Methane madness: Climate activists are coming for the cows

FPI / June 6, 2023

Living beings found responsible for bodily emissions are advised to proceed with caution. And we are not referring only to homo sapiens.

To climate alarmists, a farting cow is as lethal to the allegedly fragile planet Earth as a fracking well.

Ireland's Department of Agriculture in a recent report hinted that it was considering a plan to kill 200,000 dairy cows over the next three years to combat climate change, the Irish Mirror reported.

Zero Hedge noted: "We told readers in late 2022, 'Forget Oil. Now They Are Coming For The Cows.' And that's apparently what the climate alarmists in Ireland are preparing to do."

This is not satire.

Cattle flatulence is a priority for climate activists in the Netherlands, too.

Bloomberg railed in an April report that “Intensive farming — and decades of official inaction — have devastated biodiversity in the Netherlands, forcing the government to impose drastic measures.”

Zero Hedge noted: "This is food we’re talking about. Something humans require. Mother nature deals farmers enough bad hands, what with droughts, floods, fires, and pests. Now, the heavy hand of government believes it must get rid of cows because, well, they fart and urinate."

Bloomberg explained: “From farm to fork, the food system generates about 31 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Cows and sheep emit planet-warming methane simply by digesting food; their manure and urine are a source of nitrogen oxide which, in large volumes, throws ecosystems off kilter.”

The Dutch government’s issue with cow farts and pee has politicians requiring farmers to slash emissions by as much as 70 percent. And the closer a farm is to one of the country’s 160 protected natural areas, the tighter the limits.

To meet government mandates, “livestock numbers must shrink by a third overall. If the government gets its way, the biggest polluters will be closed by this time next year.”

Caroline van der Plas, leader of the populist Farmer-Citizen Movement says farmers are “ordinary people but they feel treated like criminals. Everything farmers do is bad; poison sprayers, environmental polluters, mistreatment of animals.”

In Canada, farmers expect to lose $8 billion in foregone output this decade to comply with government mandates. “We’re being asked to do something to benefit all of society yet we're the ones left with the bill,” says Chuck Fossay, who farms with his brothers on 3,600 acres outside of Winnipeg that’ve been in the family since the early 1900s. “We have to do what we can, but it has to be achievable, and it has to be fair.”

Back in Ireland, ag website Farming Independent said it recently obtained the report via a freedom of information request: "Cuts to the dairy herd of 65,000 cows per year for the next three years will be needed to meet agriculture's climate targets Department of Ag officials have estimated in an internal briefing paper seen by the Farming Independent."

A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine told the Irish Mirror: "The Paper referred to was part of a deliberative process – it is one of a number of modeling documents considered by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and is not a final policy decision."

Meanwhile, Pat McCormack, the president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, said: "If there is to be a scheme, it needs to be a voluntary scheme. That's absolutely critical because there's no point in culling numbers from an individual who has borrowed on the back of a huge financial commitment on the back of achieving a certain target that's taken from under him."

Sadly, Zero Hedge pointed out, "ordinary grocery shoppers will blame the grocery store as food prices continue upward and environmentalists pat themselves on the back and are feted as heroes in the mainstream media."

Free Press International
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