Greenpeace says the Dairy Industry\u2019s new \u201caction plan\u201d on climate change is completely lacking in any form of serious action.<\/p>\n
It\u2018s a charter to keep doing sweet nothin\u2019 about the biggest problem facing New Zealand and the world, says campaigner Amanda Larsson.<\/p>\n
One of New Zealand\u2019s biggest polluters – the Dairy Industry – produces half of our agricultural greenhouse gases, responsible for 50 per cent of the country’s overall emissions.<\/p>\n
The dairy leadership has \u00a0been given a free pass on the Emissions Trading Scheme which is the Government\u2019s only way of trying to control the problem.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s so-called action plan commits itself to \u201cclimate change workshops\u201d and \u201cdiscussion groups\u201d but says nothing about any concrete actions to reduce emissions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis report is all talk and no trousers,\u201d says Greenpeace campaigner Amanda Larsson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey used to outright deny climate change and do nothing. Now they accept it’s real but still want to do nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Big Dairy says, \u2018There are currently limited cost-effective options to reduce emissions\u2019, they are deliberately ignoring the most obvious and most environmentally effective action that will cut emissions and pollution in general \u2013 reduce cow numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Dairy Industry still wants more cows. Government funded big irrigation schemes are providing the means to increase and intensify the herd. \u201cThe fact is that by cutting cow numbers there are a multitude of benefits \u2013 cleaner rivers, fewer costly inputs for farmers like PKE, fertiliser and irrigation, and less greenhouse gas emissions. <\/p>\n
\u201cBig irrigation is bad for the climate and it\u2019s also bad for existing dairy farmers who are legitimately trying to clean up their farms. \u00a0All their good work to reduce climate and water pollution will \u00a0be cancelled out by additional pollution from new intensive dairy conversions created under these irrigation schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dairy bosses and the Government \u00a0keep ignoring the simplest and most effective way to reduce climate emissions and river pollution \u2013 fewer cows.<\/p>\n
Greenpeace is advocating a switch to modern forms of farming which produce higher value products with lower stock numbers and less environmental pressure on the land, rivers and air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Greenpeace says the Dairy Industry\u2019s new \u201caction plan\u201d on climate change is completely lacking in any form of serious action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[16],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-1811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-climate","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\n