The fallacy of feeding 40million – Russel Norman smashing AM Show pro Dairy propaganda is the best thing you’ll see this year

Environmental groups demand immediate climate action, call on political parties to work together

More than 30 environmental groups have come together and thrown down the gauntlet to all of Aotearoa’s political parties, calling for urgent climate action with a 10-point plan. 

The plan is calling for an immediate reduction of emissions, restoration of native environments and better support for communities dealing with the worst impacts of climate change. 

Greenpeace executive director Russell Norman told AM the crisis has reached a critical point and polluting industries such as the dairy sector need to stop avoiding regulation.

“Agriculture is half of all of our emissions and there’s been precious little done to cut emissions out of that sector.”

Norman told AM recent devastating weather events have been made worse by climate change, and is urging the government to act now. 

“We need action by the New Zealand Government to play its part in terms of cutting emissions globally. And so this lays out a pathway to do that.”

Norman said now is the time to regulate polluting industries because “when has the polluting industry voluntarily agreed to cut its pollution? It never happens. Never has happened in the history of the world”.

“The only way you get progress to deal with pollution is you regulate.”

The coalition includes the likes of Greenpeace, Forest and Bird, Oxfam and 350 Aotearoa.

The 10-point plan: 

• • End new oil, gas and coal exploration and extraction on land and at sea, and commit to the Port Vila Call for a Just Transition to a Fossil Fuel-Free Pacific.
  • Accelerate the just transition to public and locally-owned, nature-friendly, renewable electricity, including by providing grants-based and equitable finance for new renewables, such as household solar and community energy projects.
  • Transition towards high-density, low emissions communities by making public transport fares free and prioritising investment in walking, cycling, and accessible public transport infrastructure over road spending.
  • Transition intensive dairying to low-emissions farming by phasing out synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and imported animal feed, reducing herd size, and banning new large-scale irrigation schemes.
  • Ensure our laws reflect the urgency required to address the climate crisis by strengthening the Emissions Trading Scheme, legally requiring all local and central government decisions to keep warming below 1.5 degrees celsius, and establishing meaningful environmental bottom lines in new planning rules.
  • Protect communities by making room for rivers to flood safely and enabling a managed retreat from flood-prone areas, through stopping new development in coastal and river flood zones.
  • Stand with affected communities in the Pacific by renewing and scaling up our climate finance commitments, with new and additional funding to address loss and damage caused by climate change.
  • Maximise native forests’ role in absorbing carbon and in protecting communities from flooding and erosion by effectively controlling deer, goats, and possums on all public land, and implementing a native reforestation programme.
  • Preserve the ocean’s crucial role in storing carbon by shifting to ecosystem-based fisheries management that ends bottom trawling and restores kelp forests by reversing all kina barrens.
  • Protect the role wetlands and estuaries play in storing carbon and softening extreme weather event impacts by doubling the area of wetlands in Aotearoa New Zealand.

As election 2023 edges closer, Norman says the 10-point plan is to put pressure on Labour and National to act if either is elected.

“There is [an] opportunity to make progress with those two parties. It’s just we need to keep the pressure on them. And then of course, then there’s the influence of other parties as well, which could change the agenda.”

The most glorious thing happened this morning.

The ever brilliant Russell Norman was on the AM Show and was challenged on the latest attempt by Greenpeace to force politicians to do something meaningful on climate change with the stock standard dairy propaganda myth that NZs emissions are .7% and we feed 40million people so let corporate dairy continue to steal water, pollute water and create more climate change gasses.

This line ignores the reality that Agriculture emissions are our problem…

…that the political power of the vested agricultural corporate interests have mangled to postpone any emissions scheme for 21 years (which will become 26 if National win in October)…

…and inflates the argument that if we culled cows the 40million other mouths we feed would get their product from places that farm more intensively than us meaning more pollution you stupid greenies.

Norman’s take down of this Dairy propaganda was just ruthless…

“NZ is the biggest seller of a simple commodity called dried milk powder, the cheapest of the cheap, and if you look at what is happening in food production around the world they are looking for more environmentally sound food products.

They are looking for higher value products.

We’ve gone down the pathway of the lowest quality commodity you can produce in the world.

NZ is mid range in terms of its environmental cost per kilogram of milk solids, there is nothing special about it, and we do feed a small number of people compared to the billions on the planet and the economics is very clear that you can be just as profitable if you pull back on the stock rate, pull back on the amount of fertiliser and actually produce a higher product.

Organics is in fact doing incredibly well globally, so why don’t we become a producer of dairy rather than the producer of the cheapest commodity on the planet which results in us trashing our water ways and being big climate producers, that’s a better pathway isn’t it?

…he’s so right!

We always ignore that the 40million number is based on us selling milk powder as a base line ingredient filler for the manufactured food industry. The PR spin pretends it’s wholesome NZ cheese and milk and meat those 40million are eating when the truth is the vast majority of what we export is basic bitch milk powder used as a filler ingredient!

The danger, as TDB has been pointing out for years is grant this is a sunset industry and the millisecond those big manufactured food players can make a synthetic dairy ingredient, the entire industry will go belly up…

Whole milk powder exports are at risk of being replaced by a plant-based replica for use in chocolate, medicine and baby formula

The dairy industry’s biggest export success may also be the cause of its greatest future concern, as whole milk powder can now be copied and replaced by precision fermentation methods, research shows.

Anna Benny, technical account manager at The Kellogg Rural Leadership Scheme, said in a recent paper that the dairy industry was ripe for disruption because it was over reliant on exports of whole milk powder.

Whole milk powder could be replaced by proteins produced from precision fermentation, that in future would be cheaper and more climate friendly.

…we are economically dependent on an industry that will become a taxi in the age of uber.

There are better ways for us to be advancing dairy but all the industry wants is the cheap option that causes huge pollution and are relying on their political muscle  to never have to change.

My bet is that the same shit will keep happening right up until the breaking news headlines that researchers have a synthetic version of our milk powder and the entire country has a share market plunge that is a depression era level meltdown.

And when that happens, oh sweet Jesus won’t the Farmers scream then!

PS – My favourite bit from Fieldays this year (other than Chippy’s brutal takedown of Luxon) was a couple complaining to RNZ that the regulations were costing them too much. When asked what they were doing at Fieldays, they said they were buying a spa pool.

Glorious.

Can’t see the water for the bubbles.

 

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