Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Lilith __,
Corporate welfare indeed.
There is an argument to be made for all industries being equal. But I'm not convinced. For NZ, export industries are inherently more valuable than purely domestic industries, at least they are if we actually want to be able to buy a smartphone. If any industry is to get "welfare" then it should be an export industry. Furthermore a small industry is of less value to NZ than a large one, unless you have very good reason to believe the small industry will become large. Dairying is both large and export.
But most importantly dairying is so large in NZ that if it collapsed for any reason we'd be F'd. So I would be very careful about how we altered the dairy industry to improve it's environmental impact. As much as possible I'd like to see changes that did no economic harm but that is unrealistic.
I don't think this is a good situation. That we are so dependent on dairying is a failure on the part of many governments.
And don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting we allow the dairy industry free license, far from it. But I am saying that putting a cost on the dairy industry that realistically will do nothing to affect climate change worldwide is something I would be very careful about. I'd happily make them pay to clean up streams etc which actually would do environmental good.
If we are really serious about doing something about the climate change effects of ruminant burps worldwide then the solution is to free up the regulations around GM research and fund research into make grasses and ruminant bacteria that don't produce methane. That research could be applied worldwide and really could do some good. By all means put a levy on the dairy industry to pay for some of that. Just not a simplistic carbon tax that will simply get used to pay for another stupid road.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
level of lobbyist hyperbole
Aye, I don't believe many of the changes proposed would cripple dairying. But I still would be cautious about altering a major export earner. Doesn't mean I would want changes just that I'd be cautious.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Russell Brown,
[Shaun] ... I’d choose to build my house a little further up the hill…
[Russell] Quite. It should be straightforward thinking to assess the risk and determine it is such that doing nothing would be very unwise.
What I find annoying is the assumption that all actions to deal with climate change will have a negative outcome. Improving energy efficiency is good regardless of why you do it. Developing cheap renewable energy systems is just good. Building cities and homes more resistant to environmental change is good. Changing agriculture to use less energy and do less environmental damage is good.
One lie being told by deniers is that all the changes are somehow bad.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Russell Brown,
How viable is it to talk about replacing pastures with grasses (GM or otherwise) which will reduce the emissions of our ruminants? And if not now, at some point?
It's hard to express how frustrating this is.
The moment we change our attitude to GM these things will become realistic. I'm not being annoying here and trying to tie one good thing to something some folks still believe is bad.
YES it is entirely likely that by changing grasses we can reduce emissions from cows and sheep, but realistically only by making GMO grasses. But nobody in NZ can do the work because we can't make GMOs and even if we could figure it out in the lab and test it in field trials there is no foreseeable way under our present laws that we could grow the grasses in New Zealand. And since it would have no benefit to New Zealand we can't get funding for it so we can't even do the research in the first place.
Please read the above paragraph while visualizing me jumping around and shouting in sheer frustration.
We have a really good idea about what components of grasses cause more burps and there are a bunch of strategies for reducing them.
Even more interesting is the idea of changing the bacteria in the ruminant's guts to allow them to process grass without producing burps, but again it's pretty much silly to try and do any of this without GM methods and again because of the regulations any advance you made would be nigh on impossible to implement in NZ and hence you'd be making this amazing improvement to dairying that would only have value outside NZ, which means the government won't fund it. Yes I'm aware that was one sentence.
Even if we just made the research easier it would help because maybe we could get plant variety rights or intellectual property that could be used elsewhere. But it wouldn't help the NZ industries - and has every chance of giving a competitive advantage to other countries - sigh.
So much ARGGGGHHHHH!
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Lilith __,
I thought the only way of tackling climate change was for everyone to contribute? And for companies to have to pay for environmental costs as part of their total cost of production? I’ve seen no evidence that this would cripple NZ dairying, which remains immensely profitable.
There are a lot of issues in this. First up, no, for climate change to be controlled we don't need everyone to contribute, but we do need a significant portion of those who produce greenhouse gasses to contribute. New Zealand produces an insignificant amount of greenhouse gasses, not zero, and certainly more if you count the coal we ship to other places to be burnt. And our dairy industry (and sheep) is only a fraction of that. So if we completely eliminated emissions from dairying it would change nothing, equally if we do nothing about emissions from dairying it we have no impact.
