Letter to the editor: 'Get the farmers when they're alive...and when they're dead. What neck!' [updated]

Over the last number of weeks I have noticed an expensive advertisement in a farming publication by Trócaire exhorting farmers to leave them a bequest when they pass on.

Is this the same Trócaire that was involved in an ‘Eco Schools’ / ‘Green Schools’ programme? An Taisce was also involved in a recent ‘Green Schools’ project, which used what appears to be the same logo. The latter body – at one point – seemed to be intent on influencing school-children away from meat and dairy [products]?

Trocaire, it should be noted, has been in touch to “clarify that [it] was not involved with the 2019 [An Taisce] campaign referenced.

This, I believe, was done without any consideration for: the consequential damage to the health of the children; the damage to the planet (by diverting attention away from the real causes of climate change); the accuracy of the pseudo-science being peddled; or the damage being done to Irish agriculture.

Such a venture could destroy Irish farmers’ livelihoods. Now, after all that, they are asking Irish farmers to leave them money when they die.

Get him when he’s alive and get him when he’s dead. What neck these people have!

Last week, a UCD conference on vegan diets – hosted by a panel of highly-qualified dietitians, doctors and other experts – highlighted that it’s the old and the young that need meat and dairy [products] the most.

Role of meat and dairy

They maintained that a vegan diet can sustain an adult, but only with expert nutritional support and advice…and only in their middle years. This makes a lot of sense.

After all, it was eating meat that got us down from the trees – not eating monkey nuts.

Recently, Dr. Sinead McCarthy debunked the misconceptions that many young people have about air travel. Many think that by going vegan they can offset their air travel carbon footprint.

Dr. McCarthy said that going vegan for a year was the equivalent of one transatlantic flight for one person.

To offset the emissions of one jumbo jet crossing the Atlantic once, 500 people would have to go vegan for a year.

Meanwhile, climate change continues apace – with the endless burning of fossil fuels. The ‘destructors’ and their allies continue to deflect attention away from hydrocarbons.

I ‘googled’ the main men in An Taisce – Trócaire’s sidekicks; these guys appear to make a virtue out of flying. They seem to be forever in the air, spewing out CO2; then they cry ‘it’s all the fault of the cows’.

When you burn aviation fuel, coal, oil or gas, you release CO2 into the atmosphere…and there it stays. It’s a one-way ticket.

Comparing apples and oranges

The situation involving greenhouse gases (GHGs) from ruminants is completely different, as acknowledged by: Prof. John Fitzgerald; Prof. Ray Bates; Dr. Frank Mitloehner; Prof. Tommy Boland; and Dr. Paddy Wall.

Scientists now content that GHGs from ruminants are cyclical. Cattle release methane into the atmosphere; this is then converted into CO2 and then re-absorbed by the planet’s most plentiful herbage – grass. The cattle then eat this new grass and, so, the cycle continues. It’s the same methane that’s being recycled, but with wonderful by-products called ‘meat’ and ‘dairy’.

Prof. Tommy Boland recently showed that of the 560 trillion grams of methane produced by bovines, 550 trillion grams are re-absorbed. How more eco-friendly could it be?

Meanwhile, sadly, Nero (and the ‘destructors’) fiddle while coal burns – all the while to confuse and distract.

From John Hourigan, Co. Limerick