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Cows Milk in our Diet – the Future
The future of cows milk in our diet is up for discussion. It is the most consumed dairy product in the world by volume and in the UK is cheaper than bottled water. By an accident of genetics, Caucasian peoples are able to digest cows milk, but many are intolerant to some degree. In contrast Asian origin people are, post infancy, unable to digest cows milk.
Founder of Earth and Leaf – Iain Dunn
“My career is founded on milk. Early on this was through the family farm. We milked about 36 cows to a bucket in traditional cowsheds. These cows frequently lived to 12 or more years of age. Later I attended Agricultural College and then University where I studied Agricultural Sciences. I am still learning about milk thirty six years later. I have spent most of my working life in the dairy industry mostly with cows but also with goats.”
Cows Milk in our Diet
Cow’s milk is not a great food source for vast numbers of people on our planet. There are good genetic reasons. This article from the BBC explains why; Why (some) humans have evolved to drink milk. This makes the future of cow’s milk a more interesting topic. It is a good reason to look at goat’s milk as an alternative. Why we Farm Cows and not Goats . . .
How is the future of goats milk compared to the future of cow’s milk?
It is good and that is a blessing for our planet. There is no future for cows milk in our diet, but it is also worth pointing out that many of the alternatives are unsustainable too.
Why not Cows ?
Quite simply it is an incredibly inefficient way to farm.
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The Power of Genomics – Improve Farm Sustainability
We must grasp the power of genomics firmly to help agriculture, but not simply to raise yields. We need to be smarter than that.
Read more: The Power of Genomics – Improve Farm Sustainability
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Mushrooms are the Future in Our Diet and of our World
Mushrooms are the Future. I grew up with a farm that had fields full of Field Mushrooms and Puffballs every autumn. We also had Shaggy Inkcaps and a large number of others too. The Inkcaps grew in a straight line across a large field next to an ancient bridleway. I always wondered why. Now I know – there used to be a hedge there, an ancient hedge.
I have never worked on another farm since with a huge variety of fungi out in the fields. They were always near the edge of the wood or a hedge. Sometimes they would appear where a hedge used to be!
Mushrooms are the future of our world. When we destroy ancient forest, we destroy a vast network of
Mushrooms are the Future
The Vegan Food and Living publication is a useful reference.
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The Sahara was Once Green and it Can be Again with Your Help
The Sahara was Once Green
Did goats cause the desertification of the Sahara? We don’t think so, but it is possible.
What we do know is that the Sahara is growing. This is because of global warming and environmental pressures. If we can prevent that we must!
Goats and Cattle are the huge threat in Africa that will turn the Savannah into desert over time. There is strong evidence that the Sahara was smaller historically. We know it is expanding now, particularly with global warming.
https://www.popsci.com/sahara-desert-drought-humans/
You can also view this in our document library – https://earthandleaf.org/document/reforesting-senegals-deserts/
The Sahara was Once Green
I need to type lots more words to get my seo rank above 80. It is nearly there. Keyword density is 1.65, the focus keyword and combination appear 2 times. At least one external link with DoFollow was found in your content. There we go. Another great organisation is Ecosia, use their search engine to plant trees and rehabilitate ecosystems. They are doing amazing work in sub saharan Africa, along with the Rainforest Alliance.
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Green-washing at Drax Uncovered by Panorama
Last year Ofgem committed to investigating apparent Green-washing Drax:
Green-washing at Drax Here is a little of the detail from the BBC Panorama investigation, Green-washing at Drax. Once the program becomes available it will feature on here. Meanwhile global warming continues and so does green-washing.
In response to the latest findings by the BBC, Drax admitted it has taken wood from old-growth forests. But it told Panorama that 77% of the material for its Canadian wood pellets came from sawdust and sawmill residues, with the rest coming from forestry residues and low-grade logs.
A spokesman for the company says that it keeps its sourcing policy and practices under regular review so that they “take account of evolving forest dynamics, legislation, policy, and science”.
Drax says that it decided in October 2023 to stop sourcing wood from old-growth priority deferral areas, and that “work to implement this decision through the supply chain is ongoing”.
