There’s no defence for Groundswell actions
Climate change is serious business
Although Federated Farmers distanced itself from the dissident agriculture group Groundswell, our president, Mike Cranstone, of the local Federated Farmers, commends their inexcusable actions in his Conservation Comment. This for me is especially disturbing because in addition to being a primary contributor to climate denial in New Zealand, Groundswell rebranded the MAGA acronym on stickers they handed out last week. MAGA for many people is synonymous with what the New York Times calls the well-organised, “fascist” January 6 insurrection that stormed the US Capitol leaving four dead, hundreds injured, and many other lives spared by only a miracle of circumstance.
While some in Groundswell suggest New Zealand should be exempt because we have such a low impact due to our small population, that is tantamount to saying a high murder rate in a small nation is irrelevant because it makes up a small percentage of dead bodies globally.
Mike writes that “farmers are gutted that this Government has never acknowledged the momentum of investment and environmental progress on farms that has been under way for more than a decade”.
In fact, the data clearly states exactly an opposite “momentum”; the true “momentum” is backwards. In reality, “Between 1990 and 2019, emissions from the agriculture sector increased by 17.1 per cent”. It has led New Zealand to have “the secondhighest level of emissions per GDP unit in the OECD and the fifth-highest emissions per capita” . . . primarily due to agriculture . . . “With respect to agriculture which accounts for 49 per cent of emissions — the highest share in the OECD” .
Additionally, the report says that “while the country only accounts for a tiny share of global emissions, the OECD’s third Environmental Performance Review of New Zealand finds that intensive dairy farming, road transport and industry have pushed up gross GHG emissions by 23 per cent since 1990. Despite generating 80 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources, among the highest in OECD countries, New Zealand has the second-highest level of emissions per GDP unit in the OECD and the fifth-highest emissions per capita”.
I, of course, have nothing against farming. Well-tended agriculture is essential to our survival. But empirically, we are fifth from the top of 38 OECD nations in overall greenhouse emissions.
We are the secondhighest emitter per person due mostly to the dairy and meat industries. And we have gone backwards chiefly due to Big Agriculture and its spin machines, Federated Farmers and other likeminded lobbies. If that were said about crime or our state of health and education, there would be a farlouder outcry. On this vital subject, we barely have a whimper.
Should we have future Conservation Comments by the president of Todd Corporation or an executive from Exxon on how the momentum of investment of Big Oil has aided environmental progress? Climate change is serious business. Not only will it cost trillions of revenues in the future, but left unabated, it is a metaphorical “asteroid” headed straight towards Earth that will cost many lives, and possibly the future of human civilisation. Should we continue to placate, sugarcoat and turn our heads at our highest contributors to greenhouse emissions in NZ?