The Labor Government has conceded one of the non-negotiable points in discussions over the CPRS by exempting farming from the CPRS according to reports in the Murdoch press, The Age and elsewhere.
Penny Wong as the special guest on Insiders this morning said it showed that they were serious in wanting to get the CPRS passed, that they either had to negotiate with the Greens and the minor senators. Their judgement was that negotiating with the Coalition was their best chance. Given the attitude of Senator Fielding this is probably true.
But as Fran Kelly pointed out on Insiders, farming was only one hurdle; there will be others. And granting this concession will leave the Nationals unmoved. Apart from their climate change denialism, they see the CPRS as a gigantic tax and an unnecessary impost on Australian industry and commerce.
The decision, if implemented, would bring us into line with our major competitors, such as the US, but in truth the treatment of farming is still a contested issue there.
The decision would still leave farmers exposed to cost increases on inputs, such as fuel and fertilizers. Also the details on how the granting of credits or offsets for farmers would be implemented is still unclear. Penny Wong made it clear that more work needed to be done on the science of this aspect, and more discussion was needed with stakeholders.
It’s interesting that one peak farming group, the American National Farmers Union (NFU), see the need for long-term mitigation of global warming. President Roger Johnson
urged committee members to take into account the costs of inaction. “Models of climate change scenarios demonstrate increased frequency of heat stress, droughts and flooding events that will reduce crop yields and livestock productivity,” Johnson said. “Estimates provide that for every one degree increase in temperature, Celsius, we will see up to a ten percent reduction in agriculture production worldwide.”
There is a similar attitude in the Australian NFF, whose site told us as far back as February 2007 that Climate change threat must be tackled ‘head on’. February 2007 was after the publication of the Stern Review and at the beginning of the release of the IPCC AR4 documentation which went on throughout 2007. It does follow the release in June 2006 of a study for the NFF by the Allen Consulting Group, ‘Emissions Trading and the Land’. That was in retrospect quite a foreward-looking and strategic move on the part of the NFF.
For Malcolm Turnbull not much has changed. As one leading commentator said recently there is a battle going on for the soul of the Liberal Party. Those on the right are telling him that he can be leader if he likes, but it is their party.
The Nationals will never accept this communist environmental rubbish about climate change, ……except the drought, of course.
Don’t forget the drought and how we poor farmers are committing mass suicide every day and keep sending the cheques.
Great. Another industry we’re going to have to compensate with billions of dollars in the future when, inevitably, their emissions have to be dealt with.
Does this government have any spine at all?
CMMC, we know what we saw on Four Corners recently, but it is not easy to judge how representative the attitudes were. Queensland Country Life ran an online poll on AGW and from memory it came out about 42% in favour and 47% against. When their environment columnist Matt Cawood did a critical review of Plimer’s book the commentary was about evenly divided.
That said, I suspect the further north you go the less support there is for AGW. Indeed this accords with actual climate experience. This was my summary of Will Steffen’s report:
So I think there is a need for some competent research on rural attitudes to climate change in Australia.
Robert @ 2, FWIW I think there are two main problems in forming a policy on farming and climate change.
Firstly, they are mostly small businesses, which I understand are exempt under the proposed CPRS. With farmers there is virtually no chance of getting a single farm measurement of the ins and outs of emissions. Anything else would be unfair and wouldn’t reward good practice.
Secondly, I think the science on the ins and outs is far from settled.
In view of this I wasn’t unhappy with the Labor approach of leaving a decision about farming if we are going to have an ETS, which I think was premature and not the best way to go.
The current decision has the virtue of rewarding good practice to achieve credits.
Joyce was saying this morning that ruling it out now doesn’t mean that it will always be ruled out in the future. I think he’s right in this, but the decision should be good for a few years.
“So I think there is a need for some competent research on rural attitudes to climate change in Australia”
Here it is, at Possum’s.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/08/18/agriculture-and-climate-change/
“Firstly, whether farmers believe that climate has changed, secondly whether that change has affected their particular farm holdings, and thirdly, whether that climate change has forced farmers to change their management practices.
These surveys were undertaken by the ABS during 2006/7 and ran from a total sample of around 150,000 – pretty large by any yardstick.”
Very roughly about 60% [please check the pricise state by state figures] reckon climate change is occuring, about the same % reckon their holding is being affected and a few less are changing what they do.
It should be noted the position adopted by the NFF often is diametrically opposite of what the average farmer believes/wants/hopes for/desires/thinks/will vote for.
The NFF is about as representative of their claimed constituency as ATSIC was of theirs.
What was going to happen if agriculture was left out of the scheme with no mechanism to recognize change of practice? Increased input costs with no chance of recouping them. Very small profit margins creating the need to run the land harder; thereby sequencing less carbon & decreasing sustainability.
If agriculture was in the ETS & forced to pay for emissions, there is currently no accurate method to calculate the other side of the ledger. Paying for emissions with leaving out the “too hard” credit side of the ledger would send most to the wall.
Then you have the problem of how do you compete with other nations who are not imposing such imposts onto their rural sectors.
There is a need to separate the issues of the climate change problem to the ETS/ CPRS proposed solution. I too not believe that this solution of the Rudd Government will develop any positive environmental outcomes in its first decade. It will however have a positive influence on the profits of the same sector who brought us the Global financial crisis.
When I processed the memberships for the National Party I noticed that many farmers who have been on the land since the 1950s are members but their membership subs are much less than $21 per annum ie far less than the cost of processing the sub. In fact often these farmers now vote Labor. So the National Party is getting some really large donations from somwehere to pay for their Canberra headquarters.
When we talk about farmers there is the family farmer who would be the majority of farmers and then there are the small number of large landholders that control large acreage. When we talk about agribusinesses we are talking about piggeries, AACo, Cargill Meat, Bunge – bread makers, Indonesia’s Bob Hasan in NT. The big operators are global and based overseas
Don’t forget that agriculture was already out of the CPRS until someone could figure out how to measure the sheep and cow farts. Who knows when this might happen?
In any case, the temptation for the government to cut a deal with Turnbull, knowing that this will trigger a revolt against him by two thirds of his own party, must be irresistable. Rudd will be able to go the election with his legislatio in place and he’ll able to claim plausibly that the opposition are a bunch of denialists, even though theif leader isn’t. The Labor Party will do to the Liberals over climate change what the Liberals did to Labor over communism from 1955 to 1972.
Ultimately Rudd only needs 7 Liberal senators to pass it – or the Greens and 2 Libs. If they split the Libs, even better. No one to blame but themselves
My question is this: now that the Libs have sewn even more loopholes in it, is this CPRS actually capable of delivering any cuts to emissions? Let’s not forget what the damn thing’s for.
Sam #9, This will be a very ageeable ageement for the Government as it will have the effect of driving a wedge into the oppositions ranks.
Steve is right at #6,”It should be noted the position adopted by the NFF often is diametrically opposite of what the average farmer believes/wants/hopes for/desires/thinks/will vote for.”
Barnaby Joyce was expressing a position much closer to that of the average farmer than that of the NFF. Barnaby had gained a lot of ground on the ETS issue. This agreement will have the effect of undermining that ground.
They sure will. Part of me is sniggering in schadenfreude-fueled delight at this, but it will have as devastating an effect on democracy as the Liberal supremacy in the 50s and 60s did.
Very confident pundits of AGW and critics of farmers and those who claim representation here.Bu then there is the various associations of Organic Growers and even Acres the publication from the Bock Family.And most of what transpires in there[Acres] is a head of the cynicism and defiance, and of responsible farmers,wether they totally agree with AGW or not.There is little joy in farming if there is massive unemployment,conciliatory messages from unionists to farmers and back can be often read and heard here and there.The pollution problem or emission problem depends on many matters.I have now read and heard of the direct use of fuel emissions to increase biological activity in the soil.Farmers have amongst their ranks some many well qualified experienced practitioners of mechanical and other sciences.To be blunt,I feel there is a certain amount of mischievous,non factual motivation going on regularly here.On farm production of fuel,and turning fuels into a gel,to reduce kilometre distance delivery could be a process and various options of gas use.Solar and wind directly as technology or indirectly as climate have always had usage on farm.Farmers are like everyone else,give them a reachable goal and they will take to it,they also like ideas and adjusting them to the circumstances.If you don’t like the drought along the Murray organise a barrel of water for every horticultural unit and the water supply to them.Maybe farmers would be interested in sharing potential cash receipts for fruit with schools,sports clubs,environmental organizations,medical problem groups for every growth that achieves a market outcome.If people don’t talk,then the problem remains unsolved.A register of farms and water requirements for individual plants could be trying to own some cash investors.Ran through a bank or finance organization.Those heading Mildura Robinvale way Griffith and into South Australia could deliver water to their adopted farm and tree.And who cares if they are a multi-layered corp. they would need to try harder then to please their voluntary benefactors,the Murray and Horticultural blocks are fine places to stay on weekends and holidays.Stretch the legs,play golf across the vineyards.Sprint for the Olympics etc.
In a way, there are also moves to engage farmers in reducing carbon pollution:
Here in Qld, in a radical outbreak of common sense, the byzantine bureaucratic behemoth that is the the apparatus of the state is at last amending the Land Act 1994, and put out a press release, so graziers will be free to pursue options for renewable energy projects on pastoral leases, which was not possible before the laws were changed.
Usually with a change of a law involving permissions, it’s not long before the Australian genius for working out a lurk kicks in.
