Guest Post: Amy and Hamish Bielski - Our Research down on the Farm - Part Two

Hi. I am Amy. We are the regen farmers who shared a story on this blog of our research into whether methane emissions from our livestock are a real problem or whether it is something caught up in a phenomenon of hyped-up pseudo-science.

This is a sequel.

Your responses made us dig deeper. Hamish and I looked closely at our ag science and administrative sectors. What we found just below the surface are giant sized egos, division, bias, everything except what we naively thought we should find: genuine, collaborative, truth-seeking intellects focused on the basics of science acting in our best interests as farmers and our country.

We found some willing to sell us down the creek rather than admit recent scientific findings had proved them wrong. We found scientists on the public payroll more committed to their activism and their ‘after hours’ green lobby group than they are to science or the good of the country.

To say we are disillusioned is an understatement. Of course, we are not that artless that we didn’t expect some strong differences of opinion and some ‘politicking’. People in the science fraternity are human too. But the advice of many of these blinded individuals is the basis for our government’s policies and the rules that determine our future, our livelihood, our industry and even our country’s wellbeing.

Want an example? One of our most accomplished and most experienced scientists, the late Dr Jock Allison, who passed away very recently, teamed up with another respected and experienced scientist in the USA to write a paper on climate change, greenhouse gases, and methane, in particular. It didn’t toe the ‘party-line’. That’s the nature of science – challenge and question.

The paper is regarded by many international fellow scientists and commentators to be one of the most comprehensive, well-argued and readable papers ever produced on greenhouse gases. Yet we have scientists here, who tried to block its publication, refuse to read it or engage on it, disparage it and ignore it.

Further, when an international group of scientists showed, conclusively, that the amount of ruminant methane emitted was 300% to 400% overstated when methane emission levels are stable or falling (this is New Zealand’s story), many scientists involved in our climate change studies refused to acknowledge this critical fact.

There is an agenda behind this selective look at science and it wants to ensure citizens and particularly our political decision-makers keep thinking that farmers are recklessly spewing millions of tonnes of dangerous gas into the atmosphere.

One scientist who does come through with his integrity largely intact is Professor Dave Frame. He is the one who told us that New Zealand’s livestock were warming the planet by 4 millionths of one degree C per year. He might have heavily overstated the amount of warming according to some highly recognised, fellow scientists but at least he does not just fixate on “millions of tonnes” of greenhouse gas as a means of providing scary, disturbing scenarios for a sensation-seeking media.

Frame has always known the absurdity of trying to compare the warming ability of methane and CO2. Yet every day we see references stating methane is 85 or even 100 times more a problem than CO2. It is like saying you have two rugby teams. One team consists of just Jonah Lomu on his own. The other consists of a couple of hundred fit Crusaders. Jonah is a lot stronger than any one Crusader but then to claim he will win against the Crusader team is ludicrous. It is just as ludicrous to claim methane is doing more warming than CO2. And as we discovered it is “knowingly” ludicrous.

The few gains or concessions that farmers have won under the Coalition Government have been made largely because Frame provided the scientific basis for them.

Looking forward he is a key person on the Review body set up to look at methane reduction targets. That is a plus, but farmers will want to push him and his fellow panellists hard to get any equity. We also hope there is transparency for the tax paying public as the Review body debates the issues. The stiff-arming of the Climate Change Commission ignoring their work on targets was overdue. They showed bias, an unwillingness to take any account of the submissions Hamish and I made, along with hundreds of other farmers. Thinking they were ‘independent’ was a silly mistake.

In this same way, farmers are also facing sell out by many private sector leaders. For example, we buy from and sell to various cooperatives. We help elect the boards of directors, who, in turn, appoint management. Directors are chosen for their leadership and governing abilities. On one hand we expect them to reflect our values, our view of the big picture issues and our concerns, on the other hand we expect they will ensure that the company is run prudently and effectively.

However, we are finding they undergo some strange transformation and forget any representation of our views and disappear down a tunnel and straight into the same pool of thought that “ruminant methane is a problem”.

Your support in the comments section was heartening. Please keep it going and turn your energy with a pen into other actions that help rid our country of this “ruminant methane is a problem” scourge.

Hey, it’s time to go out and shift the sheep

Amy and Hamish Bielski
Clinton

This article was first published HERE