factory farming of animals, and intensive arable using fossil fuel inputs to grow, and transport that feed is bad on just about every level , and would cease in an ideal world.

But people demand cheap meat and dairy, that's what they buy overwhelmingly
Even if they have the choice, and resources to buy better, .

Well kept livestock , with well managed grazing, even on peat uplands can sequester carbon into soils .
And are a very valuable part of agroecological farming systems, when designed for specific soils, to recycle nutrients, build healthy biodiverse soils (like healthy biodiverse intestinal biomes) and need to be designed for specific climatic situations.
A lot of this is old knowledge that just needs honouring and bringing up to date with a bit of new science input

(To explain in detail would take pages here, I've written loads* about it already)

But this good grazing methodology is not always practiced, as it is not encouraged or known about, or even possible within the food system and economy as it presently exists in our 'profit before all else' mindset.

These high quality products in the form of nutrient dense chemical free meats and milks in our diets are not valued highly enough.

We need to eat less meat and dairy for sure, but much better quality, and waste far less.
Short supply chains can help massively with reducing waste.
Any surpluses I have are either processed on the farm, or go to our local food bank.

Look up silvopasture, agroforestry, calf at foot dairying, agroecology, community supported agriculture, etc for further details.

Some of these terms are starting to be coopted by bigger agri business as greenwashing for 'business as usual'

Which is annoying, as it takes away from the reality and complexity of what is truly good practice, but it does show that "they' know that this is the way we need to move .

Trouble (for them) is these low bought in imput systems , which require good knowledge, skill and husbandry are not good for extractive capitalistic agriculture, so are discredited or ignored by the present big players, they are contrary to everything they stand for...

But they can work really well.

I agree with much of what George Monbiot says regarding environment issues but his blanket statements about getting all livestock out of the uplands are too broad brush, and does take a whole system approach.

Mixed livestock farming with lower stocking densities can work really well, done right.
For the wider environment, flood prevention, landscape preservation, and rural communities


Where I am right now (in the Pyrenees) trees and natural vegetation, are integrated with productive cattle horses and sheep, people living and working here, and have been so for centuries.
like they say "it's the how not the cow"

I totally agree that the bald uplands, causing erosion, and downstream flooding, of much of UK are wholly unnatural, and come about as a result of our patterns of land ownership, grouse shooting deer stalking etc .
The headage payment on ewes which increased stocking densities in the seventies and eighties were removed years ago, so talk of 'subsidies' on sheep is inaccurate. It's far more complicated than that.

Many (but not yet enough) upland farmers are changing to lower input, lower stocking densities, and encouraging tree regeneration.
But need supporting
In part by longer term thinking in farming policy .
But also by consumers , if there are direct sales involved .

Although a lot of the crossbred lambs produced on the uplands go to be hardy ewes, in turn producing good lambs on lowland farms .
This is why upland farming doesn't look so directly 'productive' if you're a journalist looking at numbers regarding meat directly produced in those places..
Just number crunching like that, doesn't give the whole picture.



The highest expense by far on my farm is labour.
The farming I was 'educated' in at Ag college suggested go big, go for mechanisation and chemical inputs, specialise, get rid of people.

Whilst other industries are lauded for 'job creation' we are told that people are 'inefficient'..
How soul destroying is that?
Particularly when so many people' would like to do meaningful, active, convivial even, work for a fair days pay, on a farm like mine.?

I'd far rather pay motivated people with real skills to input their time, alongside me, than rely on chemicals, and souless expensive tech which ties me into the system of dependancy on corporations like Bayer, and Microsoft.

In turn I capture the full food pound by selling direct, so the likes of Te$¢o don't get their cut.

And I even get to skedaddle of on holiday, knowing that there are concientioys sorts doing a good job of looking after it all..

When I started doing all this for myselfover twenty years ago , I was seen as quite 'fringe' a bit of a weird oddball even.

Now I'm delighted to see that this kind of farming model is proliferating albeit patchily countrywide. We even have whole Regen Ag events..
I can only hope it becomes far more the standard way of doing things

But there are barriers that need removing, such as access to land, finance, training, secure markets. Curbing the overwhelmingly extractive power of the multiples.

This is in part going to come about via policy change, which is where lobbying via larger organisations such as unions comes in .

But it's also down to having an informed food citizenry actively making better food choices where they can..

And yes we need more milkfloats like yourself to do local deliveries..

T; dr ??

Well you'll never get understand even the half of it, it is complicated, farore complex than can be explained in a post on a forum.

Over simplification, is the enemy of good farming and food production practices..

*Ha and there I go again..But you caught me on a 'hiding from the rain, with access to electric and wi fi day' day - So count yourself lucky..

