No, no, no, no, and no! National’s disastrous emissions policy
National’s agricultural emissions policy is a sham and contains one of the most damaging of all declarations of climate denial
National has just gifted status quo farmers the very thing they have long lobbied for: an agricultural emissions policy that demands very little from them, even though their activities generate almost half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The policy, released this week, ignores that some farmers are cutting emissions now. Far worse, it argues technological solutions to cut them will take time; the climate impact of farming is exaggerated; our farmers are already the best in the world; and they have all the time in the world to take some action. In other words, leave us alone.
As National, ACT and Corporate Farmers walk away from any agreement on emissions as they play their usual game of deli and denial when it comes to doing anything meaningful on climate change emissions, we just hit a Co2 level of 424.58ppm!
The last time the planet was this hot was 5 million years ago.
The reality we face now is catastrophic weather event after catastrophic. weather event tat makes repair time between disasters impossible.
Climate change was a theoretical thing happening at the end of the century.
We’ve seen just this year the magnitude of global warming statistics exploding around the planet in real time
…
There are mega fires burning in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, SIBERIA, Spain and Chile.
All in the past month.
Siberia holds one and a half trillion tons of carbon and methane in the permafrost, what happens when it burps all that enormous amount of gas into the atmosphere?
We know from the ice record this has happened in the past, 635million year ago and it caused catastrophically abrupt climate change.
We are seeing enormous craters of methane erupting already.
Look what is happening in Turkmenistan…
The US is in negotiations with Turkmenistan over an agreement to plug the central Asian nation’s colossal methane leaks.
Turkmenistan was responsible for 184 “super-emitter” events in which the powerful greenhouse gas was released in 2022, the highest number in the world. One caused climate pollution equivalent to the rate of emissions from 67 million cars.
…singular events that produce the pollution of 67million cars?
What happens when these events get triggered?
There is just no plan to adapt to this new reality when it should be the driving force to begin immediate and radical adaptation for what is coming.
We have no comprehension of what is coming and we are simply not prepared for the age of consequences.
Watching National, ACT and Corporate Farmers use their economic and political muscle to avoid responsibility for what comes next can only be resolved by civil unrest and a campaign of civil disobedience against those interests.
This is the age of consequences.
Just consider how the Corporate Farming Lobby have managed to avoid any tax on their pollution since mid 2004!
They have pushed and pushed and pushed it off for 20 years!
National have already promised ANOTHER 5 year extension which will mean the agricultural industry have managed to stop any tax on their pollution for quarter of a century!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That photo of a National MP driving tractor up the steps of Parliament was a declaration of political war and they have lived up to that declaration.
John Key sold 49% of our Hydro Assets to create a $400million irrigation slush fund that was used to intensify dairy farming while polluting our water and generating climate changing gasses!
The entire economy is forced to bend over backwards for a sunset industry that will crash the millisecond the fast food industry can create a synthetic milk powder!
Claiming that NZs emissions mean nothing in comparison to China and India isn’t a justification to do nothing, it’s an acknowledgement that radical adaptation is the only move left because those Goliath economies have already doomed us to a dangerous climate change future!
We are out of plays and the focus surely must be self sufficiency over trying to eternally trade on a burning planet.
The Left must force a bargain with Farmers for strategically essential reasons.
They are going to feed us when the famine comes.
A recent report on food security found NZ had incredibly low food security because it was so open market driven and refused to subsidise farmers.
Which is where we on the Left must drive the debate.
We should absolutely consider subsidising food grown by NZ farmers and horticulturalists and our seafood and meat and dairy that generates a 15% price reduction for all NZ produce consumed here.
Rebuilding a direct link between the harvest grown here, the people who grow it and a grateful local market who enjoy the product WITH a 15% price reduction.
Climate change will kill global free market supply chains, we are locked into hyper-regionalism. We need to build new economic structures, subsidising NZ kai for the domestic market would lock in certainty for producers while strengthening food security for the population.