It looks like we are in for an explosion of desalination plants, (and that might include west of the divide with coal seam methane dewatering waste having to be dealt with), and the politics will be that they will have to be ‘carbon neutral’.
Bligh has said tugun will be, brumby wonthaggi, and rann pt stanvac, kwinana always was. Based on Tugun, its 200,000 MWhrs pa for 125 ML/day, so the 2100+ ML/day CSIRO see as the desal outlook by 2013 will need 3,400,000 MWhrs per year.
There’s a target for australia’s renewable energy farmers.
Robert asked:
Not when it comes to standing up to reactionary tub thumpers no, but here it is not merely lack of spine but lack of brains. Cliumate change politics is the gift that keeps on giving for the ALP, so why you’d be throwing the Opposition a bone to get the watered-down measures passed, in the process giving the public the impression of weakness in the face of Turnbull is hard to fathom. Surely the way to drive the wedge is to insist that the coalition is not negotiating in good faith, describe all their proposals as unworkable on economic and environmental grounds and go to Copenhagen with scope to grandstand about what you will do after the next election once the denmiers are defeated.
As a matter of practice of course, this measure doesn’t make the CPRS any worse, since
a) it is already innocuous
b) agriculture wasn’t in until 2015 AND
c) in 2015 they’d almost certainly have decided it was too hard to include anyway, bearing in mind that they think it too hard now even when their position is impregnable.
In essence, what they’ve given the Opposition is early announcement of what they’d have yielded in less favourable circumstances in 2015. And let’s face it, if you’re going to porkbarrell the major polluters, you might as well porkbarrell the not so major ones too.
It’s disappointing of course, but this means that the question of what to do with transport and forestry is now even more important than it was before. It will be really important that agriculture pays the full cost of all energy inputs and all landclearing, but doubtless they will go to water there too.
Like DI(NR), I’ve already begun apologising to the next generation for the failures of mine and begging off responsibility.
Government’s can’t legislate to bind future parliaments. So in effect, this just ensures:
- (a) that the likely 2015 decision is brought forwards, as Robert said; AND
- (b)a massive compensation bill will be required at a later date when a future government realises it can’t reduce emissions at the rates required, and decides to legislate to bring agriculture into the ETS. Compensation will be required, because of the lost value of offsets that agriculture will now be able to create
Most of the emissions associated with agriculture (at least those measured under the Kyoto protocol) are methane emissions from cattle and sheep. While in the future technological developments may lead to ways to reduce emissions from methane, at present the best way to reduce emissions is to reduce lamb and beef production and substitute other meats (e.g. kangaroo) as well as vegetarian foods. If agriculture was included under the ETS, beef and lamb production would have qualified as emissions intensive trade exposed industries, and gotten 90% free permits. The amount of free permits would depend on meat production, so while there would be an incentive to reduce the methane emissions per kilo of beef, there would have been almost no incentive to substitute other goods.
There are many opportunities to reduce emissions associated with land use, as sequester carbon in soil and biomass, but there are significant problems with offsets as a mechanism for this. A much better option would be to fund ecologically sustainable biosequestration practices using some of the permit revenue.
I know it was always going to be left out initially, and I appreciate the measurement issues are difficult.
But this just gives farmers the impression that they’re never going to be responsible for the methane their cows burp and fart into the atmosphere.
Either some way to stop cows and sheep emitting methane must be found, or we’re going to have to eat a lot less beef and lamb, and without some actual pressure on the neck on the farming community they’ll treat the issue like Big Carbon has clean coal.
Most sheep in Australia exist for the purpose of main wool, not getting eaten, and a large % of the cows exist to make milk, not to get eaten.
So even if we become a nation of vegetarians, that might not reduce emissions all that much.
SATB and downfall, what is your evidence that farmers are against an ETS? I’ve interviewed farmers on their experiences of climate on the land – carefully not using terms such as ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’. They volunteer their opinion that the climate has changed (some can produce weather records going back to the 1850s to support their view).
As the greatest present sufferers under cc – big unprecedented drought, which meant that even the savviest of farmers have been unprepared – farmers are interested in a solution.
They’re also burningly interested in what exactly is happening – whether the drought is nearly over and weather patterns will return to normal, whether it’s now life as normal, whether it’s a sign of things to come, whether it’s going to get worse. Each scenario is quite different and means different adjustments.
Many farmers I know have already made big adjustments as a result of climate change – getting out of long established industries such as dairying and raspberry growint, as they recognise the climate won’t support these any more, changing calving from autumn to spring because there’s no longer an autumn break.
So I’d really like to know where SATB et al get their information from!
From Barnaby Joyce and the National party – who dont enjoy the support of the National Farmer’s Federation on this very issue.
nuff said, Id have thought.
mehitabel # 20
Up @ comment 7 I said, “There is a need to separate the issues of the climate change problem to the ETS/ CPRS proposed solution.”
You originally asked the question concerning the ETS but all your comment is about climate change. The observations you have collated from farmers are correct; the climate has changed. My experience has been the same. There have been many adaptations to past practices; a great deal of flexibility is practiced as to what happens, when. The question is asked, is what we are experiencing now in reality normal conditions?
The great majority of farmers know that the climate has changed. Ask weather man has caused a significant portion of this climate change & the percentage of those agreeing will go down. Ask weather by placing a burden of an ETS on people so bankers, brokers & traders collect commissions and in the short term money is given to big polluters without a change of practice is going to improve the climate, you will be met with considerable cynicism.
Certainly, downfall, if you misrepresent what an ETS does, they won’t understand the need for it.
They do understand that when you increase the price of something, then there is incentive to change. They are also used to the idea of leaving things to the markets.
And yes, farmers aren’t in full agreement about the science. Few of them – most of the ones I know left school in Year 10 – understand much about science at all. They do know that man can change the climate, though, as they do it all the time.
They would almost certainly reject the idea that what we are experiencing now is some kind of normality. As I said, many of them have records going back 150 years.
Up here, it is common knowledge that when the (rather small) dam was built up the valley, the climate changed.
Most farmers aren’t interested in a scientific discussion as to who or what is responsible. They want to know what they should be doing now, whether they should be planting permanent crops, grazing cattle, trying something completely new.
Sam@19 sadi
According to Animal Lib, in 1998, there were 3 million dairy cows in Australia. Most sources say dairy as an industry here has been in longterm decline. In 2002-3 however, there were more than 23 million beef cattle.
You are probably right on sheep as animal lib comments:
With 120 million of them, that’s a lot of GHGs. If nobody ate meat, there’d be fewer.
Main opponents of landuse/agriculture being included in the CPRS seem to be:
ADIC, Cattle Council, Sheepmeat Council, Meat and Livestock Australia, etc.
If you don’t like their
irresponsible free-riding at the expense of future generationsideology – just boycott their products.Fran
We’d have to give up meat AND wool, surely.
If we give up meat but keep wearing wool, the sheep will still be there.
But I thought cattle were the problem, anyway.
BTW, it always interests me that people who are obviously deeply concerned about life on this planet and the loss of biodiversity, are willing to contemplate the wiping out entire species.
Lets be realistic about burping ruminants. Unlike burning fossil fuels burping ruminants add nothing to atmospheric carbon because it is simply part of the natural carbon cycle. Sure it has a stronger greenhouse effect but burp methane will not build in the atmosphere unless ruminant output changes. Also keep in mind that the number of wild ruminants is enormous. The African Savannah would look rather bare if we got serious about reducing ruminant numbers. Ditto most of the other major ecologies of the world.
The other ironic thing is that recent changes in the value of the $Aus would be having a much bigger effect on rural competitiveness than anything would result if the CPRS included agriculture. Perhaps the Barnabies of the world should focus its efforts on the damage to the rural sector being caused by the strange RBA view of how globalized economies work.
Ideally, yes, but even if we only gave up meat, there would be fewer sheep.
If you mean sheep and beef cattle, the species as currently configured were the result of human intervention. Massive cruelty attaches.
For the record though, there are examples of humane and sustainable use of cattle (and for all I know, sheep too). In such cases, I have no objection, though in practice this would mean meat consumption would crash.
IMHO there has been in this thread an overstatement of any problem from the methane from belching ruminants. This topic has been hammered out before on LP by a number of contributors, I give you a couple of examples.
another-take-on-the-interesting-politics-of-emissions-trading
sorting-out-soil-carbon
JohnD
Recent data on ruminants suggest a quite substantial effect from commercially raised ruminants. I also have a problem with the land use implications of commercial rearing and of course the cruelty.
More information on ruminant footprint
This is weird:
“The other ironic thing is that recent changes in the value of the $Aus would be having a much bigger effect on rural competitiveness than anything would result if the CPRS included agriculture. Perhaps the Barnabies of the world should focus its efforts on the damage to the rural sector being caused by the strange RBA view of how globalized economies work.”
So, you think the RBA should be intervening in the foreign exchange market to keep the exchange rate down? Or should not be in the process of tightening policy at the moment, despite the fact that interest rates were reduced to emergency levels and now the risks to the output and inflation outlook are on the upside?
There is a big difference between including agriculture in the CPRS and the impact of exchange rate movements, in that the former would effectively be a permanent tax, rising in real terms over the longer term, whereas the latter fluctuates considerably over time, but has displayed no long term rising trend (the current level against the USD is around 1984 levels). Sure, the recent appreciation of the exchange rate presents adjustment difficulties for exporting or import competing firms and producers, but it is a key part of the adjustment to the higher terms of trade and the stronger outlook for growth and inflation in Australia than many of our trading partners.
