But fast forward 20 years and attitudes have changed. The brooding clouds of the climate emergency are forcing us all to reassess how we live, which also means what we eat. It turns out the hippies were on to something, specifically when the meat is red.
The category of livestock known, sexily, as ruminants (cows and sheep) constantly burp out methane, a greenhouse gas about 85 times more potent than carbon dioxide. This has an outsized impact on global warming: according to the government’s National Food Strategy, methane produced by ruminants has caused a third of total global warming since the industrial revolution.
Therefore all ruminants must die. Which does seem a bit odd really……
Interesting notion….
So… they’re going to shoot all the ruminants in Africa to save the world? No? Pakistani goats then? also no? ok…. Termites and over 80% of the ants? ah, no as well.. Drain every wetland in the world? Ah, thought not…
What’s that? That’s different? aaahh… I see…
Absolute bullshit. The amount of methane in the atmosphere can barely be measured.
Well there’s no doubt. As soon as you wonder if there might actually be something somewhere in this nonsense, they prove you’re 100% wrong!!!
Craig, exactly. Ask any Tom, Dick or Harriet the composition of the atmosphere and they won’t have a clue – “80% Carbon Dioxide?” or some such.
78% Nitrogen
21% Oxygen
0.93% Argon
0.004% CO2.
Never have so many been taken in by so few (well, except for religion. And covid).
Sausage fingers – 0.04%
But that’s methane produced by eating grass, not digging up fossil fuels. And it eventually breaks down to become CO2, which is then fuel for grass, eaten by the cows.
So, it’s cyclical, not causing any particular rise. Right?
Methane: 85 times more potent than carbon dioxide? Maybe. 200 times less abundant? Definitely.
It’s not the cow, it’s bacteria in one or more of the cow’s stomachs. And if there was no cow, other bacteria in the soil would eat the dead grass and produce the same methane.
Why do the farts of domesticated animals pose a particular threat to us, when there have always been animals long before domestication. Buffalo herds of tens of thousands. Diplodocus. Woolly rhinos. Surely there is nothing new going on beside a vegetarian plot to take my meat away.
The claim of how much effect methane has is a bare-faced lie and should be called out as such.
Obviously, what’s required is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass
We let the camel’s nose in the tent when we reluctantly agreed that it might just be possible that a trace gas in the atmosphere could affect the the climate, and now we’ve got the whole fucking camel sitting in our lap.
“Surely there is nothing new going on beside a vegetarian plot to take my meat away.”
That, and continuing the stream of revenue from misguided sods that buy this crap and Donate to the Cause…
incidentally, and somewhat OT….
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-20/beyond-meat-suspends-coo-who-allegedly-bit-man-s-nose?leadSource=uverify%20wall
A certain sense of Schadenfreude there… And sooo many opportunities for pithy headlines..
I’m coming to the conclusion that all vegans and vegetarians should be force fed meat while being strapped under restraints on a gurney. Might teach them to stop lecturing people – what a grotesque harridan. Shows how far to the Extreme Left the Overton window has shifted despite the fantasies of the likes of Murphy that we live in a near fascist state.
It’s only “despite” if you forget that fascism is an offshoot of socialism.
So they are advocating factory farming?
All the animals kept in sealed sheds so the methane can be collected?
Who’d have thought the crusties are now supporting intensive factory farming! Wonders never cease.
And draining all wetlands, as someone above has already noted. Once drained, plenty of room for housing! Win-Win.
Over our dead bodies. I went Carnivore 2 years back – only eat and cook with animal products. In weeks lost 20lbs of visceral fat. Have toned muscles with no more exercise than a 71 year old who walks his dogs every day aNd gardens as much as possible. And my wife? Stopped bone cancer in its tracks to her Oncologists astonishment. Why? Because the only glucose our bodies consume is made by our bodies.
