Interesting article and very good points, the only problem is that if we were to reduce our beef farming then it will probably just move to somewhere like south America where it is in general not as sustainable and therefore increase carbon emissions worldwide but Ireland would have an A+ 

We are currently jn a race between human ingenuity and human stupidity ! We Have an economic system that requires perpetual growth to survive in a finite world. That is why we do need to find ways to reduce the farting of cows – we are getting ourselves into complex problems that require complex solutions so yes jay we do need the scientists.

Molly our Co2 emissions are relatively minuscule. Climate change is already happening and is more than likely irreversible. We however, have some of the worlds best real estate to deal with it, with our northern latitude and relatively high elevation. I would refute your drought stricken southern farm theory as folly. We should absolutely concentrate on departing from our fossil fuel dependence but mainly because we need to prepare for the transition as such power sources run out. The analogy of Co2 emissions and our economic depression is little more than a parlour trick designed to shed light on topics that are utterly unrelated.

Another great example of the Irish self-hate bias! No mention of the right of Americans to wastefully drive gas guzzlers, Canadian wastefulness in extracting shale oil or Chinese hunger for burning dirty coal ad inf. Paddy is attacking Paddy for producing less than 0.14% of the world’s greenhouse gas thus ignoring the real culprits and arguing for Paddy to shoot himself in the foot. Evidence if were needed that Irish journalism (like banking) is infected with mad cow disease!

May sound like a contradiction, but the carbon impact of building and running and transporting a new car outweighs the impact of continuing to run an older “dirtier” car thats already been built and shipped. Especially hybrids. They use hard to get rare earth minerals much more than standard diesel or petrol cars.

Not to overly dwell on the farting thing but imagine the climate change when dinosaur s were at it .no wonder they had to go.

This is simply put and well said. The weakness of all democracies, our own included, is short termism and superficiality. Rarely do politicians see beyond the next election or beneath a newspaper headline.nThis is why when the economic bubble was expanding in the mid 2000s not one of the main political parties had a ‘let’s be prudent and stop spending’ manifesto and if they did, would they have enjoyed electoral success? I think not.nSo too with our fragile climate, which needs unpopular short term pain (public transport resources, running costs of cars increasing even more, water charges etc) for unseen and inexperienced benefits ( a sustainable future). Now that’s a real vote winner!!!

It’s not the governments fault, it’s ours. We vote them in, they want to stay in. If you want them to tackle climate it means higher taxes. We don’t want that.

It’s true to say that cows (or more properly, their complementary load of methanogenic bacteria) release merhane to the armosphere.

Yet there is a duplicity here. The figures for the impact of agriculure on global warming are derived from
making many assumptions which may or may not be true, and which this writer is disingenuously glossing over.

Grain growing accounts for, by far, the largest carbon impact of all human food production. The calculations for livestock usually include a “grain loading” which is not appropriate to include in a calculation for grass-fed herds like Ireland’s. Pastured animals also CREATE soil, an important carbon sink, while grain crops steadily destroy soil and replace it with petroleum based feetilisers. I would request the writer do separate calculations on the impacts of grain-fed v grass-fed herds, and the im

Those are your words, Damocles. In 2007, all the main parties had manifestos based on 4-6% economic growth – why, if not to get elected? nThe astuteness of the Irish electorate (or indeed of any democracy) is hard to judge and I am not making such an assessment. My comment is about democracy…which is littered with short termism etc. I am not sure what the answer is… But we are all paying the cost of poor leadership. Also the standard of public political debate…. Someone once said..’everything is political, except politics, which is personal’ (or some such). The personal slanging matches that often characterise Dail discussions and TV debates illustrate this well.

The climate has always changed and always will.the cows have always belched and farted .and Molly will get paid to scare the s— out of us .more methaine.

This is the biggest load of rubbish i have ever read. Friends of the Earth should be called enemies of the people. What will people do when there is no food to eat or not enough lettuce to go around. Typical scaremongering from global warming morons. Ask any farmer if it’s getting too dry in the south of Ireland. It’s a complete washout. People like molly should not be entertained without facts and figures and also alternatives to her argument.