Attempting to keep exchange rates artificially low is both difficult, unless you adopt a formal peg, and dangerous, in that undervalued exchange rates present risks in generating domestic imbalances.
Can people get it into their heads, please, that the problem with ruminants is not farting, but what comes out of the front end of the animal?
hannah’s dad @ 5 and mehitabel @ 20 and 23, what I keep being told by farmers is that the climate has always changed and that CO2 has little or nothing to do with it. Certainly that was what Bob Carter has been telling groups of farmers in Qld, WA and I believe some groups in NSW and Victoria also.
So I’m still waiting for research to tell me what the attitudes are, broken down by farmer type and geographically if possible.
Fran @ 15 and elsewhere, the Government funded quite a bit of climate change research on issues relating to ruminants and farming more generally so I think it’s reasonable to wait for that research to come in before going firm on policies. I’m preparing another post on meat, so I’ll leave further comment until then.
MacFarlane always had a clear idea that extracting farming from the CPRS was non-negotiable and said so. So the fact that Labor has conceded this point is an indication that they do want a result out of the negotiations.
Exactly why the ALP should have refused to budge, surely.
Fran# 34, Why? Just so they could be difficult.I would’ve thought that the agreement to leave farmers out of the CPRS would be a far more effective strategy. It drives an effective wedge into the opposition. Creates the illusion of a Government doing all it can in the face of a recalcitrant or divided opposition. Whatever way the party machine will like to put spin on it. The NFF & SFO’s (State Farm Organizations) given their recent history of appeasement will grab what crumbs being offered with both hands & the Nationals position will be undermined. Some commentators are saying that will force Nick Minchin into line; pure speculation?
Fairly obviously, Still@downfall, refusing to exclude farmers gives the pro-negotiation faction nothing and so discredits them and their leader — Turnbull. Discrediting the leader is a good thing, politcally because it means more bitterness, indiscipline and naval gazing amongst your opponents. I’d have thought that obvious.
I also can’t see how it can be logically consistent to exclude farmers from assessment while allowing them to claim offsets. That’s a huge subversive loophole. Either you are in or you are out, surely, but that’s a policy consideration which obviously has nothing to do with the politicking going on in Canberra.
Seems to work for China. No-one on the board of the RBA is the slightest bit concerned about China pegging its currency to a collapsing US dollar. In fact, the RBA is convinced we’re going to have decades of prosperity ahead based on demand for our commodities from China.
The Chinese economy is a ticking time bomb, credit growth and fixed asset investment is off the scale, there is chronic overcapacity in the export and steelmaking sectors, and the consumption share of GDP is falling. Not exactly the pre-conditions for a China-saves-the-world scenario.
Turnbull said yesterday that he is in constant communication with Minchin, as you would expect given the latter is leader in the senate. Turnbull says that when the party room has decided Minchin will vote in line to preserve shadow cabinet solidarity.
Anything different and you would have a complete schmozzle and total humiliation of Turnbull.
Brian
‘what I keep being told by farmers is that the climate has always changed and that CO2 has little or nothing to do with it. Certainly that was what Bob Carter has been telling groups of farmers in Qld, WA and I believe some groups in NSW and Victoria also.’
So is this what farmers are saying or what they are being told? There’s a difference. If they aren’t be offered any other explanations than Carter’s then of course they will accept these. Doesn’t mean that they – or Carter – are correct.
Sorry, can’t cite you any sources for my info, it comes from private research. Few farmers – as I’ve also said – have the necessary edcuation to analyse the science; they don’t give reasons why the climate is changing, they just report what they see.
Yes, the climate has always changed. The present changes are quite dramatic – as I keep saying, massive changes – not necessarily in temperature, but in weather behaviour and seasonal shifts – from when most of these areas were orginally settled.
Regardless of what happened in the medieval warming period, the age of the dinosaurs or even 200 years ago, we live in a different world now. Once upon a time, if things became unbearable where you were, you could go somewhere else – there were ‘boundless plains to share’. Thus the mass migrations throughout history.
Now, however, it’s simply not possible to relocate people on the scale necessary, so even slight changes in the climate can create dire problems.
Saying ‘the climate always changes’ is a truism and it ignores the reality of the problem at present.
Now New Zealand farmers want the same treatment. Problem is that agriculture is responsible for about half of New Zealand’s emissions.
Wikapedia provides information on ruminants here.
That is a lot of species if we a serious about getting rid of ruminants.
I couldn’t find data for Australia but here is US human related methane emissions. Domestic ruminants were responsible for about 24% of the total. interestingly rice production came in at 1.1%. Surprising given that this is not a major crop in the US.
Keep in mind that methane emissions from burping ruminants don’t have any effect on CO2 levels in the sea.
LO@29: The activities of the RBA are having an effect on the exchange rate. By running interest rates above the OECD average they have been effectively propping up the value of our dollar for years as well as adding to the cost of capital for Australian industries. The problem here is that the RBA has an internal focus which is bad news for all the farmers and business’s that compete in the global economy. The problem is made worse by a mindset that sees changing interest rates as the first response rather than a tool to be used with caution when less globally destructive approaches are inappropriate. Interest rates should be set by the economic team, not an RBA that is too inclined to rush off and do it’s own thing.
The real point I was trying to make is that the global competitiveness argument is used by those opposing climate change action, wage rises etc. However, the value of the $Aus has fluctuated from $US0.5 to 0.95 over the last few years. something that will have a much bigger impact on our competitive position than emission action.
mehitabel @ 39, Carter is certainly warning of the dangers of climate change and the need to prepare. He spoke of the Younger Dryas, where he said changes took three years in the onset phase and only 60 years when it switched back. He showed a slide I’d like to get hold of showing the British Isles completely ice-bound, presumably in winter, and opined that such a change is more likely in the next 30 years than any warming that people might be worrying about.
On Carter, he’s an excellent communicator, with superb visuals, and I think is more likely to change peoples’ minds than someone like David Karoly, who Four Corners used to counter Carter’s arguments.
That said the audience I observed in Rockhampton was not an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the next bloke who came along. There were three or four breaks for questions and it was obvious that some had read books already on the subject. Most, I’d guess, had a predisposition to doubt or deny AGW. At least one volunteered answers when the good Professor was struggling a bit.
My Rockhampton rellies, who know an awful lot of people, not just in that area, but an area 400km to the NW of Brisbane where we grew up and other places they have family, say that they do not know a single person, not a single one, who takes the AGW position.
At the same time I listen to Bush Telegraph regularly and hear other ABC programs, where I have often heard farm people talking who clearly accept AGW, but mostly from southern Australia.
I did meet one about three years ago, the eldest of the family who grew up next door, who had moved to the Boyne River area near Gladstone, who had read Julian Yeomans’ book, son of the bloke who invented keyline farming and the chisel plow, who was full-on AGW.
But all of that is anecdotal, which is why there is, I think, a need for research.
Brian
so it might be a southern v northern thing, then?
Victoria (where I’m from) has certainly been hit very hard by the drought AND by a series of (often) unrelated events – which is exactly what cc scientists predict.
So my small area has experienced in the last 12 years: the biggest floods on record; mini tornados; three major bushfires; a shift to a more monsoonal weather pattern; severe frosts and unprecedented drought conditions.
The kind of comment I’m likely to hear is: ‘I bought land here for dairying because the rainfall has been over 40 inches for the last century. I’m selling up because that isn’t going to happen again.’ – from farming families who have been here since 1850.
There has been polling done nation wide which says that the vast majority of farmers accept that climate change is happening and want action. I don’t remember if it was broken up by regions. Will get back to you!
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4625.0Main%20Features12006-07?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=4625.0&issue=2006-07&num=&view=
Provides regional breakdowns for farm managers views but alas does not ask them the question whether they think climate change is the result of human activity.
Anecdotally, as I say, most farmers around here volunteer that it’s a likely cause, but not being scientists are wise enough to leave these arguments to others!
For those wondering about the effects of low interst rates in the US or elsewhere.
It looks like many are worried about the heat and pressure building up in asset prices across Asia.
The article also notes that the Yuan has appreciated 21% over the last 3 years.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/bubble-trouble-looms-20091116-ihtj.html
Some common sense from John D! FB and the like, when are you going to realise that the only way there can be a net increase in anything in the atmosphere is if you dig it up from beneath the earths surface and put it there! It’s been said about a million times but the methane belched from a cow only lasts in the atmosphere for about 12 years, then it turns back into C and H and the plants that the cows used to produce the methane absorb that very C and H in the form of Carbon Dioxide and Water. It’s not hard to understand. By all means, if you believe our Carbon emissions are destroying the world than tax the Carbon we are ADDING to the atmosphere. So tax farmers (like everyone else) for fossil fuels used, tax them for Nitrogenous fertilisers used that stem from fossil fuels, but all this garbage about taxing for natural processes will do nothing for the atmosphere (rather like the CPRS).
Fran, if you’ve got a problem with meat eaters and animal cruelty than take this up as a seperate issue and test your evidence rather than using the guise of Climate change as a way of taxing farmers out of business.
BW
That would be fair enough if CH4 radiative forcing profile were in the same spectra as CO2 and had no more forcing over the time periods we are most concerned with, but that is not so. In fact over 100 years, the CH4 has somewhere between 21 and 33 times the GWP of CO2 per unit of volume.
There’s no “guise” though I do of course have an issue with animal cruelty. That one can address the latter through a rational mitigation plan is just a happy karmic coincidence.