All the dietary advice you are given by the NHS and govt is why we have an obesity crisis. Check the “Randle Cycle”. Oh and by the way, seed oils are industrial filth. And the Victorians cured Diabetes mellitus with a diet of beef and water
Feel like a 50 year old. They can **** RIGHT OFF.
BTW, our local farm who produce the grass fed meat we eat (and the best black pudding ever, as it is made with fresh blood) have farmed there for 300 years and know how to feed the land, rotating arable and livestock, and assessed recently as carbon neutral (if those sorts of things worry you)
If you live in East Somerset, just down the road
https://www.kimbersfarmshop.co.uk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson
“¬Advocacy of exclusively meat diet
See also: Carnivore Diet
Stefansson is also a figure of considerable interest in dietary circles, especially those with an interest in a very low-carbohydrate diet. Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet was then consisted about 90% meat and fish. Inuit would often go six to nine months a year eating nothing but fatty meat and fresh fish, which might currently be perceived as a ‘zero carb’ / no-carbohydrate diet. (The diet technically contains a very low amount of carbohydates, as the fresh fish that the Inuit ate would have had a small amount of glycogen.) Stefansson found that he and his fellow explorers of European, Black, and South Sea Islands descent were also “perfectly healthy” on such a diet.”
Sixty billion animals are slaughtered per year; how many would even be alive without humans forcibly inseminating them and intensively factory farming animals?
Van_Patten
Why are meat-eaters always so violent?
Not to mention that Veganism requires full scale industrial arable farming, wrecking the local ecology.
What a bunch of t**ts. Not to mention that they are deliberately enfeebling themselves. No loss
Grikath
And the nose biter is(was) a Vegan. No wonder he needed meat
Addolff
Sausage fingers – 0.04%
Sausage fingers make up 0.04% of the atmosphere? That’s the same percentage as CO2.
Don’t argue with them! Reject the premise then their whole baseless proposition collapses.
Mankind is not causing catastrophic climate change. Climate change is non-linear and part of the incremental, natural cycle of planet Earth’s activity, to which Mankind and many other organism will gradually adapt as they have done continually in the past. Some may not, but they will give way to new ones which will replace them. It has ever been thus.
But see how these folks switch. Having seen off C02 – or ‘carbon’ as they call it – and got the idiots in charge eliminating it, they have to find a new bogey-man to keep their racket alive. So now it’s methane – or ludicrously nitrogen. When they have seen that off, what’s next? Oxygen?
Of course the true major cause of ‘global warming’ is water vapour without which the Earth would be as cold as Mars or the Moon. So maybe that’s next – stop using water.
rsm/Are meat markets just modern slavery? @9.29:
“Why are meat-eaters always so violent?”
What, like Hitler? Oh sorry, he was vegeterian wasn’t he…….
Jimmers – lol.
John B +1: “Don’t argue with them! Reject the premise then their whole baseless proposition collapses”.
TW: Yes, but lets, just for the sake of argument…..(sorry Tim).
@John B
Oxygen?
The remaining fraction they haven’t already stolen presumably
I have two freezers full of red meat acquired from several neighbours that raise cattle and sheep. As part of my duty in supporting the local economy I also recently invested in a Big Green Egg to help me incinerate the stuff. Given I spent the bulk of my working life in the upstream oil and gas industry my penchant for meat seems a relatively minor misdemeanour.
Rsm
Why are MMT advocates always so persistent in trying to destroy the economy and kill people off?
forcing us all to reassess how we live
Susie has carefully reassessed how she lives and sees no need to do without the au pair, the two cars, and the holidays in Goa.
But when she looks at how you live…
@BiW: the Overton Window? It all makes more sense if you refer to it as the Overclass Window. Then all is clear.
Given I spent the bulk of my working life in the upstream oil and gas industry . . .
Thank you for your service.
Why are meat-eaters always so violent?
Always? If so, how come the twats who glue themselves to things don’t just get their skin ripped off? How is it that the little fascists who sit in the road blocking ambulances don’t get a knee to the face?
Not nearly violent enough, I’d say. You cunt.
