2/5 Food versus nature: guess which side the RSPB, WWF and National Trust are on?
In many cases, the value of land is determined by how much food can be produced on it. These wildlife charities want to destroy farming and food security with their sinister People's Plan for Nature.
If you're looking for food for thought, the People's Plan for Nature is a feast. However, you'll find that feeding the UK will be less of a priority than concerns about nature and the climate if the schemes within the document become policy. In the People's Plan for Nature, the people come second.
The manuscript calls for drastic changes in consumerism, forcing everyone to buy nature-friendly goods whether they can afford to or not. Companies will not be allowed to make food deemed unhealthy. Diets need to include supposedly less environmentally-damaging food, so less cheap, healthy meat and more expensive processed plant-based mush. Water use will be controlled with "consequences of misuse". The more you read, the more sinister the plan seems.
During his presentation to the 103-member People's Assembly, RSPB trustee Bill Sutherland says they should use science to create clever policies that fix environmental disasters, giving two examples where that didn't happen.
First, the worldwide ban in the 1970s on anti-mosquito pesticide DDT, which "presents no health risk when used properly", according to the World Health Organisation, and is still being used in countries where malaria is rife.
Then he mentions the hole in the ozone layer, which sparked a global ban in the late 1980s on chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases in aerosols, the declared cause of the hole. Once the ban was enforced, the hole swiftly disappeared from headlines. The ban made absolutely no difference, with the hole even now growing and shrinking with the changing seasons.
Sutherland's list of neutralised threats may as well include acid rain as it's more relevant to the People's Plan. In the 1970s and 80s, we were told acid rain was destroying forests and lakes in industrialised countries. Hundreds of millions were spent studying it globally but little was done because it turned out to be harmless and the scary media coverage soon dried up.
The acid rain ‘menace’ was blamed on sulphur dioxide (SO2) from industry and power stations. Business-minded US politicians lobbied for a sulphur credits system, spotting a way to make money from a perceived environmental disaster. Enron was one of the biggest traders, according to Forbes. Once ‘global warming’ appeared, the same system was used for trading carbon credits to regulate CO2. Carbon credits have become one of the most fraudulent markets ever. Even Greenpeace describes carbon offsetting as "a scammer's dream scheme". It's also led to European companies destroying the land of indigenous people, evicting the tribes and planting trees that are offset by Western companies with guilt complexes.
The creators of the People's Plan for Nature are suggesting "nitrate credits", one of the many ideas targeting farmers. In his presentation, Tim Ferrero of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust says: "Our aim is obviously to try and reduce nitrates [in the Solent] but we're working with partners in planners and developers and trying to see if we can get a scheme to sell nitrate credits they need to demonstrate nitrate neutrality. And so this is sort of our pilot to demonstrate that concept."
I wanted to quiz Tim about the nitrate credits scam system but he didn’t return my phone call.
A similarly misguided plan has taken the Netherlands to the brink of a food security crisis, with the government there threatening to close livestock farms to reduce nitrogen emissions. Farmers who are shut down will be banned from setting up new livestock farms. The EU has approved the land grab and destruction of livelihoods based on the unproven theory that raising livestock affects the climate. That won't stop green lobbyists waving copies of the People's Plan for Nature from lining up along Downing Street demanding the government confiscate farms to save the planet.
The problem with their argument is the effect of nitrogen, specifically nitrous oxide (N2O), on global temperatures is so insignificant. The study the threat is based on warns of a miniscule 0.00064 degrees Celsius rise per year. N2O, it says, makes up 1/13th of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is about 0.04% - virtually zero.
Dismantling the world's food supply to curb emissions of ‘laughing gas’ sounds like a joke, but proponents are serious. With a straight face, plant and soil science boob Pete Smith sets the wheels in motion, telling the People's Assembly laws need to regulate what farmers are allowed to grow. There is too much land wasted on grazing sheep and cattle, which make up a relatively small amount in our diets, he insists, so these "carbon intensive foods" must be reduced and people have no choice but to stop eating meat. Most of the country disagrees.
If 70% of the UK is farms, you should be thankful you have something to eat. Twat.
In his Daily Telegraph review of the plan, Charles Moore notes the communist flavour of statements justifying punitive reforms: "The facilitators 'themed and organised' the Plan’s 26 'Calls for Action'. These, asserts the website in Soviet tone, demonstrate 'an irrefutable, independent case… for action, grounded in the will of the people'."
The other main call to action is for the right to roam, hidden under the guise of a demand to make access to nature a human right.
"Suppose some of you want to experience the intangible value of nature… it's not as easy for you to do so, they've just marked parts that restrict your access," complains Leeds university's Radhika Borde in front of a slide showing public footpath signs by a field. "In some cases there have been contestations of people's right to roam. So this is really something that affects all of you directly if you are on a journey of experiencing the intangible value of nature."
With right to roam, farms, estates, front gardens effectively belong to everyone. Right to roam has already been adopted as Labour Party policy and is likely to make it into its next election manifesto.
"Recognition of access to nature as a human right, which really says if you own land, other people should be able to have access to it because it's their human right." says edtech investor Richard Taylor. "Ramblers are saying that we should have access but the reality is during covid, everyone wanted it, but everyone was out there setting fires with their bloody disposable barbecues and leaving their rubbish behind. That's the problem. We've got this complete disconnect between everyone who wants access to the countryside. The only people who do it without [messing] it up, are people involved in shooting and field sports."
The RSPB, WWF and NT want an "Assembly for Nature", impact on nature assessments for everything, 12% of new building projects to be space for nature, crimes against nature being written into law and vast areas of farmland to be rewilded or turned into crops that are ‘nature-friendly’.
Moore sums it up this way: “These recommendations are unremarkable – exactly what you would expect when green pressure groups combine to accrue more power… But the People’s Plan, like most ecological movements, never questions the virtue of ever-greater government, and appears hostile to private property and economic reality and doom-laden about climate change.”
The charities want to be in charge of coordinating all NGOs, businesses and the government because, they claim in the plan, they are "trusted organisations". Readers of my work for Fieldsports Channel may spot a flaw in that, knowing all about RSPB's failed reserves, constant demands for government grants and dubious dealings with developers. It already seems to have a lot on its plate.
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