OK Fran, then lets say I also have no problem with taxing cows for burping (man we gotta do something about those elephats and zebras). If we were to be logical about it the farmer who pays the tax now should receive that same tax back, plus interest, in 12 years time since the methane emitted by his cow does not exist in the atmosphere. Alternatively, if he bought a credit so that the cow was allowed to burp, then he should be able to on sell that credit in 12 years time. I sincerely hope there are crazies in South Africa demanding that the government pay for the emissions of all their ruminants in places like Kruger National Park. I mean, they’re destroying the Earth as we know it too aren’t they? I can hear the howls of protest from here “turn the elephants into piano keys and save the world!!!” This scheme and it’s application to natural processes is ridiculous.
Sadly, after 12 years BW it reduces to CO2, but the perturbation in the 12 years is so strong (72 times that of CO2) that it will be some hundreds of years until its effect is washed out of the system.
And for the record BW, elephants are not ruminants.
As to the natural ruminants in Kruger, I doin’ty have a problem with them. Biodiversity and all that. It is an overhead, but one with living with. ANgas beef are not an endangered species and their advent did reduce biodiversity
Did someone say elephants were ruminants?
I invite people to have a look at the More methane post last July, especially the graphs at the end of the post. Total anthropogenic methane emissions have risen markedly since 1950 and multiples since 1850. At 1994 livestock had edged above rice, but only just. Enteric fermentation has been going up in recent times, but not by much. The big uptick in the last couple of years has been from other sources, probably peat bogs and melting permafrost, but perhaps clathrates under the sea, which is a worry.
TBW, there is a constant plume from ruminants and this plume has been increasing a little, so we can’t just ignore it if we are concerned about AGW.
But we do have to eat and since we will probably be getting less animal protein from the sea, producing meat is likely to increase. There is an argument that we should pay for the cost of all externals to the environment, since we can’t regulate to say people must become vegetarians. If the world decides to do this, we should all decide together. I understand our beef productivity is 60% better than that of Brazil because of better genetics and better grass. Also places like China are increasing beef production to meet demand from their rising middle classes by means of feed lots and importing soy beans from places like Brazil to feed the animals.
So if we put ourselves out of business competitively there is a fair chance the world methane emissions will go up as a result.
Also much of our beef is grown on rangelands which are not suitable for cultivation. On the earlier thread still@downfall quotes Tim Flannery thus:
To be honest in this thread I was more interested in the politics. Personally I’d like to get on and do the new post I’m planning on meat, so we don’t have to go through the same old yet again.
OK everyone the head stockman of this posting has asked up to come in off the rangelands & hold our bullets about the effects of burping cattle until his next post.
I’m going to go back to #32. I think this is a poor argument that because there is another factor having a detrimental effect upon agriculture i.e. foreign exchange rates, one shouldn’t be worried about a CPRS. Haven’t you heard of the term the straw that broke the camels back? The nightly TV news finance report tends to shows the rising Aussie dollar against the US greenback as some sort of rising virility metre. The comment @32 is right in that the rising dollar has a profound negative impact upon all exporters from Australia including all farmers. To then say in effect it doesn’t matter to place more burdens upon this sector doesn’t stack up as far as I’m concerned.
Much of the ignorance shown in the attitude towards farmers is based on a separation of contact, communication & ultimately empathy towards fellow citizens living in what has become a separate universe. There is now often remarked about many don’t know where their food comes from. How true this is, I don’t know. But there has also developed an economic separation of a product & the limitations of natural systems to produce this food item. This is bad enough now but in the process of natural climate change, adaptation must be made how that product is produced sustainably. If we retain an unyielding, unchanging market mechanism, this will be what will create the greatest burden not only upon the farmer but also upon the land itself.
BW’s throwaway reference to ivory implied it.
More broadly Brian, Flannery is mistaken in implying food shortage can be mitigated with beef. The resources applied to rasing livestock meat — especially ruminants are ample for raising the protein required directly for humans. The principal contstrains to ubiquitous and adequate human nutrition are not technical but cultural.
Did anyone propose leaving rangelands unmanaged? No.
And losing 23,000,000 beef cattle in Australia would make a difference not only to GHGs but to a range of other problems as well.
Yes I did imply it. Maybe I should have said turn zebras into floor rugs. Your argument that ruminants have a lasting impact on the climate is illogical. If they did, the millions of buffalo running across America for who knows how many thousands of years would have made they climate of Earth resemble Mercury by now. Brian, thanks for bringing up the methane emitted from peat bogs. Indeed the reason you won’t find Coal Seam Methane operations occurring on coal seams less than about 100m deep is that the methane has already leaked out through the Earths surface into the atmosphere This dwarfs any effects from cows! I don’t know who you’re planning to blame for that Fran.
BW vented:
BW demonstrates here that specious argument is not to peculiar to climate change deniers. One only needs to feel as is one’s culture is under challenge for some to start recklessly venting.
And to put this into some further perspective:
Forget the quality, it’s the 700 million tonnes which counts
Who knew that Tim Flannery was taking money from the Australian Meat & Livestock Corporation?. I didn’t. I’m assuming you missed that too, Brian.
still@downfall @ 53, John Quiggin in a recent post apart from being extremely scathing about what he calls delusionists in the recent Four Corners program, indicated that the global financial crisis brought the ‘efficient markets hypothesis’ into question. LO, it seems to me, still believes in efficient markets.
Clearly, I think, markets can have unintended and very adverse effects. We should be applying our minds as to what we can do about it. Jon D was suggesting that if you put up interest rates the dollar will go up, which is generally true I understand. So John D is suggesting, I think, that the narrow focus of the Reserve Bank is causing problems elsewhere in the economy. He’s not the first to suggest that. As to what we could do about it, I don’t know, but we don’t even seem to be thinking about it.
A bit of context about methane. CO2 forms about 72% of GHGs, methane 18% and nitrous oxide 6%.
It’s not well measured, but wild animals cause about 2.5% of methane emissions, a bit less than termites.
Of the methane about 60% is anthropogenic in source.
Ruminants are about a quarter of anthropogenic methane, but there is no break-down as to how much of this is caused by meat production and how much by beasts of burden, the production of fibre etc. Five categories, coal mining, gas, oil and industry, landfills and waste, rice, and biomass burning are each not far behind ruminants and make up together the other 75%.
Recent research has called into question how much methane ruminants produce in the production of meat in quite dramatic fashion. This research really needs to be replicated. Also a whole raft of research is going on to see how enteric fermentation can be reduced, because only about 10% has anything to do with digestion, the rest is from little critters that are freeloading and competing with the host animal for tucker.
Then there is the whole issue as to whether the effect of methane should be considered over 20 years, or 100 years. This is nowhere near settled.
When I do my post I want to lay this all out with sources, but the bottom line is that we are nowhere near being in a position to make rational policy decisions about the place of ruminants in the whole carbon scene, unless we want to perpetrate gross injustice and perhaps shoot ourselves in the foot.
Fran and everyone, the tone of the discourse is becoming sharpish.
LP has achieved generally an atmosphere that is hospitable to different points of view. It’s certainly what we strive for. I’ve been trying to create a space where people from the land feel comfortable in contributing. I recognise that there is something of a cultural divide.
I’ve noticed with regret that after what I thought was an over-vigorous exchange in the Mining the good earth thread, commenters from the land have been largely absent.
So please be gentle with each other.
Brian@60
I’ve no desire for this thread to become a slanging match or some sort of City v Country State of Origin thing but the issues are sharp. This is the welfare of future humanity we are discussing. It doesn’t get much more existential than that.
I undertake not to resort either to ad hominem or individualised guilt-tripping. As I’ve said a number of times here, it’s social organisation that is key, and as long as there is demand, in this case for ruminant products, people will continue to produce this stuff.
While it would be a very fine thing if everybody stopped eating animals and treated the animals they had humanely, I accept that this is improbable. What I would like to see is proper accounting of the overheads to the commons associated with livestock rearing and for that cost to be settled fully on those demanding the product. In those circumstances, I suspect we would rapidly approach far better human health and sustainability outcomes.
Fran, the only thing I’d take issue with there is the statement “it would be a very fine thing if everybody stopped eating animals”. I speak as someone who tried to become a vegetarian and failed. Ditto for my wife. Species eat each other, but yes, we should do it responsibly and humanely.
Farmed livestock are at greater numbers than they otherwise would be through the addition of fertilisers into the environment. Essentially carrying capacity is dictated through available proteins in feed.
So to argue that farmed livestock is a zero sum game regards atmospheric loading of GHGs is not true, even if methane has shorter half life in the atmosphere than CO2.
One way to tell (qualitatively) how much methane your ruminant is producing is to check its dung – the sloppier, the more methane is being produced. Most wild ruminants on rangelands are producing grassy dung, not sloppy cowpats. Their meat is also more gamey. (This applies to the dung of pretty much all wild and domesticated animals)
So Flannery is right when he says there is an ecological role for stock on rangelands, particularly in Australia, where humans are the top predators, having knocked off the others. However, the numbers are critical (and I haven’t seen if he’s commented on those). If livestock follows the demands of increasing global incomes for meat, this far exceeds the carrying capacity of those rangelands and we are back into intensive livestock production. I don’t know what an ecologically defined stocking rate across tropical and temperate rangelands is regionally and globally but this is a question I’ve had for a while.