‘I spent the bulk of my working life in the upstream oil and gas industry’
Thank you for supporting my lazy pampered life style Bernie G!!!!!!!
I note the article Tim quotes is in The Times, a telling sign. This bullshit is the received wisdom of our self-perceived betters. MPs, captains of industry, think tankers, newspaper editors all promote this shit. Open to question whether they really believe in it. I recently spoke to a c-suite chap who was boasting about giving up red meat, while also saying he’s installed a heat pump in his second home…. How very noble.
As I have mentioned earlier, almost no one knows the real cost of Net Zero or realises how utterly inadequate the current ‘strategy’ is. Most of those who do tend to keep quiet, unless they are muttering about the need for population control.
What surprises me is that sensible groups which oppose this nonsense don’t produce a report outlining the madness of it all. They don’t even need to address whether global warming is real or not, just show that what the developed world is doing is incredibly wasteful posturing.
But that’s methane produced by eating grass, not digging up fossil fuels. And it eventually breaks down to become CO2, which is then fuel for grass, eaten by the cows.
So, it’s cyclical, not causing any particular rise. Right?
Indeed. It’s called the carbon cycle and I recall having to draw the diagram for O-level geog. But maybe Susie was on Skolstrejk för Klimatet that day.
This bullshit is the received wisdom of our self-perceived betters. MPs, captains of industry, think tankers, newspaper editors all promote this shit
Yarpsolutely. After genius philosopher-entrepreneur-banknote-artist George Perry Floyd Jr. bought his last banana, my evil, pointy-haired, Brexit-hating corporate bosses hired a professional negro at great corporate expense to berate the entire management cadre over our “racism”. As a business which struggles to recruit and retain competent staff – yet employs many Eastern Europeans and Indians who aren’t typically impressed by African lachrymosity, this was a brave decision.
They’ve not only drunk the Kool Aid, they’re deep diving in a Kool Aid swimming pool with, presumably, the finest rentboys London has to offer.
Personally, I hate racism and love the Blacks (my CD collection includes Whitney Houston and Billy Ocean), but I’d be lying if I said my dusky struggle sessions on Microsoft Teams made me more sympathetic to Um Bongo or whatever it is they were jabbering about. But I do now hate our senior leadership team.
. . . my dusky struggle sessions on Microsoft Teams . . .
Good lord, it’s no wonder you’re so ill disposed to things in general.
Are you actively looking elsewhere?
Why are meat-eaters always so violent?
Gets you to be the apex predator on the planet.
You have a problem with that…?
PJF – no point, I work in the tech industry so the competition is just as bad/worse. I’m waiting for the tranny shoe to drop next, our Yank colleagues have gone tranny mental in recent years and we usually copy them.
Big change from 20 years ago when it was the opposite of woke, you used to be able to expense taking clients to see naked ladies, corporate entertainment was the stuff of Bacchanalial legend, and affectionately referring to colleagues as “cunts” was acceptable conduct. Last week, I went to a big technical presentation where the guy started off his pitch by telling us his pronouns (He/Him, in case you were wondering)
Where is the horse and the rider?
Where is the horn that was blowing?
They have passed like rain on the mountains,
like wind in the meadow.
The days have gone down in the West,
behind the hills… into Shadow.
Wasn’t there another study that looked at the maths again and figured out that British cow herds, fed on fresh grass, produced a fraction of the methane previously thought?
Once again, we have a made-up and over-hyped crisis where the only solution to the problem is mandatory communism for all Western nations.
“Known, sexily, as ruminants”
At which point everything is known about the likely value of the article.
The other day, I was walking to the grocery store and one of those horse carriages from Central Park was passing by. A group of guys in their 20s yelled “Animal abuse!” from across the street.
You know what the carriage guy did? He kept operating the carriage. Crazy, I know.
Steve,
“PJF – no point, I work in the tech industry so the competition is just as bad/worse. I’m waiting for the tranny shoe to drop next, our Yank colleagues have gone tranny mental in recent years and we usually copy them.