The company doesn’t dispute that it is still taking wood from old-growth sites that are not priority deferral areas.
The burning of wood from old-growth forests contradicts the company’s previous claims. In a 2017 report about sustainability, Drax stated it would not take wood from what it called “no-go areas”. It said: “We do not take from protected forests, old growth or primary forest, sites that have been classified as having a high biodiversity value.” Reference – Green-washing at Drax.
Drax has told BBC Panorama that the 2017 document is “now obsolete” and that its current policy and practices are “more sophisticated”.
This is environmental destruction for profit, not just Green-washing!
Old growth natural forest is being cut down in North America to supply Drax power station. Firstly this simply is very wrong. It is exactly the same as cutting down Amazon Rain-Forest. Secondly the rules that determine what counts as renewable energy are simply nonsense in this case. Wood is not a fossil fuel. But it is fuel that when cut down, transported, processed, transported again and then burned causes global warming. At each stage it is responsible for pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
Fifty per cent of the stored carbon in a tree is underground. Why is that important? Because it is released into the atmosphere over time when a tree is cut down! The green-washing at Drax ignores this data.
Stop Green-washing at Drax and Join Earth and Leaf
Drax produces about 4% of the UK’s energy. We can shut Drax down by insulating our homes.
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Green-washing isn’t so Green after all
Radio 5 this morning, 7th February 2024 featured a discussion on flying and private jets. A listener messaged in to say “Ive planted over 1000 trees so I will fly as much as I like.” Oh dear!
My immediate response was; “Firstly this listener doesn’t understand global warming and climate change. Secondly, he feels entitled, although he plants trees which is good. Thirdly, has he planted the trees or simply used offsets or bought carbon credits.”
Now to the 1st of March, concerning Drax Power station in Yorkshire. The first thing to say about Drax is it is counted as a renewable energy plant because it burns wood chips. In other words it is not renewable energy. Most importantly he whole plant and its supply chain is mired in greenwashing.
Here is the recent article from the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68381160
First of all, cutting own ancient forest in North America to fuel British power stations is utter lunacy and environmental vandalism. Additionally cutting down forests in North America to fuel Drax is bonkers. The transport costs are phenomenal too, generating vast amounts of CO2.
Second, there is also an external cost. The forests grown for Drax cannot be used for other purposes. Consequently other trees must be cut down too, to provide timber for North America.
“Drax, receives money from energy bill payers because the electricity produced from burning pellets is classified as renewable and treated as emission-free”.
This is Green-washing! This emphatically is not renewable energy.
To learn more, Click Here!
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Sheep Farming Reform is Long Overdue
Sheep farming reform in Britain is overdue. We have unique system that produces about eight million lambs for slaughter each year. This system involves 18 million ewes when just 8 million should be enough. Why?
Tradition. We have what is known as a stratified sheep farming system. This is rooted in traditions of upland and moorland management. Progress in the new science of Genomics means we no longer need that system which would free millions of hectares of farmed land for other uses.
Sheep meat consumption is falling fast so we no longer need those eight million lambs. This is the ideal time for sheep farming reform in Britain. As our relationship with the EU develops exports are going to fall significantly. Some sixty percent of our lamb is exported. If we were to cease exports of lamb then we would only need about eight million ewes and that number will continue to fall in the next two decades.
Grouse shooting needs to end. Our uplands are burnt annually, drained and overgrazed by sheep purely to boost the population of native Grouse. This leads to flooding and disrupted river flow downstream and increases the difficulties caused by drought and flooding. Grouse shooting has other unpleasant side effects too – see what Raptor Persecution UK have to say about it.
Hill sheep are crossed to produce crossbred “mule” ewes which are sold or transferred to farms on lower ground to be crossed with a terminal sire. This is where the majority of lambs for meat are produced, male and female.