So the amount of livestock globally is part of the fossil fuel consumption and use cycle, and the industry needs to be weaned off it in some fashion. I have low tolerance for assessments of this relationship that essentially inflate emission numbers to make it look worse – it’s bad enough as it is.
The latest offending article is in the Worldwatch Institute’s November-December mag, though a quick check suggests the analysis is not necessarily endorsed by the WWI.
Thanks for that, Roger, but I think it emphasises that we still have a way to go to come to grips with this issue.
I had a reference to that WWI article, but not the link, so thanks for that.
I’ve also got a reference that says the Brazilians are cutting down trees (though not as much as they were) to grow soy to feed increasing feedlots in the US and China. Doesn’t sound good but it’s all very vague.
I’m going out to work now in a place where they are predicting 38C and no shade, so I might see you all tonight, then again…
Part of the problem with this discussion is the underlying idea that we have to deal with all emissions NOW no matter how practical or costly. We could go close to halving our emissions by doing nothing more than clean up electricity. In other words, if we chose, we could use this clean up to stay on target for close to 20 years assuming 100% reduction by 2050.
I am not suggesting that we do nothing other than clean up electricity for the next 20 years given that there are lots of things we could do that would cost less and/or have other benefits such as reducing our dependence on oil imports.
A key question for this post is whether it is smart to replace some of the power clean up with action to reduce net agricultural emissions? In terms of range-lands, my guess is that it may make sense in both health and emission terms to replace ruminant meat with non-ruminants such as kangaroos, donkeys, horses, rabbits and locusts. Probably achievable if beef advertising were replaced with adds for these types of meat. It is also more cost/emission effective to replace feedlot ruminants with chicken.
Roger @ 63, I hope you’re right about grass-fed ruminants producing less methane than grain-fed. The only research I’ve seen (sorry, no reference) seemed to indicate the opposite, which rather upset me. I have philosophical, moral, and culinary objections to feedlot meat (it’s a waste of high-grade vegetable protein, it’s cruel, and it tastes like shit), so I’d be delighted if you’re right.
DI(nr),
sorry, I was referring to fertilised pasture vs rangeland vs wild and domestic. “Improved” pasture will have higher production per animal and stocking rates, with the fertiliser input contributing to both nitrous oxide and methane, than rangelands (i.e., native pasture).
Feedlot might be a bit lower in individual animal emissions (cause of the dry feed), but it’s got the feed production and its attendant emissions sitting behind it.
Unfortunately, as Brian intimated, the situation is complex and not amenable to people picking the data that suits their views and expecting to get it right. People (not you, I might add) say livestock and don’t discriminate between different farming systems, or wild and domestic. That’s why this debate doesn’t sit well with single-issue arguments.
Brian said:
I’m glad to hear of your attempt, and saddened at your failure. I can’t imagine how that happened if you had been determined to do it. Along with Hubby I gave up meat in 1982 and although it was a challenge at first, within three months I could scarcely recall why it was a problem.
When the CJD scare happened, I was in the UK, and people who had scoffed at our lifestyle choice (“who cares what happens to pigs and cattle?“; “you’re not religious are you?“) fell strangely silent on the question. I don’t beleive in karma of course, but I do believe people can unwittingly author at least some of what happens to them, for good or ill. As it turned out, the very practices I’d regarded as inhumane and indefencible turned out to be at the centre of the backwash to humans. Go figure. In those days (early 1990s), I had no firm view on AGW but suspected it was a beat-up. We now know however that my general view at the time that what went around came around would in short order be even more amply and broadly confirmed in matters of anthropogenic climate change.
I find this interesting.
That’s still pretty good news, Roger (and I admit I was forgetting about the extra emmissions involved in shipping all that grain and sheeps’ brains to the feedlot).
My own little piece of paradise (not yet ready to occupy) is developing a nice mixture of native and introduced pasture plants (and weeds), and the only fertiliser that’ll ever be getting (aside from manure once I put stock on it) is runoff from the neighbours. With low stocking rates (how much hogget can one man eat?), I reckon it’ll be almost as benign as unimproved rangelands.
OK Fran, this is my last effort to get you to address the issues raised above. Do you 1. Agree that ruminants cannot possibly have a lasting effect on the climate since the Earth would be 300 degrees C by now with ruminants being on the Earth forever. 2. Agree therefore that if farmers are taxed for methane emissions then that tax should be fully refunded after 12 or so years when the methane has fully broken down in the atmosphere.
I have no problem with the notion that if climate change is being caused by Carbon Dioxide, methane and Nitrous Oxide, then where ever the source of these emissions is fossil fuels than tax it. Even if climate change is not a reality, than we should start taxing it so that we can pour money into renewable energy sources for when they do run out.
It’s not the fact of cows, brown wiggle, it’s because there are so fucking many of them.
Don’t forget, our ruminants (and therefore we) eat oil. Most fertilisers are at least partly petroleum products, so we’ve artificially boosted the number of beasts we can grow by applying fertiliser to the land that produces the grass and grain they eat.
Zebras aren’t ruminants either, btw – they’re a kind of horse.
I would like to suggest a few revisions to the following -”Farmed livestock are at greater numbers than they otherwise would be through the addition of fertilisers into the environment. Essentially carrying capacity is dictated through available proteins in feed.”
.
Not entirely- metabolisable energy ( Megajoules per KG dry matter )is a better indicator of carrying capacity. If protein levels are less than 16% growth will be slower or even retarded .Nitrogen containing fertilisers boost plant growth but don’t increase protein levels – these are more an expression of the C3 or C4 nature of the grass or in case of legumes they will decrease nitrogen fixation by bacteria in the root nodules.
Nearly all Australian soils are P deficient.It is almost a standard practice
(where farmers aim to improve ther productivity ) to add Superphosphate each year or two and this will promote greater production by the plants.Phosporus is tightly bound to clay in the soil and won’t move more than 2 mm from where is falls AS LONG AS groundcover stops the removal of soil.This is where the objective of maintaining a 70% ground cover comes from.Insufficient ground cover will lead to wind and water erosion and ths loss of all the $$ paid to apply the fertiliser.
.
“So to argue that farmed livestock is a zero sum game regards atmospheric loading of GHGs is not true, even if methane has shorter half life in the atmosphere than CO2.”. I think the point which irritates graziers is the focus exclusively on emissions but with no consideration of the C locked away in various other animal products.Even pasture capture isn’t recognised by international treaty but it only reflects a shortcoming of the treaty.
.
“One way to tell (qualitatively) how much methane your ruminant is producing is to check its dung – the sloppier, the more methane is being produced. Most wild ruminants on rangelands are producing grassy dung, not sloppy cowpats. Their meat is also more gamey. (This applies to the dung of pretty much all wild and domesticated animals)”
.
My understanding of this is almost 100% the opposite.The more fibre and complex starches the more fermentation needed in the rumen and the more methane will be produced.
Sloppy stool indictates high digestability and lower levels of hard to digest materials.Wild animals are adapted to eat low quality native grasses and but will be relatively bigger methane producers than animls eating better quality pastures.
This is why all the interest in feeding kelps and algae – very digestable and less methane production.
Folks, so you know where I come from please consider my c.v. I am a 63 y.o. vet that breeds and grass fattens cattle. WE have three practising Environmental Engineer children. Kate and Doug work for Mitie Engineering in the UK and Rebecca works in Brisbane.
After much reading and debating including with our children, I am now convinced that CO2 produced by human activity has an insignificant effect on the earth’s endless cycles of cooling and warming.
Much of the data the IPCC has relied on to promote the Global Warming Hoax has now been discredited in particular the Hockey Stick Graphs. The data behind these graphs were grossly unrepresentative and the statistical analyses applied to these dodgy samples has been ridiculed by many well respected climate scientists .
The issue then in my view is not whether the farm sector should be exempted from the CPRS but why is the CPRS Tax being introduced at all.
IN this context the “alarmist” rhetoric about ruminant produced methane and it’s impact on global weather patterns is a total nonsense. I fear that those who beat this drum often use it as a Trojan Horse for many other hidden agendas viz to promote vegeterianism rather than a balanced omniverous diet.
Regards to all from a very healthy omniverous Lee Mc Nicholl
BW asked:
No, I don’t accept the reasoning. CO2/CH4 forcing is logarithmic and in any event the loading from ruminants in the past was too low because their numbers remained small and stable and also fed into a system not being augmented by humans.
Numbers of commercial ruminants utterly dwarf past numbers. There are about 28 million cattle in Australia today that weren’t here in 1788, for example. Not sure about sheep and buffalo numbers.
No. Even when it breaks down the perturbation caused remains. That’s why even over 100 years the effect is 23 times that of CO2. Ultimately, it disrupts a sink by partially filling it. In any event I’m much more concerned with the next 12 years than the the 12 years after that since we are very close to the point where we lose the permafrost wholesale and if we lose that all bets are off. I could perhaps be talked into agreeing that if the climate is stabilised then over the ensuing 100 years the heirs of those that contributed could recover an annuity. Then again, I’m not sure I approve of inheritance outside of personal effects, so perhaps not.
Some troll said:
Well isn’t that fascinating? After reading your post I became convinced that you were completely clueless and yet happy to invite that inference in your rant against the work of people who have paid attention to the relevant science.
Rest assured. Serious people with expertise have investigated the matter and are lending their expertise to those interested in devising good policy. You may return at your leisure to matters better suited to someone of your limited perspicacity.
Murph,
thanks, and your post sent me into the literature to check out what I’d “recalled”. There’s less science there than any of us would like, partly because of the difficulties in getting wildebeest and Murray Greys to blow into a methanalyser.
