Comments by "Nigel Johnson" (@nigeljohnson9820) on "'Beef has become the whipping guy' - Irish farmers react to Ireland's Climate Action Plan" video.

I prefer cows to cars, but I prefer them alive than on a butcher's hook.
2
@r2ba435 from which part of your carcass will it be taken?
1
@r2ba435 no, snowflakes are endangered by global warming, and yes meat eating is barbaric. Don't worry, if the worst predictions of climate change are true, the few remaining humans will most likely be forced to resort to cannibalism to eke out their remaining short lives. If you are one of these unfortunates, you will at least have the comfort of eating a rare steak, all be it one made from your prematurely deceased family members. If you think the above is an unlikely scenario, consider what will happen when the world's food supply disappears as a result of drought, wild fires, desertification, and freezing conditions in the most polar latitudes. During the siege of Stalingrad, in WWII, several thousand russians were convicted of cannibalism as a direct result of the dire food shortage. I see no reason why history will not be repeated given similar conditions.
1
@r2ba435 politics really does not come in to it. It is a matter of survival of the species. If anyone is mentally defective, it is those that have been warned about the destructive nature of their behaviour and continue to do it anyway. it is said "he who laughs last laughs longest", but I doubt if anyone will be laughing at the collapse of civilization. You post today may come back to haunt you. It will be the ultimate in buyer's remorse. I do not think you will enjoy your steak tonight, since you will recall my comments while eating and think about the prospect of cannibalism, makeing it taste of human flesh. Bon appetit.
1
@r2ba435 as I said before politics really does not come into the matter. You could argue that it is the extreme right wing of the political spectrum that have a lot to lose by recognising the danger of climate change. They are the super rich with considerable investments in things like the fossil fuel industry. It is true the global climate has changed over the millions of years of the planet's existence, and there have been extremes of hot and cold, most linked to global extinction events. What has changed is the speed with which the climate is changing now. According to scientific data, temperatures have risen faster in the last 150 years than they have done in the previous several million years. As the planet ages and our sun gets older and hotter, the climate becomes increasingly unstable. The apparent stability of the planet's temperature is largely due to a complex web of feedback mechanisms that have evolved over the period of its existence. Biological life has been woven into these feedback networks. Human activity is eroding the phase and gain margins of these negative feedback systems to the point where they become positive. These are the so called tipping points that could result in the planet's climate switching rapidly into a new state. Life on this planet is not equipped to deal with such rapid changes and there is no guarantee that the new state will be compatible with any form of life. So your attude of burying your head in the sand and saying it is not my problem is illogical. Even if the changes were natural, which they are not ( based on overwhelming scientific evidence), it would be reasonable to do all that is possible to preserve the temperature stability of the climate, for as you point out the planet's climate has changed in the past and it has resulted in mass extinctions.
1
@r2ba435 I suggest you avoid antibiotics, after all scientific opinion might change about their efficacy. You might also consider taking up smoking, as the manufactures have previously assured their customers that tobacco is good for their health. Climate science is not a religion, it is based on scientific measurements and computer models of the physical mechanisms that control the planet's temperature. If anything climate denial is more like a religion, as it is based on nothing more than a belief that what is being observed is a natural process, ordained by God, and some how everything will turn out for the best dispute the growing evidence to the contrary. Worse still is the refusal to accept the observations which are becoming increasingly apparent to everyone.
1
@working2bselfsufficient724 you really are very dumb. The sun's output changes in a periodic fashion, with a very slow trend in increased output as it's nuclear fuel is see up. Take a look at Venus and Mars to see if a planets atmosphere has any influence on its climate. It is not difficult to discount your opinion on this subject as in flies in direction opposition to a huge weight of scientific evidence and the views of a very large number of scientific experts in the subject. You can continue to spout your unsubstantiated opinions on the subject, up until the effects affect you directly. By which time it maybe too late to do anything about it. As to my comment on tobacco, I suggest you review the television adverts of the 1950's and look at the fight the medical profession had to make in order to get the cigarette manufactures to acknowledge that smoking was killing people. It was only when the evidence was overwhelming that they gave into pressure of statistics. Unfortunately many lives were cut short as a result of tobacco vested interests denying there product was doing damage. The parallels with the oil and coal industries are obvious. I should point out my original comment this post was relative benign and yet I was attacked for expressing it. You should know I will always respond to expression of such ignorance and bad manners.
1
It is worth note that throughout history there are examples of human intervention engineering huge areas of the planet. Even the very few early humans managed to cause the extinction of a number of spices. There are many examples in nature and engineering where small inputs of energy result in very large changes in the environment, for example beavers building dams to engineers turning on a small tap or pushing a button to release water from a reservoir. It is therefore not unreasonable to believe that human intervention, however relatively small, can have a huge impact on the planets climate, the so called butterfly effect. In practice it is the cumulative effects of human activity that is producing the changes we are seeing now. To anyone with a background in engineering, the principles of feedback and stability are well understood. It is also easy to understand how such feedback can result in chaotic behaviour and be associated with tipping points, where a nonlinear system can switch from one state to another. An electronic circuit is infinitely less complicated than the planet's climate system, but the principles can be understood using a simple comparison and observed in practice with an oscilloscope. It is not difficult to write a computer program that can demonstrate chaotic behaviour and how small changes in input conditions can result in a very different outcome.
1
@r2ba435 the written word is relatively poor at conveying such subtle meaning. However, at best your comment were insensitive verging on the sarcastic. With a little empathy you might learn that all animals are considerable more sentient than you credit and deserving of greater respect than humans give them. They show feelings and emotions, such fear. Humans may have evolved as omnivores, but we have developed sufficient intelligence to outgrow our beastly past. I personally find the killing and eating of animals to be repellent. I find the hunting of them for " sport" disgusting, and those cowards involved beyond contempt. I suspect you might too, if you bothered to study animal behaviour. Humans chose to suppress any notion that the animals they eat can experience pain, fear and suffering, because of the inconvenience that inevitable causes. It is difficult to enjoy a steak, when you know the animal from which it is originate was most likely aware of its immediate death and was terrified. If you think this is an example of weak snow flake anthropomorphism or misplace compassion, I suggest you spend a little time in a slaughterhouse. Nature may be red in both tooth and claw, but we have the intelligence to transcend our carnivorous heritage and should do so.
1