We have to find new ways of working together to ensure we can survive what’s coming.
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
Rod oram the farmer hater hates on farmers again.
Remember the Paris Climate Accord when it stated emissions reductions shouldn’t come at the expense of reducing food output?
Rod Oram, Labour and the Greens didn’t. They want to destroy the economy for virtue signals.
The rest of the world doesn’t smash their farmers for emissions, but yeah let’s destroy our pasture based lower emissions farming so food can be produced less sustainably overseas.
Nitrates are an issue, carbon emissions are a political scam.
Rebuilding the (now non-existent) left must include rebuilding the ‘Worker-Farmer Alliance’. Protections for small farmers, such as the guaranteed gate price via the single marketing desk, must be restored. Any attempts to ruin small farmers with taxes and levies must be opposed, and the state should assist with labour shortages (replace cheap foreign labour with unionised local workers).
Any new infrastructure (e.g. mass irrigation, protection of waterways etc.) should be fully funded by the state, and built by the Public Works Department. Any planned air pollution regulations must only be implemented once G.H.G. emissions are cut by 50% in the U.S./E.U./B.R.I.C.S./Japan.
The US military emits far more GHG than NZ farmers do, and all they ‘produce’ is rape and murder. We can start hitting our farmers when the US military is completely eliminated.
If Lake Taupo blows none of this will matter as most of the cows will be dead.
You have free speech. I do my best to protect it. Now we must decide right from wrong.
Agreed. I think choosing between right and wrong will be made clearer through free speech.
If better tactics had been used, the outcome would have been different
Farmers do pay, happy to show you my accounts if anyone wants!! IRD collect extra tax from farmers on growing (yes, burping farting) livestock. It’s called Livestock Tax, the tax calculated is based upon using “National Standard Cost” or “Herd scheme” (Aka “National Average Market Value”). Look it up! This tax is ON TOP of income tax and is effectively a capital gains tax as livestock grow. It’s a huge cost annually, the public don’t understand it exists and it’s in need of reform. The government Tax Working group tasked with reforming it admitted that they do not have the expertise to even review it! All this information is readily available online.
What is a fair comparison between farmers increasing charges and increasing rates on cities and suburbs? I think they’re equally dependent on each other. How would you as a farmer find it fair?
It is a ploy of the left to make as many people as possible benefituries of the State so they have control.
Subsidise in Europe lead to huge waste with mountain of unsold produce .We do not want to go down that track again with the government choosing winners
What are the emissions of the extra 100 000 new immigrants? And those of the minion or so extra new kiwis in the last 20 years?
Do we have to sacrifice more cows so the cities can get bigger?
Sounds real clever.
Vat produced food is upon us.
It’s over for dairy.
So I’m guessing all the economic purity that act spews will go out the window when the farmers start screaming blue bloody murder.
I don’t see the problem. If the land was still without humans the south island grasslands would still be home to flocks of belching, farting, urinating, greenhouse-gassing Moas. Cows are sacred they do the Balance Of Payments.
I’m still trying to understand the way this site operates. How does one pass the qualifications necessary to be trusted in posting? Is posting random, depending on the time of posting and whether someone is tending the site?
Yeah, something like that.
“The reality we face now is catastrophic weather event after catastrophic. weather event that makes repair time between disasters impossible.”
Do we really know the consequences of global warming weather for NZ? The last year which has seen massive extra rainfall which people anecdotally attribute to global warming was the best year for grass growth on record. So does global warming create a food production problem here or just an insurance problem?
The funny thing about this issue – it’s not very obvious what to do. We either choose to be poorer and reduce stocking levels which really just amounts to a wealth transfer to another country that doesn’t give a shit OR we continue as is until some technology comes along that allows us to have our cake and eat it.
To be honest as a country I think we need to play it smart. Do enough to avoid any climate tariffs but don’t do any more than that. Rather use the time to focus on adapting to the future hellscape that awaits us.
Comments are closed.