Posts by Lilith __
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Capture: Spring Breaks, in reply to David Hood,
This skink seemed to be enjoying it. I think it is an Otago skink.
Oh, brilliant shot! Skinks are very hard to capture without startling.
Beautifully camouflaged, too. -
Capture: Spring Breaks, in reply to Jos,
I gave a chap sheltering under my verandah a large plastic bag that we cut three holes into, and off he went
Nice one! :-)
-
Capture: Coast to Coast, in reply to Hebe,
Happy dog and happy pie! Thanks for sharing these. :-)
-
Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Che Tibby,
and dairy farmers want to make a shedload of cash. they’ll absorb the cost, push it onto consumers, and keep doing it.
Dairy farming is currently much more profitable than beef, sheep, or arable farming. Special levies and new regulations would make it less so. We would then see fewer farms going dairy and maybe some reverting to other land uses.
The income from dairy farming is mostly from exports, so local consumption of milk products makes no difference to pricing.
I fail to see why this is any more hard or expensive to regulate than any other industry. Surely penalties for non-compliance could fund the cost of enforcement.
-
Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Roman à calf?
diary herds are increasing hugely in New Zealand
It’s all there in black and white! On vellum. ;-)
-
Saving the environment is a complex business. Greenhouse gases and limited freshwater and water pollution are all issues with dairy farming. I think there’s limited utility in addressing one while ignoring the others.
And nothing will be achieved on any of these fronts if we keep giving dairy farming a free pass.
Remember the argument that paying women the same as men would cause the economy to collapse? I feel this argument is much the same as “making dairy farmers pay their way will destroy our standard of living”.
-
Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Bart Janssen,
How are you planning to make up for that loss? Which service are you going to cut? Which school are you going to close? Are you going to put a duty on big screen TVs? or smartphones? or cars?
About 12 billion dollars last year. How much can we spare? A billion? Two?
This is not a simple thought game that has no direct consequence. This is actually a real situation in NZ.
Jesus, Bart. Do you think the rest of us are idiots?
In 2012 New Zealand had 6.4 million dairy cattle, compared with 3.5 million in 1992
We still had schools and hospitals and TVs in 1992. Your argument is worthy of John Key or Hekia Parata.
Because of saving the environment we can’t have nice things? Jesus.
-
Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Note at present there is simply nothing (absolutely nothing) a farmer can do to reduce sheep and cow burps other than reduce the number of sheep and cows. Essentially this isn’t an incentive to do anything other than reduce the national herd.
Yes, this. Reducing herd numbers is a good outcome.
-
Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Bart Janssen,
__ But you completely fail to address my point about water. __
But isn’t this thread about carbon?
Water quality is a whole other issue and unlike burps farmers can do something about water so it make sense to incentivize them to actually do it (aka massive fines).
I don’t think there’s much point saving one aspect of the environment while fucking up others. We need a coordinated approach.
And as I seem to have said repeatedly, sheer numbers of cows are going to fuck the freshwater even if we keep them out of directly standing in streams. Of course farmers should fence waterways, etc., but nothing will stop disastrous levels of nitrate runoff except running fewer cows.
-
And FWIW Bart I think the work of plant scientists is vital and none of what I have said is meant as a criticism of you or your profession. Just that great plant science can't fix political stupidity. We need good science and good resource management.