This is such a joke…
Agri-industry climate plan ‘He Waka Eke Noa’ an absolute lemon
Greenpeace has dubbed the agri-industry’s He Waka Eke Noa climate proposal ‘an absolute lemon’ that will fail to cut climate pollution from NZ’s biggest polluter.
Greenpeace Aotearoa lead agriculture campaigner Christine Rose says, “The government needs to abandon the idea of industry self-regulation, bring agri-industry fully into the Emissions Trading Scheme and phase out the synthetic nitrogen fertiliser which drives agricultural emissions.
He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) is a partnership between agri-industry organisations, including Federated Farmers, Beef & Lamb and Dairy NZ. The partnership’s draft proposal, released six months ago, was expected to result in a less than 1 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The final recommendations, according to HWEN, are ‘expected to lead to an estimated reduction in methane emissions of between 4 and 5.5%, depending on the availability of technology options.’
“This proposal by agribusiness is a ham-fisted attempt to cook the books with unproven technofixes which don’t stack up, and emissions reductions from freshwater reforms that some HWEN members – such as Federated Farmers – actively oppose,” says Rose.
“There are no actual policies that will cut agricultural climate pollution in this proposal, and that’s not surprising given it’s the polluters themselves that have proposed it. The Government should biff this sham plan in the bin.”
Agriculture makes up half of New Zealand’s emissions, which the science shows must be drastically reduced to keep in line with 1.5°C. Greenpeace says that if intensive agricultural emissions do not reduce, other sectors will have to pick up the slack.
“Under ‘He Waka Eke Noa’, it will take around 99 years for agribusiness to pay the same climate pollution price that the rest of us pay at the petrol pump. That leaves the rest of the New Zealand public carrying the dairy can.
“The government cannot accept this cooked and crooked He Waka Eke Noa proposal from the country’s worst climate polluters. It is not ok for the biggest polluting industry to write its own climate policy, invent its own measures of success, and attempt to manipulate the public into thinking responsible change is being made.
…I think there is this belief now in NZ that you can brownwash your organisation by giving it a Māori name and pretending that is somehow progressive.
The corporate farming lobby are just taking the piss with this nonsense solution to a problem they refuse point blank to address.
Cows create the feacal load of 14 humans.
There are 10million cows.
That’s 140million humans pissing and shitting all across our lands and waterways.
Corporate farmers are refusing to acknowledge this.
There are two main problems with this nonsense solution.
The first is that ultimately dairy and meat are sunset industries the second synthetic milk and meat are cheap enough, so why prop a sunset industry up any further?
The second is this is all meaningless quibbling because it’s for a carbon neutral 2050 when climate change is impacting us now.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
Martyn maybe you should propose a Milankovich Cycle tax or even a Solar levy. These have far more influence on earths climate than agriculture ever will.
Agree about brown washing being a thing -it’s everywhere and only about 4% of people can even understand it.
Try and suffer through TVNZ news, WTF are they saying?
It’s the new way of crossing yourself showing you conform to the new woke religion and so you are spared the inquisitors.
The secondary purpose when branding a corporate or government department appears to be to confuse – as so few of the public actually speak Maori – and hence lessen accountability.
Case in point: the woeful NZTA “waka kotahi” (“boatload of comms consultants”?) or pretty much any underperforming government department.
Real food or synthetic food?
What will wealthy overseas consumers want?
Agriculture has been called a sunset industry before and it is still going strong.
And ban the importing of palm kernel.
The government describes our biggest polluter Fonterra as an “innovative food company” that will “accelerate New Zealand’s sustainable economic recovery” (New Zealand Government, 2022). I disagree, I see this industry as a rabble of tired factory farmers wearily trudging in gumbooted lockstep towards the holy payout every year, a twilight industry protected by lobbyists, PR managers and tinkerers. Instead of doing the obvious by reducing and optimising herd size, Fonterra scientists would rather try to genetically engineer stock to reduce emissions, attempting to alter nature itself to maintain status quo (or even increase environmental load). This is akin to inventing, building and using a reusable rocket ship to go down to the shops to buy a litre of milk, instead of just walking. Like the frontier pioneers in cowboy hats did. The ironic thing is that water sells for the same amount as milk in stores but farmers use thousands of litres of water a day just to clean yards and to flush sustainable cow excrement into our waterways. Fonterra and it’s ugly network of stinky stainless pipes is there to make money plain and simple, it’s written right there in the government release. Fonterra does not exist for the good of New Zealand consumers who have to pay the highest global price possible for food produced locally, which is neither fair or ethical. Progression for business at a cost to society and environment is not progression, and New Zealanders are being charged twice over for this single product. Fonterra is not sustainable or green. Fonterra in actual fact, stinks.
New Zealand Government. (2022). Retrieved from
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/prime-minister-visit-united-states-0
Agree. Fonterra stupidly promoting the global extinction of our species because they are too greedy and myopic to even conceive of that possibility.
The world is at a turning point.
Plant based diets are absolutely critical to cut emissions.
The Vegan Society and other global societies are in the pockets of big meat. They all only sell it packaged as ‘for the animals’ when plant based diets increase IQ, lengthen life, promote good health with less doctors visits,, esp in aging. AND are critical to saving the planet.
Years ago California corrections did a plant based diet experiment, and recidivism dropped hugely in those who elected to take part in the program. It was canned.
All this is supported by data.
That’s all well and good. But do we know where these vegan/plantbased foods actually come from and how they are grown? What chemicals are used in their production?
“ in the pockets of big meat”
LOL
Plant based diets whether canned or fresh – seeing that term brought back the memory of what Cretan people had been eating for centuries, with a large part of their diet using green vegetables that we would think as weeds. Must look that up. People like me have to increase our diet knowledge. Here is a link that links up with Christopher McDougall’s book Natural Born Heroes which is a stunner as it takes in so much drama about WW2 and Crete and also takes you into the Cretan diet and they sound very hardy and active people.
Dr Phil Maffetone is referred to favourably as being knowledgeable about diets.
https://philmaffetone.com/the-heros-journey/
Video 49m from Christopher McDougall – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgCNQ5yWc2M
Video 15m ” ” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUPOyvuoS30
The Green Party will come to rescue with their pollutant trading scheme, where urban dwellers dutifully separate their packaging waste every week and manufacturers carry on producing if they promise to plant an offset tree. Solved.
I think there is this belief now in NZ that you can brownwash your organisation by giving it a Māori name and pretending that is somehow progressive. Haha spot on Martyn, it seems to be the warm fuzzy trend now with the corporates, Although in regards to He Waka Eke Noa it is hardly surprising to have such a name, as our biggest corporate farmers are Landcorp/Pamu and Iwi/Tribal owned entities
It would be cheaper in the long run to pay dairy farmers not to farm whilst we cull the national dairy herd to a sustainable level.
Beef cuts for the poor instead of tax cuts for the rich.
Comments are closed.