Big change from 20 years ago when it was the opposite of woke, you used to be able to expense taking clients to see naked ladies, corporate entertainment was the stuff of Bacchanalial legend, and affectionately referring to colleagues as “cunts” was acceptable conduct. Last week, I went to a big technical presentation where the guy started off his pitch by telling us his pronouns (He/Him, in case you were wondering)”
You can still have this. I’ve no idea where you’re working, and not asking, but a lot of this is about size and public visibility. I work for everything from giant corporations down to 2 man companies.
The culture of giant corporations is almost entirely about bad PR. This is like the #1 thing to management. These wankers don’t want their names in the paper because the office Xmas party at Nationwide or Tesco HQ got a bit riotous. Starbucks has an employee who calls a customer a n****r and it’s a big story. And it’s funny you mention it, because it’s also one of my reflections on Christmas parties. The Christmas party at a large corporation is loaded with rules, like anyone going on to Foxies Gentlemen’s Club after will be disciplined.
You go and work for ABC Ltd, a company that writes software that estate agents uses, or XYZ Partners who supply parking solutions, or a tiny challenger bank and no-one cares. You can have the new lad snorting coke off a strippers tits in Foxies with half the management egging him on. Even if someone tipped off the Daily Mail, they aren’t going to care because no-one’s heard of ABC Ltd.
I see almost none of this. No pronouns, no racial diversity, no crap Xmas parties, no George Floyd shit because I work for these sorts of companies you’ve never heard of. I’ve worked in places where people drink at their desks, shag secretaries in the boardroom after work and it’s all OK. All that management gives a shit about is the work getting done.
It’s also why eventually, along with many other reasons, those big bloated companies go to the wall. Big Bloated Company Ltd becomes a bureaucracy stuffed full of women, because women like polite places to be full of nonsense etiquette and internal politics and the men leave to do real work.
“Diversity is our greatest strength” is a signal that the period of phenomenal growth that the company has is over. It’s going to be a safe, steady stock for a few years. If you work for that company you should probably leave because the fun times are over. “We announce our first female CEO” is a signal that you should probably dump your stock. But it’s worth staying there for a fat redundancy cheque.
“Indeed. It’s called the carbon cycle and I recall having to draw the diagram for O-level geog. But maybe Susie was on Skolstrejk för Klimatet that day.”
She probably knows nothing but that O-level diagram, which is Lies To Children.
The Real Deal™ has about 40-odd main variables dealing with climate, substrate at various depths, biomes and other such things, and the interaction with the water, methane, nitrogen cycles and some other odds and ends, usually in places you either can’t see or are way up high.
The whole thing is a bit like micro/macroeconomics..
It’s perfectly possible to model Grampaw’s Corner Shoppe, possibly even everything making Paw’s Shoppe run. It’s quite another to model a city, let alone a country.. As for the entire world… yeah…
The fact that actual scientists have a pretty good idea what’s going on does not mean they can even attempt to model it for the entire globe.
Not enough computing power in the entire world, and even then the actual answer runs into the “42” problem…
There is starting to be some pushback. A shareholder’s suit against the officers and directors of Starbucks was recently filed, alleging that the ‘Diversity’ programs violated the Civil Rights laws and left the company open to large civil and criminal penalties. When virtue signalling get personally expensive maybe it’ll stop.
BoM4: this!
It also explains why PayPal are closing accounts right left & centre, as Tim found, and Toby Young, as I was reading earlier. They are completely paranoid about articles in the Graun, NYT, etc saying PayPal supports XYZ ‘far right’ person/organisation because they have a PayPal account. Of course Toby Young, as he wrote, got absolutely no sense out of PayPal as to what he and his organisation had done to break their terms of service, probably because there is none.
Um, missed Tim’s item earlier. Note to self: Read. In. Time. Order!
Brilliant by the gentleman on the motorway from Wales.
Impeccably right-on morals, Steve, but no musical appreciation. None.