From what I can dig up, we’re both right to some extent (or wrong if your glass is half erroneous). Methane production is proportional to production rates. So skinny wild stock will produce less methane than fat domestics. This was largely the sense I was referring to, especially wrt rangelands.
For similar production rates (let’s say you were raising vealers within a specified time scale), the more efficient feed will produce less methane (farmers do this in any case – it saves costs and maximises return). My dung test will fail under such conditions.
If that’s the case, I suspect skinny wild beasts will still produce less methane per head than intensively farmed stock despite the differences in feed. But within given high production rates, the most efficient feed wins the prize for the least enteric methane.
I’m not confident about this, but it seems to me that cattle in feed lots exercise less, hence put on weight more rapidly, hence produce less methane in achieving a particular body weight.
On the sloppy versus grassy dung, would it be that the grassy dung is less well digested, therefore the animal puts on less weight and less methane is produced?
Fran @ 76, Lee @ 74 is not a troll, but a gentleman who has a different view of the causes of global warming, honestly held after due consideration.
“On the sloppy versus grassy dung, would it be that the grassy dung is less well digested, therefore the animal puts on less weight and less methane is produced?”
.
Ruminant digestion uses the various bugs in the rumen to breakdown the plant material and then the animal absorbs some of the material produced and also digests the microorganisms themselves.
Weight gain is largely dependent on protein content of a diet , weight maintenance on energy levels.
Low quality foods ie more starchy and tougher feeds attract more microbial attention and this results in more methane being produced.
Quality of a plant material as a feed depends on the age of the plant, the species of plant and also the adaption of the microbial population to the feedstuff.As more of a substance is presented to the microbial population it induces changes in the gut flora and this can enhance the ability to utilise that feed.( A little like a steady drinker can usually outdrink a tee-totaler).
.
Sloppy dung reflects the absence of hard to digest material and is what a producer wants to see in a pasture based enterprise.
In a feedlot situation the animal’s gut flora must be adapted to the higher quality of feeds especially when grains are used.A low quality roughage supplement is added to counteract this effect ( by diluting the amount of grain and enhancing rumen fill )but as the flora populations change the grain allowance increases while avoiding lactic acidosis and the roughage then is used a rumen wall stimulant – it enhances villi formation on the rumen wall.These are needed as they have a large surface area and it allows absorption of some of the nutrienst produced by fermentation.
.
Sorry to be so long winded but it has also to be recognised that horses, rabbits and rodents are HIND gut fermentors.Large and complex caecums do a similar job to rumens but much less effectively.As such these animals consume relatively greater amounts of feed and as they digest materials less successfully they pass more material through their alimentary tracts per unit of time.
A horse is a very inefficient consumer of tougher grasses and they selectively graze softer pasture species.But they produce relatively less methane as a result.
“….against the work of people who have paid attention to the relevant science.”
.
Lets take this as an invitation to have open and enquiring minds ?
http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/ets-lifeline-soils-capable-of-absorbing-cattle-methane/1612492.aspx?storypage=0
.
This Sydney Uni study founds that high organic content soils have methane oxidising bacteria which can result in a carbon neutral low intensity rangeland ruminant production system. Unfortunately the Federal government declined to fund further research.
” Inventory of California Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990 to 2002 Update] on the impacts of livestock on climate change in the United States and California have arrived at much different GHG estimates associated with direct livestock emissions (enteric fermentation and manure), totaling at less than 3% of total anthropogenic GHG and much smaller indirect emissions compared to the global assessment. Part of the difference of the global versus national predictions is due to the significant weight that has been assigned to the category of “land-use change” patterns related to livestock production (mainly deforestation). Furthermore, LLS attempts a life cycle assessment for global livestock production but does not use an equally holistic approach for its transportation prediction numbers.”
This article is available on line for a fee of $31.50 US but concludes that many of the frequently quoted figures are exaggerated.The study has been promoted by various local agencies and they hope it will start to counterbalance less researched but more loudly hailed views.
Good luck with that!
.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7CSX-4X4G6CP-6&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=81fb04d25c2af8ae95854513b38c7ed2
http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/why-ecofriendly-foods-can-be-worse-for-the-environment/1677809.aspx?storypage=0
.
Again sorry for the number of posts but this article from today’s Land also asks us to think more comprehensively about the energy costs of food production.
“Food miles” seems to be a shabby concept and countrary to what may be expected grass based production of beef may be less efficient in terms of emissions – from the article-
“Pasture- or grass-fed beef also is growing in popularity due to the perception that it is more eco-friendly than conventionally produced beef.
However, according to Capper, the time needed to grow a grass-fed animal to slaughter weight is nearly double that of animals fed corn. This means energy use and greenhouse gas emissions per pound of beef produced are increased three-fold in grass-fed beef cattle (see figure).
Dear Ms. Barlow, thank you for referring to me as a troll.According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary , a troll is a faboulous being in Scandanavian folklore which I accept as a compliment. The term also has a less charitable meaning of cave dwelling dwarf or giant in old Norse which I totally reject.
Coincidentally the preceeding definition was fittingly of Trojan Horse. Might I suggest your arguments seem to qualify under the explanation offered.
Also, might I suggest that anyone who blogs on Larvatus Prodeo should understand the Latin term Argumentum ad Hominem. Your attempts to discredit me to date are a wonderful example of such low grade debating. You would have been run out of any respectable Roman Forum. So could you please address my point that Michael Mann’s fraudelent Hockey Stick graphs have been exposed and totally discredited by Steve McIntyre and others. Does this not mean that your alarmist rhetoric about ruminant methane is a complete furphy? While you “ruminant” over this Doug {son of troll who is on hols from Mitie Engineering UK} and yours truly will go and do some cattle husbandry. Regards from an omniverous vet Lee Mc Nicholl
murf the surf 80 – 83
No need to be sorry about the number of posts. Well done. There have been too many over the top unsupported staements on livestck & methane upthread.
Lee @ 74 probably shouldn’t use emotive terms such as “Global Warming Hoax” if wants to be taken seriously.
Whatever mainstream climate science is, its most definitely not a hoax. It may wrong, sure, the risks may be exaggerated, but to suggest its a “Trojan Horse to promote vegetarianism” is completely absurd.
Trolling Gish Galloper McNicholl said:
Michael Mann’s fraudelent Hockey stick (sic)
totally discredited by Steve McIntyre and others
alarmist rhetoric about ruminant methane is a complete furphy
The first two of these are commonly raised but ad nauseum debunked filth merchant claims that are calling cards of climate change agnotological trolls. The third does not even follow from the first. So too is the defence that you are being attacked ad hominem. If you come to a group, make palpably absurd claims and offer no substantive rationale, that is not even “low grade debating”. It is trolling and calling you on it is perfectly defencible. Even now, you make no substantive claim, but merely repeat WUWT/CA spin. The “Hockey Stick” (more accurately hockey sticks) remain(s) in the IPCC literature. The proxies remain robust. Steve McIntyre has not discredited anything, except, almost certainly, himself. A serious person would try explaining the current anomaly without reference to CO2e forcing. You however, are not a serious person.
You claim tertiary education, but if you have it you are certainly not of the first rank. How you come to the apparent view that a casual reading of some specious blogsites allows you to dismiss 150 years of science and the current view of every national scientific academy in the world with no more than a wave of the hand is something that cannot be explained in rational terms.
It may be that you find doing this amusing. Perhaps, alternatively, you are suffering from socio-spatial angst. It’s not clear. Whatever it is, posting trolling and misanthropic claims is not something most here will endure with equanimity, unless they think you are joking. I however, do not joke about the future welfare of humanity.
CS@86
Brian was obviously speaking tongue-in-cheek. The giveaway was the claim about McNicholl having a different view about the causes of global warming “honestly held after due consideration”.
Poes Law applies.
MTS@81
This piece of specious reasoning does invite me to doubt this person’s expertise. He did qualify using the phrase “back of the envelope calculations”.
The article notes that a full study was rejected by Sydney Uni. I find this disappointing and although I’m doubtful, I would like to see if the claims can be supported. It would be a good thing if they were upheld by solid science.
Fran and Lee I really am short of time, but Fran you do add a personal edge to your arguments and @ 87 you say “You however, are not a serious person” and in the last paragraph enter some wild speculation about Lee’s motivation and state of mind under the cover that this is a very serious issue.
I don’t think I’ve met Lee, but I do know who he is. He occupies a leadership position in one of this state’s peak rural groups. He was telling you he has a view based on more than the latest thing he heard from Barnaby Joyce or Bob Carter.
Now I think that the Hockey Stick is not all that important in the scheme of things. It’s a Northern hemisphere measure. Furthermore, although I don’t claim to know all the ins and outs, I did a fair bit of reading on it once and came to the conclusion that Steve McIntyre hasn’t demolished Michael Mann’s arguments to the extent that he and sceptics generally think he has.
We had a bit of a look at the Hockey stick recently here and I refer Lee to Roger Jones comment. Roger is a real climate scientist with a PhD and occupies a senior university position.
It strikes me that the Hockey Stick isn’t even northern hemisphere, more like North Atlantic. There is a graph of the emerging southern hemisphere version in Will Steffen’s recent report, not as dramatic as the Hockey stick but interesting nevertheless.