So we have a whole generation of hill sheep that are kept solely to produce reproductive sheep for lamb production. They generally have one lamb per ewe. The crossbred mules should average two lambs each. You don’t want more than two because a ewe has only two teats. With modern genomics this is a waste of time, land, labour and makes sheep farming very extensive. However with reform of the British sheep industry we MUST put in place just transition for the affected farmers and communities.
I have in the past been challenged with the argument that we have to use this sheep farming system because there is no other use for the uplands except sheep and beef farming along with Grouse shooting. They might add forestry. This is of course not the case.
The uplands are or should be a giant sponge absorbing rainfall and releasing it gently across the year feeding springs, rivers, reservoirs and regulating water flow that prevents flooding.
Historically this used the moors and hills for farming. Millions of hectares of land have been drained or gripped which increases water run off rates. This speeds up water flows from the hill to the sea. Along with dredging, straightening water courses and of course drainage systems lower down the hill destroy our rivers as habitat.
So how do we reform sheep farming?
We need to halve our lamb production and use genomics to make that lamb production efficient. This removes the need for “at scale” hill farming. If we take out some of the beef herds as well that gives us millions of hectares for conservation and recreation, adding the benefit of flood mitigation. This will enable us to increase the UK forest cover from 10% to 25%.
I propose we start sheep farming reform in our National Parks.
I conclude – there are many varied benefits to sheep farming reform in Britain.
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Time to Take Action on Nature Decline
It is time to take action on nature decline. A report today by the Office for Environmental Protection states; “If action is not taken England risks an irreversible spiral of decline in its nature”
Here’s the report from World at One:
Government remains largely off track to meet its environmental ambitions, finds OEP in annual progress report. It is time to take action on nature decline.
18.01.2024
Government remains largely off track to meets its environmental ambitions and must speed up and scale up its efforts in order to achieve them, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has found in its annual progress report.
The OEP report provides an assessment of government’s progress towards legally-binding environmental targets and the goals of its Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP). It covers the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023. It also includes content on selected cross-cutting themes, such as nature-friendly farming, and a more in-depth assessment focused on government’s apex goal of achieving ‘thriving plants and wildlife’.
Dame Glenys Stacey, Chair of the OEP, said: “While some progress has been made, substantial challenges remain. Our assessment is that government is largely off track to meet its ambitions and its legal obligations.
It really is time to take action on nature decline and it is so very simple. I dug a pond on my allotment. Six months later I took this photograph of a female Southern Hawker dragonfly laying her eggs at that pond.
It really is time to take action on nature decline.
You can read some of our book here at www.shepherdsofthetrees.org
You can also learn about Shepherds of the Trees here
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Interesting Stuff Going on at Home
Wickham Fen
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-67933864
Knepp Castle Estate is leading in re-wilding projects in the UK in West Sussex. Here’s a short film on their beaver reintroduction project:
Finally, there are also lots of interesting things going on around the world. Click Here!
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Interesting Stuff Going on Around the World
Wow
https://orangutan.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e1bedc0d32dbb4e95a8fc9748&id=97a6777442&e=1154216cea Rain at last in North Sumatra
Ive re-watched Earth. It really is an important must watch for everyone
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0fpwlny/earth-series-1-2-snowball
The Rainforest Alliance protects rainforests and helps farmers and indigenous communities.
This is a great project in Borneo
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/documents/2484428-regrow-borneo-pilot-year-impact-report
Finally, there are also lots of interesting things going on at home in the UK. Click Here!
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Time for Another Agricultural Revolution
It is Time for Another Agricultural Revolution
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Join the Earth and Leaf Community
Join the Earth and Leaf Community to help you to “reduce your carbon footprint”. Simply tell us in 250 words what your group does. We will assess your application and set a reasonable and appropriate annual or monthly fee. Send your application to info@earthandleaf.org.
Denis in LLandudno, on the pier
Individual membership is £4 a month. Individual members will receive a free kindle copy of the book Leaf Letters once they have completed a year of membership.
