No reason to demonise farming
OPINION: New Zealand has said it is going to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by ‘a lot’ and ‘in a short time’. One of those gases is methane. Our biggest producer of methane is livestock farming.
But surely we should deal in facts when assessing the impact of, and our response to, climate change, shouldn't we?
So here's a fact: over the last two decades, NASA satellites have recorded a drop in the incidence of wildfires around the world. In the early 2000s, just over 3% of the world's land caught fire. This has trended down since then to 2.2% in 2022. You'll struggle to find that reported in the media though. It doesn't fit the "world is burning" narrative, or the UN's over-egged "era of global boiling".
Overheated headlines won't help us make sensible decisions about climate resilience.