People seem to oppose austerity but support Green austerity. This agricultural plan is in fact anything but short termism, quite the opposite, and will provide jobs and exports. When Molly says we are on target for the reduction in car emissions, that is down to the recession. We won’t get out of the recession unless industries, or agriculture grow and that will involve more emissions, unless we have technical solutions on emissions instead of solutions to reduce consumption or production.

Economic contraction is not a solution, it creates human misery. Molly seems to suggest that we should not try to implement this report, and not compete for more exports in beef or cattle, exports which will be replaced elsewhere at a possible cost to the environment anyway, “good” for Ireland’s Green reports, but neutral, or worse, for the world’s. Thats a mugs game.

Instead of austerity Greenism we could try to reduce emissions per cow. I was going to suggest it wasn’t past the ingenuity of humans to reduce cow emissions, or trap them, and in fact it has been done, just not implemented.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/mar/22/germany.climatechange

Climate crisis? More like climate scam to tax your very existence.

Insects contain as much protein as beef and don’t produce any emissions, in years to come we will be ordering a plate of insects rather than a stake!

while some aspects of climate change, over the long run, should give us pause. the alarmist mentality that it is any sort “crisis” has been vastly overblown.

simply put, those who advocate this crisis cannot scientifically support their own arguments in any form of fair, honest public debate.

add in the fact that, if you are a professor or scientist, and you don’t advocate for the current climate change junk science. you’ll very soon find yourself out of a job. and ridiculed by peers.

many researchers and professors simply follow the research funding. which, for the most part, only flows into those who advocate for climate science, to the point where evidence against such is ridiculed. most of the true scientific work is heralded by retired members of the climate science community, no longer forced to provide one side only of the argument in order to receive funding and keep their university jobs (after all professors and scientists who don’t bring in funding aren’t of much use to the commercial income of any school).

it gets so bad, that even students who propose otherwise in their own papers are automatically failed by some professors, regardless of the merits of their research. simply for going against the status quo of the governing “consensus” with their views.

@mark….Oh it must be true it’s on nasa’s website… Governments want you to believe it so they can tax it. I’d rather hear it from independent scientists

Oh give me a break, who cares……

Ooo yeahh

Basic facts are that the banking crisis WAS a man made problem and “Climate Change” is not. The pseudo-science involved in this modern myth is nothing more than researchers with no real work being able to get easy funding for almost anything they want as long as they make a link (No matter how tenuous) to climate. Climate cycles have been around as long as the planet and is a natural cycle and to mention Al Gore adds insult to injury… This is the man that tried to convince everyone he invented the internet while he was running for president and believes in climate change so much that he makes absolutely no attempt to reduce his own so called “Carbon Footprint” You only have to look at his house. I’m all for green energy if it means cheaper energy, but the funny thing is that when I looked at the prices here in Ireland, If you want to purchase solely renewable source electricity it’s the most expensive electricity you can buy!!! SCAM SCAM SCAM

Mark ,as will happen,life s like that

Those are your words, Damocles. In 2007, all the main parties had manifestos based on 4-6% economic growth – why, if not to get elected? nThe astuteness of the Irish electorate (or indeed of any democracy) is hard to judge and I am not making such an assessment. My comment is about democracy…which is littered with short termism etc. I am not sure what the answer is… But we are all paying the cost of poor leadership. Also the standard of public political debate…. Someone once said..’everything is political, except politics, which is personal’ (or some such). The personal slanging matches that often characterise Dail discussions and TV debates illustrate this well.

http://carbon-based-ghg.blogspot.ie/2010/11/leaking-siberian-ice-raises-tricky.html when this happens were all shagged.cattle, insects people everything.

Is it still raining?

Climate change is a massive lie!!

We need a world government to control population and climate change. Thankfully it’s well on the way now even if they are just the super rich banksters.