What do you get if you join the Earth and Leaf Community
If you wish to join us as an individual please visit Join Earth and Leaf
If you want to learn more about sustainable farming have a look at The Rainforest Alliance
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Global Warming and Climate Change – Despite all the Warnings
Have a look at this, despite all the warnings on Global Warming and Climate Change, little is being done. Everyone on this world has to reduce carbon emissions and do all they can to grow and rehabilitate rain forest in order to slow global warming. Tourist destinations of natural beauty only exist because of our beautiful fragile green globe. Then someone does this!
The Mexican government has driven a huge railway through the Yucatan Rain forest. Its a crime against humanity if you would like humanity to survive rather than make a lot of money for a very few people.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240102-the-train-maya-mexicos-ambitious-new-tourism-megaproject
Global warming and climate change
The destruction of the Pantanal surely should impact everyone on the globe.
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Taking Account of Hidden Costs Results in Sustainable Food Production
Taking account of hidden costs in food production will result in sustainable food production. These hidden costs are called Externalities in traditional economics. That sounds really complicated. It isn’t.
True cost accounting is another way of looking at and evaluating these hidden costs.
This video was produced by Friends of the Earth
Economics is not taking account of externalities. In the science of economics the term externalities is used to lump together the external costs of an economic action or policy. Historically these have been difficult to measure.
These costs have to paid for eventually. This is usually by public health systems, the environment and ultimately by every single one of us. Global warming is an externality. Dealing with pollution is an externality. Another relevant example is the use of farm subsidies to make farming profitable. These subsidies are not reflected in food prices, but we pay instead through taxation.
Taking Account of Hidden Costs
Firstly this means that we will have to move to a new form of economics. The present system no longer works. Secondly we need governments to recognise this. This issue has very recently been highlighted by the United Nations. A great start! Here is a relevant article on True Cost Accounting which involves taking account of hidden costs:
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Electric Vehicles are not the Answer
You will see in other areas on this site that the worlds headlong rush towards electric vehicles is not as green as everyone thinks, nor is it a solution. If you are an average family of four with two children and two cars you give up a car if you really want to make a difference.
Replacing the worlds eight billion cars with EVs will add billions of tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. It will destroy huge parts of the environment in Sumatra, poisoning water courses, the sea and the people with pollution from Chinese owned heavy metals mining. Of course it drives economic growth so we must rethink neo-classical economics, taking account of externalities.
Here is a project making a real difference. This scheme certainly is a solution. The infrastructure is easy to sort.
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Loss of Antarctic Sea Ice is at Crisis Point
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64649596
How much evidence do we need? This is terrifying and will take decades to even slow down never mind reverse. I wont be here to see it reversed if that is possible, but we have a succession plan at Earth and Leaf. My fingers are firmly crossed.
Less obviously, but equally important, is the diminishing Arctic sea ice. Shipping companies are really excited about opening up northern shipping routes which is a pretty good indicator of how much they care about the environment.
As these issues are not addressed year on year our warming problem accelerates. The amount of energy needed to melt billions of tonnes of ice is staggering. This is buffering the planet warming at this point in time. Once the ice is gone warming will accelerate dramatically and will end all mammalian and avian life on the planet.
Ice cover is a good measure of our efforts to halt the warming. If we go along with maximum warming of 1.5 degrees centigrade it will be impossible to replace that ice. At an ambitious project of reducing the warming by 1.5 degrees centigrade the ice cover will start to grow again, but will take thousands of years to get back to levels seen at 1980.
You can make your choice. We need families and individuals to make the right choices in their lives in large enough numbers to save our world.
I frightened myself last week. I drove my son back to Sheffield from Harrogate (80 miles). The journey generated 25 kg of Carbon Dioxide. That is one fifth of the amount a mature Oak tree absorbs in one year. He will in the future be using the train as will I.
This year has seen the warmest sea temperatures ever recorded. This graph is very serious indeed:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66387537
It may already be too late, but we cannot give up.