...or not, as the case may be.. 😊

Thanks a huge amount to look into and get my head around - I love a bit of 'it's complicated' and suspect that there is no real single answer.

 

[albion]

Unfortunately it is nearly too late for an attempt all other minimal solutions.
Getting rid of the 2000kg car is another neccessity.

I for one think a 'just in time' attempt will take place to allow an establishment survival. That being an armageddon overnight eradicsting 90% of world population. It could be nuclear but more likely lab based eradication.
2050 maybe but I have doubts about many of us making 2035.

 

[mudsticks]

Thanks a huge amount to look into and get my head around - I love a bit of 'it's complicated' and suspect that there is no real single answer.

This is it, it's incredibly complicated, it has so many aspects and dimensions.

Requires local knowledge, plus the application of joined up thinking


Even on my small farm there are places and spaces better suited to different sorts of food production, alongside those niches where encouraging biodiversity (integrating spaces for wildlife) makes sense.

The reductionist, and compartmentalised mindset that seeks to exclude livestock, and turn everything that's not sectioned off 'rewilding' into a more intensive, less integrated, less biodiverse arable food cropping monoculture (as the Bill Gates, and even the Monbiots of this world would have it) is the mindset that has got us here.

And they seem largely to exclude actual people, and their needs from this biodiverse food production system too.

 

[BoldonLad]

Unfortunately it is nearly too late for an attempt all other minimal solutions.
Getting rid of the 2000kg car is another neccessity.

I for one think a 'just in time' attempt will take place to allow an establishment survival. That being an armageddon overnight eradicsting 90% of world population. It could be nuclear but more likely lab based eradication.
2050 maybe but I have doubts about many of us making 2035.

Well, depending on which 90%, that should reduce our carbon footprint significantly

 

[albion]

The regulators governing farming are closely related to our energy regulators.
All government lackies.

 

[mudsticks]

The regulators governing farming are closely related to our energy regulators.
All government lackies.

There are no regulators governing farming ATM..

Not since brexit
The CAP has many faults and flaws, but nothing as compared to what we have now.

Cue pesticide and GM deregulation, 'free trade' deals with countries with lower standards, and all the rest of it.
Depressing food quality, and farm returns.


defra is at sea
The chair of the defra committee was the tractor porn guy
Who I have had dealings with .
Thankfully accompanied..

The new -still in design ELMs scheme is supposed to support good farming, but it's still not settled.

The latest food strategy, inputted into by many concerned organisations, didn't really go far enough..

And now has been disregarded

Turned into a list of unenforceable 'nice to haves'.

Fwiw, imo we probs have to do most of this ourselves..

Farmers and land managers, and other concerned social justice, and environmental bodies in cooperation with informed food citizens.

Of course the cost* of living crisis..

(Also known as the cost of Tory Robber Baron crisis) doesn't help any of this.
But if you look at household food spend it's gone down in relative terms to everything else..

It's the cost of 'just existing' in a home,thats the problem.

Food is still incredibly cheap, for what it is, and so many of the true costs are externalised.

But sadly, so many people can't earn enough to even pay their exorbitant rent.. 😟

It's 'property capitalism' that's the main issue here.

 

[dutchguylivingintheuk]

Thing is, I am with the XR kids too.

For so much of it
Especially the woeful neglect of this life threatening issue, perpetrated by previous generations .
They're correct, their futures look bleak, and it's happened on 'our watch'.

Their picture off our future is unrealistically extravagated, fabricated etc. their spokesperson said so herself during an television interview. The issue was on the agenda for years in the nineties it was about ''sour rain'' before that we banned cfk's and other chemicalls from refrigerators with as a result that nature is restoring our ozone layer.
So the picture that previous generation did not do anything is simply not true, so they start off their opposition with repeating an lie, for me that doesn't really work.

I was made aware of it in the 1970's , and since then??

So much kicking of cans down the road in pursuit or allowing of short term profit

I and many others have spent years and much energy campaigning, coming up with solutions, modelling differently, but always getting push back from vested interest.

However that's all besides the point, if you look a bit further what they demand as solutions, is short term BS where big companies are all to happy to oblige too because they make and business model out of it. If that would work that could be something, but it's blame shifting money moving BS because of everyone buys off their so called carbon footprint, we don't really have an reduction don't we?

We seen that all before when Al gore said the same thing in the 2000's as a result they came with ''clean'' diesels and wood pallet boilers with the lie wood pallets would use ''old wood'' same still goes for Bio-mass yes you theoretically can fuel bio-mass on a sustainable way, but in reality it doesn't happen that way.(because the amounts you need to power an city) Either because the balance is disrupted because replanted trees get cut down again after a few years instead of their normal lifespan or because forest gets cut down without replacements.

