*Joe Melody on an area of biodiversity at their Bunratty farm.
Veganism is not the solution for climate change, farming columnist Joe Melody believes as he criticises the stance of Mary Robinson on the matter and her recent involvement with the Dubai royal family.
I like many others watched the Late Late Show on Friday last astounded at Mary Robinsons ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuse as to her dealings with the Dubai royal family. One trait our former President certainly does not possess is naivety so it makes her story of being “horribly tricked” by the Dubai royal family all the more implausible. All this coming from a politically savvy operator with a career spanning over four decades.
It’s only a few weeks since I last discussed former President Robinson with her call for more people to adopt a vegan diet and how she lacked the experience or competency to speak on food and agriculture. The troubling thing about Mrs Robinson is that she is not ignorant, rather she just knows so much that isn’t so. The underlying hypocrisy of her “concern” for our planet was highlighted when she explained the logistics of her intercontinental flying to meet princess Latifa. As a former President of our country, you would have to question how well she embodies some of the fundamental rights enshrined in our constitution such as that pertain to the private sector and in rural Ireland.
The right to earn a living is protected by the Irish constitution and if Mary Robinson’s medicine on solving climate change were to be administered to get to net zero emissions in the private sector, this would hamper the ability of rural Ireland to survive as currently we are not allowed for the carbon that is sequestered through our grassland along with that we are being penalised for the fossil fuels that are being burned here but produced outside of the state.
Mrs. Robinson has done great things in her life but a businesswoman or an economist she is not. She spoke lately of “the injustice to nature herself” within Ireland. Now this was aimed at our use of land in this country, and more veganism and reforestation was seen as the magic elixir to all our environmental maladies.
Land use and the environment is a complex area and what our former president doesn’t seem to realise is that if you take beef production out of Ireland where it is produced off of grass in an extensive land healing way, that same vacuum for beef will still be there but will end up being produced in South America where rainforests will be felled to make capacity to produce extra beef. This is the law of unintended consequences.
Next year we will celebrate the centenary of prising our sovereignty from British rule. Did our bygone heroes such as de Valera and Collins foresee a time where we would be ceding that hard won autonomy to jet setting bureaucrats who set the narrative and course for our countries destiny. We should be guided by science not sound bytes. The fact is that veganism does not reduce carbon emissions.
In North America in fact where soy crops proliferate it is rather uncommon to see a honey bee and it has become an industry transporting beehives around the states to help with pollination. Much of this is due to the heavy uses of pesticides on these crops that are so essential to a vegan diet. Areas that once were populated by buffalo herds were tilled to the point where today the world loses 24 billion tonnes of top soil a year. This does not happen on grassland perennial pastures. Let’s talk about the health of our soils also. Without that we cannot have a healthy planet.
