We need such thinking to address climate change issues
Mike Joy’s $12 billion plan, in Pay farmers $12b to stop dairying (Aug 6), is radical and audacious, and is the exact type of thinking we need more of in the face of ongoing climate disruption and its intersection with, and impact upon society.
When will a majority of people realise that business as usual has got us into this trouble, and the only way out is to radically overhaul our economic model and lifestyles?
If we listened to the experts throughout Covid-19, and have thus far minimised the worst outcomes of the pandemic, why are we not heeding the warnings and research from learned individuals that point to profitdriven accumulation of wealth and material, over-consumption and production, as the key driver in disrupting our climate?
I am constantly disappointed in the lack of forethought, ambition, and realism that the public, and the politicians who represent us, show in their efforts and thoughts surrounding the need to urgently reduce emissions.
Raphael J K Franks, undergraduate student of Bachelor of Science, geography major, environmental science minor, Christchurch Central
Opinion anomalies
I would like to highlight the obvious anomalies between three recent articles in The Press.
In his speech to the Evironmental Defence Society’s conference, Dr Mike Joy from Victoria University noted that we now use 13 times more synthetic fertiliser than we did 21 years ago and that the Selwyn and Ashburton rivers are globally only just behind the two worst nitratepolluted Chinese rivers.
Contrast his comments with two recent opinion pieces in the Press farming section from Lincoln University professors who, incidentally, are also farming advocates on DiaryNZ and Ravensdown’s boards. Their view is that everything is ‘‘just fine’’.
All three are supposedly respected academics, but they can’t all be right can they? So who’s telling porkies?
I would be helpful (to me at least) if The Press could somehow apply scientific scrutiny to these two diametrically opposed positions.
Also, the most recent of the opinion pieces dismissed regenerative farming out of hand. The way this was done is a wellknown sales tactic against a competitive threat that is hard to argue down, nearly always because it has real substance.
Maybe an article on farmers’ comparative returns between regenerative and fertiliser-based farming would also be of interest to the rural sector?
Jeremy Alsop, Prebbleton