Sunday, February 04, 2007

You are who you eat


Meet Daisy the cow – global climate’s enemy number one.

"To the person who gets this far to read this (if it is not moderated)... good Sunday morning! It's glorious here in Ross. Let's enjoy such weather while we can.

The ICCP report came out 2 days ago. I have just conducted an interesting (well, to me), analysis of coverage since:

http://junkk.blogspot.com/2007/02/10-years-and-human-race-is-screwed-but.html

On the day in question, Newsnight devoted itself to the issue. There was Ms. Watts' (great name, all things considered) slot, with Mr. Milliband 'talking' about the need for 'action'. No change there, then.

And then, to round up on the day we are told we are 10 years from catastrophe, we have a slot on... cow farts (tee -hee). And the conclusion is, well, 'it's not really for me so back to the burgers.'

What next? 'Actually those low energy bulbs are expensive, don't last as long and are dimmer, so bring back the 100W pearlies!!' (Justin - Where did you get the low-energy LED halogen-effect spotlights in your kitchen, by the by?).

Anyway as we're on meat, and turkey (looks like Dan was spared a fate worse than sneezing to death) is off the menu (if not all the front pages) for a while I guess, let's get onto what apparently really matters at this juncture in our planet's survival.

A lot of folk seem to think man is at odds with nature, in the same way as a lion defending his territory to the death is ok, but my owning property 'is theft'.

Well, without getting too theological, we kinda stemmed from the same design-shop, and it's looking like we're pretty flawed.

We've done what (forgive the pun) comes naturally for a while now, and there's quite a lot of us. No more space to stand on and grow stuff, but we're still populating away, whilst merrily turning the growing bits into sources of fuel for our dear leader to gad about on the lecture circuit.

Speaking of what's not practical, Justin's reversion is not so surprising, because another aspect to the design flaw is that 'we' (even those who don't by choice) are omnivores. Not a mandatory by diet, but certainly a powerful force by programming (as is making things, trading them, boldly going... etc).

Trouble is, in addition to being told by 2500 of the world's finest (and the media, if only until yesterday), that we're screwed in 10 years if we go on as we are, I'm not seeing any great sense of cutting back on the LCD purchases, Vista upgrades, trips to study the impact of GW on whales (what used to be called a 'holiday' for the public, or a 'jolly' for the green elite).. or the filet mignon.

Which may be a bit of a problem soon, as the guys with the cows fight it out for space with the guys growing biofuels. I'm guessing bread will be history by then.

So, to this carnivore at least, as we're not doing anything yet about population, and the lobbyist power plus short-term political survival instincts (at least until the gold-plated, index-linked retirement is over) has meant that the commercial/governmental fudge on all things manufacturing and travel will continue, we better sort those dastardly bovines out right now. At least to buy some more time to fudge a bit longer.

As an ex-scientist, the numbers seem clear. If we are talking about nutritional ROI on our available land, we should all go veggie (I'm never to clear on the 'arian/egan' thing - one seems doable, the other a good way to fit into those size 0's) asap. It's just what is eventually all that will be sustainable. And even then it is just another delaying measure if other issues are not addressed. Though Avian flu may end up as a nifty, natural, Malthusian correction. Temporarily.

But as we'll doubtless conquer that (assuming it hasn't been created to sort out a few of the other problems by guys like Hugo Drax - have fun googling that. If it's true can I have the antivirus for sussing it out, please?), I have only two words for you, and as a guy who just turned 50 my hand shakes as I write them: Soylent Green."

10 years and the human race is screwed. But first, Kylie has been dumped!

OK. Here's Saturday (that I could track in terms of influential major media information and commentary):

BBC - How Green is my Auntie?
Times - New fears on climate raise heat on leaders
Times - Damning report seeks to end debate over global warming
Times - Bush takes his place on the bandwagon
BBC Newsnight (which seems to have closed already as they didn't add my comment) - How green should we be?
Telegraph - Scientists: Only man can stop climate disaster
Telegraph - The changing face of the planet
Guardian (nice to see a power co. will stick a tree in for you) - Worse than we thought
Guardian CiF - A call to arms on climate change
Guardian CiF - An unforgivable truth
Indy - Global warming: the final warning
BBC - Miliband in climate 'action' call
BBC - Humans blamed for climate change

BBC Newsnight - See if they add my comment

And here's today:

Telegraph (wonder if they'll post my comment)- Carbon omissions
Telegraph - IPCC puts it bluntly on global warming
Telegraph - The next few years are critical in the fight for the climate
Times - The greening of business
Indy (this is so sweet) - Green: They are. Are you?
Indy - Chirac leads calls for new UN body to save the environment
Indy (always worth repeating, so make that a final, final..) - Global warming: the final warning
Observer - We cannot let the Kyoto debacle happen again

No tabloids that I can see. I doubt Richard and Judy got too excited (esp. with Kylie 'n all). BBC Breakfast has moved on. Andrew Marr didn't mention it in his preamble earlier (though I have yet to watch). It certainly has moved off the front pages.

Politically, it seems saving personal skins (more immediately, missing the point that all skins could be at risk pretty soon) may be higher on most agendas, though it looks like one Minister was called upon to say something. Which he did. I believe the 'word' is 'action'. Moving quickly on...

Oh, and case you're really worried, here's Kylie.

Didn't take the few who did pay attention long to lose interest, did it?

I think I'll just get back to Junkk.com duties now.

However, looking at Supermarkets discover shoppers hate excess packaging as waste campaign gathers force whilst I still can't get a peep out of said supermarkets, relevant government bodies or much support from the media for our free, non taxpayer-funded, reuse website still rankles.

But first, the (more ratings driven?) news

We cannot let the Kyoto debacle happen again

Well... golly.

Shame it doesn't seem to warrant the same front page attention as, say, bird flu, which the nice virologist on Breakfast TV says is 'nothing to worry about' (though a global pandemic would be a fairly effective Malthusian correction by Mother Nature to what's probably the biggest issue facing us).

Errors of...?

Carbon omissions

'Well... golly.

"...the situation we face is potentially extremely serious" That would be serious planet-wide.

Yet, speaking of omissions, it doesn't seem to warrant the same front page attention as, say, bird flu, which the nice virologist on Breakfast TV says is 'nothing to worry about' (though a global pandemic would be a fairly effective Malthusian correction by Mother Nature to what's probably the biggest issue facing us).'