BUT
The same folks who argue we shouldn't bother reducing the emissions from dairying frequently argue we should maintain a defense force. The logic being if we want others to behave a certain way then we should also behave that way. So yeah I agree with you that as "part of a global community" we should reduce emissions.
But it is worth noting that without the dairy industry we would be royally F'd. Without the dairy industry we couldn't afford the health system, or welfare, or much of anything. The dairy industry for all it's faults is the difference between our current reasonable lifestyle and real depression. That MUST change or we are F'd in the future. So while I really want the very real harm the dairy industry does to our environment to be reduced I am cautious about how we go about doing that and simply slapping a large carbon tax could do very real long term harm to the NZ economy.
There are real low cost changes to dairying that the industry (not individual farmers) is stupidly resisting but it is really important to understand just how much NZ relies of dairying for our lifestyle. Hence I'd be cautious about how we try and improve emissions from dairying.
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they might respond better
I've had occasion to be engaged in both debates and seen similar behaviours. There does indeed seem to be a point where some people will adhere to a position in the face of any and all evidence. From a people-watching perspective it is really interesting and a little frightening if for no other reason than it makes me question my own firmly held opinions.
A couple of things seem to be common to both denial groups. Both see some kind of conspiracy. For anti-GM, it is a conspiracy of big business and most of my discussions of late in that debate have evolved into a discussion of the evils of big business, frequently supported by data gathered on Android/Google or Apple devices. For climate change deniers, it's a conspiracy of the politicians. Yes I know that sounds odd given our current government but the discussions seem to come down to evil politicians using climate change to control the liberties (and money) of everyone else. To what end it is not clear but something to do with political power.
I have tried to become more relaxed about both debates - sure I'll chime in with data when I can - but I don't have any expectation about changing opinions. That's the other thing the extremes in both groups have in common - they are now firmly fixed in their position.
But away from the extremes there are a lot of people who are willing to see new data and are willing to change their stance. Every time I've argued futilely with a denier I've ended up having side conversations with moderates who really are happy to see new data and accept that what they were told by their brother's girlfriend's co-worker was not quite right.
It is worth the effort to bring the data.
The concerning thing is that at present NZ law and political policy supports the deniers. Both the deniers of climate change who want more coal and oil and less regulation of cow burps (although to be fair, crippling our biggest industry to make an insignificant change to global warming is dubious). And the anti-GM lobby who have succeeded in crippling NZ research in this area and preventing our economy from gaining any benefit. NZ law and policy at the moment is in opposition to the consensus of scientific opinion and data on both issues.
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Lovely words Russell and you have my sympathy for your loss.
My brother died when I was 25, after 6 months of brain cancer. I think I was still too young to properly feel the loss and certainly way too young to be able to put words as good as yours to the emotions I felt.
Thank you so much for your post. They are your words and your emotions but somehow, as you share them, they resonate, the tears come back and the memories with them.
/hug
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In the case of Fairfax’s “right first time” policy
Boggle!
Seriously, I write a lot. I even write reasonably well. I’m quite good at reading the literature and making connections and bringing together data in a way that allows other scientists, or managers, or grant approval panels, to understand what I’m trying to communicate*.
But not for second would I ever let something serious leave my desktop without getting at least two other people to help make it better than it was when it left my fingers.
Maybe they should change it to “rightish first time”.
*That doesn't mean they'll fund me, just that they understood me.
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Hard News: Good work, in reply to Emma Hart,
Both are technically correct, but because when you say it out loud you pronounce it “Brauniassus” rather than “Braunias”, in this case use the latter.
So if you're quoting someone who was talking about Braunias' work you should use "Braunias's".
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Hard News: Good work, in reply to Finlay Macdonald,
pointed out to me that the word "interestingly" in journalism should be redundant
My PhD supervisor informed me that "clearly" does not belong in a scientific paper for equivalent reasons.