BTW the bottom graph in the third image in the linked post on the Hockey stick is a graph often used by sceptics to show that modern warming is nothing special. recently I discovered the provenance of the graph courtesy of one Steve McIntyre. It appeared in the first IPCC report, but was a hand-smoothed version of a graph that dates from 1965 thrown in for illustrative purposes.
The general point is that sceptics are often careless about sources and are not nearly as sceptical of each other as they should be. Their graphs are often bodgie.
But Fran you often make remarks about your interlocutors. You seem convinced that I was being tongue in cheek, which I wasn’t.
We can be serious about the subject, but commenters, especially first-time ones, should be treated with courtesy.
Ms.Barlow your invective is only excelled by your lack of intelectual rigour.
Renowned Prof. Lindzen of MIT has 20 years data showing that CO2 is not a significant driver of CC and says “the Science of Global Warming is much to do about nothing”. Therefore if methane has 23 times a nothing impact, then in my feeble brain the outcome is still NOTHING.
Your vitriol suggests that you don’t have a balanced scientific training and that you are prone to leaps of blind ideological faith. I would be pleasantly surprised if you had a scientific background and then I could reccommend some good reading on the philosophy of sound science. In the meantime I hope your distorted views don’t make your day too unpleasant. Doug and I are in for a well earned smoko after rectifying a dystokia in a first calf heifer. This unfortunate beast would have died an agonizing death without the intervention of modern Vet.Sc. BY the way they don’t give Vet.Sc. degrees away to intelectually impaired students. They only admit those with very high OP scores.
REgards to all from a modest omniverous hard working Vet. Lee Mc Nicholl
I do agree with carbonsink @ 86 that the use of terms like “Global Warming Hoax” is going to be unhelpful if rural groups want to convince SEQ voters that their concerns should be taken seriously. There are some conspiracy theory meme’s common amongst climate change sceptics. The notion promoted by the likes of Michael Duffy and Andrew Bolt that climate scientists are on a giant carbon gravy train beggars belief. There is a small possibility that they are all seriously wrong, but the notion that they are ethically venal and in cahoots playing a cynical game of maintaing the funding gravy train won’t fly.
Rural lobby groups and Barnaby won’t get traction by arguing the science. It does seriously distract from their credibility and is likely to be counterproductive, obscuring more potent arguments.
Lee @ 91, I know a Professor Emeritus of vet science who has just reached his 80th who gave me the benefit of his ideas of academic standards. Let’s say that he saw a severe winnowing process as necessary and normal.
But I’d be surprised if Fran doesn’t have a science background.
If your brain is as feeble as you imply, then you ought be more cautious in sniffing at the claims of those better equipped. You are slandering a community of scholars, who, I daresay, come better equipped to make claims on climate science and its drivers than do you, your ministration to cattle notwithstanding.
The broad structure of the argument for anthropogenesis is as follows:
1.Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas (Tyndall 1861)
2.Carbon dioxide is rising (Keeling 1958, 1960, etc.).
3.Therefore (1, 2) the Earth’s temperature should be rising.
4.The Earth’s temperature is rising (NASA GISS, Hadley Centre CRU, RSS, UAH, etc., etc.).
5.Therefore (1, 2, 3) the increased temperatures should relate closely to the carbon dioxide level.
6.The correlation between NASA GISS temperature anomalies and ln CO2 is r = 0.87 for 1880-2007 (http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Correlation.html).
7.The new carbon dioxide is primarily from fossil fuel burning (Suess 1955, Revelle and Suess 1957).
8.Therefore the global warming taking place is anthropogenic.
You might also consider the following:
HERZBERG, G & HERZBERG, L Rotation-Vibration Spectra of Diatomic and Simple Polyatomic Molecules with Long Absorbing Paths in JOSA, Vol. 43, Issue 11, pp. 1037-1044 JOSA, Vol. 43
Burch, D.E et al. Total Absorptance of Carbon Dioxide in the Infrared
Applied Optics, Vol. 1, Issue 6, pp. 759-765
If this is right, one should expect that outgoing longwave radiation within the spectra absorbed by CO2 (and other GHGs) should decline. And this is what has been found, by Harries in 2001 using spectral analysis and satellites such as Iris launched in 1970 by NASA and which measured infrared spectra between 400 cm-1 to 1600 cm-1. What was established was a drop in outgoing radiation at the wavelength bands that greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane (CH4) absorb energy. The change in outgoing radiation over CO2 bands was consistent with theoretical expectations, so what we have is direct confirmation in the data of what we would expect based on the models.
see also:
Nature
This has been reconfirmed subsequently by Griggs, J & Harries J using additional satellite data from the NASA AIRS satellite launched in 2003.
Griggs & Harries and Chen et al (2007)
using data from the AURA satellite launched in 2004.
What an honest and serious person would seek to do is to account for the thermal consequences at the near surface of this failure of radiation within these spectra to escape. Plainly, this radiation must go someplace.
Some of this work was done by Philippona, R et al in 2004. It comments:
Likewise Evans, W in 2006: Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate
Plainly, you should go away and do some more reading before offering up filth merchant talking points as if they were your own considered views.
For the record, Brian, I laugh because I actually completed a year of the very intensive Vet course at Sydney Uni in 1977. It’s one of the things that propelled me towards vegetarianism. Unlike the character above however, I defer to those who know more about the relevant fields of knowledge than do I. It would never occur to me to demean the intellectual integrity of scientists publishing peer-reviewed material without offering a detailed rationale and doing a lot of very intensive research work of my own.
You say of this character:
With respect, he was doing no such thing and in his subsequent post he seemed to affirm that this was exactly what he was doing by touching bases with key pieces or urban agnotology. His reference to Lindzen above is in the same vein.
You continue:
Courtesy is earned, Brian. When someone takes it upon himself to use this site to disparage the integrity and rigour of the world’s scientific community with no more a defence than that of Mr Horse — No Sir, I don’t like it — then it is clear via the Golden Rule that this is what they deem fair dealing. They cannot demand dealing that they do not extend to others. If a wave of the hand is fair dealing for more than a century of detailed work covering thousands of proxies and which has been the result of exhaustive refereed study and to which you have devoted considerable time here, then I’d say dismissing this character with an equally perfunctory wave of the hand is fair dealing too — and doubly so since he is not merely discussing how the pyramids got built or the evolution of the shell structure of periwinkles, but what policies humanity should adopt to foreclose what may turn out to be catastrophic warming.
As Matthew England pointed out today, we are currently tracking a path to the complete loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice sheets within several hundred years. Once that process is irreversible — and we won’t know until it is too late when that is, the fate of large swathes of Earth’s population will be in uncharted water, pun intended. And here you are worried about the hurt feelings of some FUDster from the bush who won’t even be around when the worst of the consequences of the policies he endorses settles!
Assuming you were joking was showing respect for you Brian, and the general patronas of this site.
Fran I should have been out of here hours ago, so I’ll have a more thorough look your comment tonight, but a couple of preliminary responses.
Respect is earned, courtesy is part of the basic rules for interacting on this site. I ask you to take that on board.
It was interesting that a commenter new to this forum perceived your comments as vitriolic. You really should have a think about that.
Your strength of conviction and persistence is acknowledged. Nothing wrong with that. But my guess is that Lee will reflect on the experience and say “while she’s there I’m not going to bother”. Not because of your arguments so much, but the way you state them.
I did say upthread that I wanted to cultivate LP as a place where rural people felt comfortable about commenting. Frankly it was building quite nicely until you ripped into Jason on this thread and then it all fell away almost completely. How you gained the habit of “speaking truth to power” is as may be, but it doesn’t fit the norms we are looking for here with the aim of being welcoming and inclusive.
I also explained upthread that my country rellies don’t know anyone who accepts AGW, but that they didn’t have all empty minds waiting for Bob Carter to tell them what to think. Many had pre-existing positions which were considered and in some cases based on their own reading. That’s what I was getting at.
What we have hear is a stark cultural divide and shouting and name-calling across the divide isn’t going to help. I point out that I commented on the Hockey stick matter above without the need to charactarise anyone commenting here in any particular way.
So now I have to go out for the afternoon and here I’m thinking I should close off comments while I’m out. I shouldn’t have to think that way.
Lee, if you are still with us I want to add to what I said @ 92.
As an example Matt Cawood, environmental writer for Queensland Counrty Life recently said:
You should worry about the line it is likely to take and how this relates to your role in representing property owners.
But you should understand that if the report is negative to your interests, simply stating that orthodox climate science is a load of cobblers is going to be highly counterproductive and reduce your credibility with those who you are trying to influence (who actually have the power).
In their environment they will know no-one who doesn’t accept human induced climate change and will regard those who differ delusionist at best. So the arguments will have to be based on science as it relates to ruminants, which I hope to address again in my next post.
Dear Ms.Barlow, it’s a pity you did not complete more than Year 1 of your Vet.Sc.Degree as I am sure you would have ended up with a much improved ability to diagnose disease and recognize flawed scientific data when reading same. Your conversion to vegetarianism on the road to a Vet Sc degree must have turned you into a driven soul with the evangelistic zeal of a St. Paul
It is well known that evangelistic zeal can warp rational analysis and has even motivated people like Michael Mann to manipulate dodgy data to maintain the faith of his anthropogenic believers . AS Mark Antony might say “such men are dangerous”
Also completion of my B.V.SC allowed me to complete a M.SC in Range Management at the Mulford School of Forestry at Uni of California Berkeley in 69-70. This really opened my eyes to a revolutionary world and analytical thought. I have been walking the talk on environmental matters now for 40 years and have sired three Environmental Engineers for my environmental sins.