The inconvenient truth is we are with too many on a too small amount of space and none of the proposed solutions is going to work, either because those climate (cop26) rely on so many different countries and our so loosely defined that even if all objectives are met, the chances we will really notice their effect are slim. But the cost of meeting these targets are gigantic, and the bill is placed on normal people who hear their above mentioned ''clean'' diesel car is actually an ''older polluting vehicle'' who hear their wood pallet boiler that they finally payed off is actually ''killing the planet''. so their willingness to do anything for ''the climate'' has likely decreased.

On the other hand we had Shell ''investing in fuel cell technology'' in the 2000's all that has materialised is that europe is way behind in the adaption of fuell cell. Mainly because converting combustion engines to run on fuel cell comes at a big performance penalty, a great opportunity for Shell to claim ''see it doesn't work. In the meantime Toyota and Hyundai have very succesfull ranges in fuel cell eletric verhicles mainly sold in the US and their own repective countries
And other example off how seemed mass adaption and ''taken the problem seriously'' lead to the problem being ignored, i'm sure there are much more less documented examples from the time we didn't have internet in the way we have now.
The problem isn't as simple as ''woefull neglect'' the problem is we are being told and web of lies from many sides, and we got to find a way to determine what is correct and what is wrong.

In that light my remark about ''XR kids'' was a response to someone calming some vague ''scientific calculation'' that claims a vegan world would deliver an 68% co2 reduction. Anyone with a bit of basic understanding of numbers, co2 etc. and how it is measured known that is an BS number, made to please the public it is written for the ones wanting an vegan world.

But somehow, governments, big companies etc. et.c are all to keen to push the narrative that if we reduce the co2 all would be great. Which is a lie, first off all those co2 reduction ''researches'', ''calculations'' etc. assume were looking for a zero value, we don't because with zero co2 we all die. (as plants can't live, without plants no oxygen food etc. )

Then the stupid policies regarding cars, we known there are a lot around and diesels are claimed to be the worsed polluters, i would say that if we then find an alternative fuel that is sustainable and reduces the toxic fumes by about 40% that governments would be happy to enable the sale of that fuel. Yet you can't get it at any forecourt. (i'm talking about the newest generations of bio-diesel)
Many governments have decided to ban the sale of combustion engine powered cars, but anyone making lots of miles doesn't really have a good solution as there are only two alternatives which is battery electric, which is fine for the grocery round but not great if you need to drive the country up and down, the other is fuel cell electric but we don't have any decent fuel cell infrastructure, so i really don't get what the idea behind it is, and that with lots of green idea's for example in the Netherlands in some area's it takes a year or longer before you can have you solar panels connected to the power grid and thus deliver power because they didn't think about the increase of demand if everyone starts installing solar panel's. (kinda important because it requires thicker cables and such) A other perhaps smarter solution would be to convert said solar created electricity into hydrogen so it can power fuel cell electric cars or hydrogen power plants. That way they would have found a way to stabilize the power output and on the longer term close gas and coal powered power plants. Instead they built an bio-mass powered plant.
Don't see this issue being adressed any time soon, the dutch goverment is to busy driving farmers to sucide because they claim, based on simulations over half of dutch farms have to close. to meet the co2 norms, note thet it doesn't make and difference if it;s a farm with 100 cows with lots of space, or 1000 cows all bunched up together because the company makes more profit.

So what you wrote about short term profit, that indeed whats being followed hear, in political terms and it seems to be all over europe almost everything is being done to achieve short term results, something to show off on social media, the brag about during an debate but actually tought trough systems, laws etc. that is what we are lacking from some time, and that why all those companies gets away with their short term profit just more poor people kind of policies.

But as long as it doesn't change non of our environmental polices will actually work. because the climate is made in hunderds of years not in a typicall 4 years governing period.

 

[albion]

To get co2 down to zero you would have to tackle farting amonst so many other things.

I doubt net zero includes farts, and for that matter verbal farts either.

 

[Ian H]

...extravagated...

Good obsolete word resurrection.

And 'net zero' refers to man-made emissions, not the total amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere
.

 

[newfhouse]

Many governments have decided to ban the sale of combustion engine powered cars, but anyone making lots of miles doesn't really have a good solution as there are only two alternatives which is battery electric, which is fine for the grocery round but not great if you need to drive the country up and down, the other is fuel cell electric but we don't have any decent fuel cell infrastructure

We need fewer cars, not differently powered cars.

 

[newfhouse]

CO²

Sorry, I can’t help but hear a Chris Morris Speak Your Brains vox pop. “Square oxygen. Will it choke us?”