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Wildfires are Tipping us Ever Closer to the Edge
As I write there are over 2000 current wildfires in Canada. This is on top of those in Hawaii, the USA, the Amazon, Greece, Australia and many other countries. It will take 50 years for the Canadian forest to start to recover. There will be more fires next year. Every fire adds to the CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) in the atmosphere. It is a self accelerating process. We are getting quite close to runaway global warming. If that happens, humanity at least is finished, rain forests will be completely gone, it has to rain or life cannot persist as we know it. It is estimated that the 2022 wildfires in Australia added 1% more CO2 to the total concentration in our atmosphere.
Year on year, starting NOW, not 2030 or 2050, the world has to increase its forest cover and quickly. I think a minimum target should be 5% per year. Young growing native canopy absorbs CO2 and it grows faster in the tropics. We will lose more forest to wildfires in future years. This must be reduced and planting and rehabilitation must increase.
When will our governments realise how important this is? Our current economic system concentrates wealth in the hands of a few individuals. Those individuals hold the fate of the planet in their hands. As long as economic growth is measured purely in monetary terms we have a problem:
Essentially; Growth in £££s = CO2
We need a new system.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66551480
Will the Anthropocene be the shortest Era in the history of our world? If we do not act very quickly indeed, it certainly will be.
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Improve Sustainability Using Economics
We need a New Economic System. We need to take account of externalities. What are externalities?
We need to look at new ways of measuring economic performance.
Externalities are causing our planetary woes. This isn’t a political issue in any way shape or form, we deal here only in fact and science.
So a little bit of history ……….
A free market economy mean that consumers buy stuff at a price fixed by the market. Competition forces prices down. Except, it isn’t that simple. For example a litre of water that comes through a water meter at your address has a fixed cost per litre. However some of the costs of supply of that litre of water are not included in the price you, the consumer, pays. One such cost is cleaning up pollution.
The water company charges you per litre. They make a profit and pay their shareholders. That’s fine, that’s how the world works.
The UK is a worldwide absolute rarity in that water companies are private companies. There are lots of them as well, but the customer cannot choose which company to buy from. That is not free market economics. That is a geographical problem. That issue was solved in the electricity market by separating the wiring out into a single national grid.
Externalities are hidden costs. They are social costs, environmental costs and financial costs that are not included in the true price of a “good or service”.
Pollution is a great example.
A quick example of true cost accounting puts the “real” cost of food at three times the actual cost.
GDP is not set in stone. As a measurement it is a social construction. It needs to be flexible so that it can change with the times. TCA is that change. TCA is True Cost Accounting. Externalities will become Internalities. Pollution costs will be included in the price of food.
The FAO is starting to take TCA seriously. Watch this space!
New Scientist, 2 December 2023, The Hidden Cost of Everything, Graham Lawton.
Have a look at the Earth and Leaf Feature “A New Economics”
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Earths History – the Anthropocene
Earths history extends back for 4.5 billion year. For the last tens of thousands of years in the Holocene era, the atmosphere has been stable with a steady content of CO2. This common gas is incredibly important for life (plants) and as a thermo-regulator for our world. If the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere rises, global temperature rises. If it falls far enough, the planet cools enough to bring about ice ages. These processes normally take millions of years.
Technically we are still in the Holocene however.
Plants are also incredibly important for our world. They absorb CO2 and release Oxygen.
In the Anthropocene we have inadvertently taken control over the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
Earths History mapped out
“Graphic”
How?
Once human beings moved from hunter gatherers1 to farming with settled populations and communities with dwellings, life became both easier and more complex at the same time. With agriculture came trade. With trade came economics. Agricultural development brought about massive land clearance, rain forest destruction, drainage and soil degradation, all of which drove up CO2 levels. They continue to do so.
Then came the industrial revolution, accelerating global warming and dramatically increasing the population. Agriculture had to embrace the industrial revolution in order to feed the growing population. That in turn has led to further massive deforestation. The vicious cycle continues to raise CO2 levels.
With development of civilisation, philosophy and the sciences come vested interests and manipulation of power and wealth making it harder to do something about the crisis.
Finally we need to be very aware that it is just 28 countries doing most of the damage. They are:
That is it in a nutshell!
So what happens next?
We have to educate using fact and science.
1We were already damaging the planet causing extinctions of a range of large land mammals and birds.