Ms. Barlow, what is your legacy to Australia and planet Earth other than some unconvincing references which I will deal with in detail tonight after I have completed a hard days work with Doug {son of troll} Regards to all Lee Mc Nicholl
#49 the brown wiggle:
“If we were to be logical about it the farmer who pays the tax now should receive that same tax back, plus interest, in 12 years time since the methane emitted by his cow does not exist in the atmosphere. Alternatively, if he bought a credit so that the cow was allowed to burp, then he should be able to on sell that credit in 12 years time.”
Hi brown wiggle – Is there an industrial chemist in the house? I was under the impression that atmospheric methane reacted with OH to begin an oxidation chain which eventually leads to the formation of water and carbon dioxide.
It’s apparently equivalent to burning the methane very slowly in the atmosphere. Therefore while the atmospheric lifetime of methane is about 12 years, the oxidation process to CO2 would make it about 112 years? Another example is carbon monoxide which, after elevating atmospheric methane and ozone, oxidizes to CO2.
I guess “all things are bound together, all things connect” – though I hasten to add that I’m a science illiterate.
Brian@96
I am going to respond because I fear you have missed some important points. You are of course entitled to, as you are amongst the operators of this site. The rules are a matter for you and your colleagues. I accept that.
Your posts here impress me, as I’ve said before. You strike me as erudite, ethical and rational and these attributes alone warrant respect, even were you not managing this site. I believe however that you misapprehend the character above, and more importantly, are in danger of adopting rules that would damage the credibility of this place.
You say:
I did have a think about that, but this is simply the kind ofg tactic pursued by those dubbed “concern trolls”. (Look it up). The concern troll purports to be offended as much by the tone in which arguments are conducted as the substance. You say you know something of this chap, which puts you at something of an advantage, if that is indeed the best term, but as far as I can tell, here was yet another sockpuppet doing pretty much what every other denier troll does when (s)he gets here. His assertion had no substance but was designed to provoke the response he actually got.
The broader point though is this: if you take the view that all first timers get special treatment regardless of their conduct then what you do is open the door to the site being trolled by the partisans of whatever culture war is running. A little while back we had one “John Michelmore” here who said not much different that the chap above. People didn’t treat him politely — nor should they have but what is to stop him or any person any person simply reiterating under a new nym?
The claim that those posting palpably absurd claims ought not to be called on it for fear of being the victim of “ad hominem” or as Tom Fuller over at Deltoid would have it “a vicious smear campaign” is simply part of the argy bargy that denier trolls come with. Plimer’s pitch is, after all, that he is being brutalised by the PC crowd, and that we should endure his nonsense with equanimity so as to preserve civility.
You continue:
Anyone who wants to look can see that this is not fair comment, despite Jason’s complaint, which spoke to his own angst rather than anything I was saying. I actually solidarised with his problems but he couldn’t hear that initially because he was convinced that us ignorant city folk were out to get him and his brethren. As one poster eventually put it at 75:
Still, Fran Barlow should be congratulated for her patience and civility in the face of some completely over the top attacks
Jason and I ultimately reconciled. Your broader desire to have this place as somewhere that a diverse range of people, including our rural people, can feel welcome is laudable. The question remains though whether to pander to their angst, when it appears, or to set them straight. I fear that you have taken the road of pandering. Had you not seen this chap as a rural archetype, if he had merely posted as John Michelmore, would you have reacted as you did? I don’t think so. And if you treat claiming rural status as a shield from criticism aren’t you simply offering a strategy to everyone who wants to troll here with impunity? It’s not as if there is a shortage of blogsites catering to angst-ridden reactionaries. The more salient question is — how would such a site appeal to those of us wanting to discuss things from “a left-of-centre perspective”. I can’t see that it could.
It’s a little like what Julian Morrow said at his Andrew Olle lecture. Catering to diversity doesn’t mean guaranteeing nobody can be offended. Doing it properly, in this case from a left-of-centre perspective means demanding that civility be earned by conduct. I’m perfectly happy to be civil with people I sharply disagree with. Indeed, I prefer it. Yet if someone wants to banter on the fringes of civility, I am happy to give them what they seek.
You must do as you think fit, ultimately. If you believe the price for the rural demographic you say you want is us leftists enduring a kind of maudlin-rurally-centred-PC, and leaving AGW-talking points raised by trolls unchallenged then by all means, say so. In that case, this site will rapidly morph into a right-of-centre blog and what you publish here will be part of the problem rathter than paert of the solution. While I will be disappointed that the reactionaries have gained another victory with such artless ease, I will move on and leave those still interested to it.
I note that recent polls suggest that something like 60% of the UK public share the delusionist position on climate change. One suspects that not the least reason for this is the faux evenhandedness of the mainstream press, which, insisting that there are two sides to every story, long after it is plain there is not, has given grist to the mill of the campaign by the big polluters to keep using the atmnosphere as a cheap industrial tip. That’s something you might like to reflect upon, Brian.
Quick Draw Barlow- “This piece of specious reasoning does invite me to doubt this person’s expertise. He did qualify using the phrase “back of the envelope calculations”.
The article notes that a full study was rejected by Sydney Uni. I find this disappointing and although I’m doubtful, I would like to see if the claims can be supported…”
The study was supported by Sydney University and the Federal government declined to fund further research.
And just in case your speed reading limited your comprehension -”Professor Mark Adams, Dean of Sydney University’s Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.”
Obviously an amateur!A link to his page at the faculty site.Oh and his email is there too so please let him know your thoughts and insights on this subject.
.
http://www.agric.usyd.edu.au/staff/find_staff_member/staff_profiles/mark_adams.shtml
I seem to have lost a comment to moderation.A first for me – must be that the controversy reader went off!
Fran, can you possibly tone it down.
As someone from a rural area I have found it a rewarding experience for the majority of the time, now for a number of months on this site exchanging thoughts with others from very different perspectives. But it does try ones patience for a posting to be bombarded by one person apparently spending every waking hour determined to dominate a discussion. So what if there are some centre right opinions being entangled those on the political centre left. I can handle that someone else has ideals that differ from by own. What I cannot tolerate is a blinkered, unyielding, robotic political mindset set on blasting out of the site any you dare to differ. Take note that I have not called you any names or said you cannot express your opinion, but please leave someone else to get a word in edgewise & try to read another’s comment from the place from where they are coming from. It is also good form to show respect to the person who writes & moderates a blog posting. Take a deep breath before you tear into me.
Still@102
I have no problem with people posting here from a rightwing perspective — GregM, Wozza, PeterTB and of course you and one or two others round out the blog. I haven’t harangued any of them as I recall, though we did do some banter.
What you seem to be saying is that you’d like this to be a much more rightwing blog. You’re entitled to your opinion but I’d see that as a decline in the diversity of the Australian blogosphere, which is already located mostly on the right.
I can’t imagine how you can say that I am stopping anyone else getting a word in. This is a text-based medium. You can skip my posts and so can anyone else.
I did that and that was what troubled the moderstor.
If you look at my post above you will see that I have shown the moderator every respect, though I have disagreed with his ostensible policy. I can’t imagine the basis on whioch you suggest otherwise.
In defense of Fran Barlow and a warm welcome to Lee.
I have been on the receiving end of Frans pedantic and critical comments myself in some of my earlier comments here at LP as a P plater in the blogosphere. It kind of reminded me of a teacher I had many moons ago, handing out sharp remarks akin to “Common, you can do better then that!”. A lesson that I quickly learned to the benefit of everyone, including myself. Further, while not agreeing with Fran on all occasions, I have learned to respect her in the depth of her comments, her detailed analysis, but most so for her intellectual rigor and honesty. So if she says that Lee is trolling, I would say that there is some thing to that. However, Lee may not be aware of it, since he is only referencing to its original meanings. While Fran is at times a bit of a PITA she is also an asset on this forum which I have learned to respect.
So Lee I would like to make you aware of what trolling means on the internet. I will use the Urban dictionary definitiont for this purpose.
Firstly, Lee your constant referral to your and your progeny qualifications as well as your present activity can be perceived as condescending and , as per definition, you are in danger of making a prick of your good self. On a blog anybody can state any qualifications, the only way you can really demonstrate or qualify your background is by your argument and knowledge. For example, I have a non English speaking background, that does not make me any better or worse than any other contributor here as long my argument is sound and well presented. Second, your comment can be perceived as trolling since your comments re AGW and the scientific understanding of it, are very condescending and an affront to the time and intellectual effort many of us have spend as to research and critical analysis most of us have expended to understand the complex issue. Further in this regard, your reference to Lindzen et al. do you no credit Sir. I dare suggest that you do further reading on this topic and please no cherry picking, it does not make good science. In relation to AGW, many of us here and in other places have come across similar simplistic references and statements such as yours and are quite obviously getting a bit tired of these unsubstantiated and refuted claims by not just the IPPC but by all the major and relevant science bodies on this planet. So I dare say, I look forward to your informed comments, but please keep the condescending tone out of it in future here and anywhere else on the net or you may experience a dose of flamming again.
I’d like for everyone to cool it down and sit back together and let’s hear what Lee and his country cousins have to say. After all, the potential consequences of AGW is too serious for everyone as to indulge in personal grandstanding and squabbles.
I’m actually going to close this thread down, because it’s way off the original topic and moderation issues, according to our policy, shouldn’t be discussed on open thread anyway. I might make a longer statement later tonight, but I’d really like to move on and think about something else.