Tuesdays NZ Herald carried this article called ‘Farm Emissions Breakthrough’. It is about DCD and reducing nitrous oxide emissions Have a read and then read our press release. (the link is below )What we did not say in our press release is that the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium, which is funded by farmers, is playing into the hands of the Sustainability Council who for some reason desperately want agriculture to be brought into the ETS. The Council argued to the select committee that farmers could mitigate their emissions now and a delay in its inclusion in an ETS was not needed.
And then bang within a short time, a headline announcing the breakthrough, wow! what a coincidence. And on top of TVNZ’s Sunday programme a week ago which dealt with the same thing.
The timing of this is suspicious with the select committee winding down and reviewing the submissions. This article is really helpful for the case put by the Sustainability Council to get agriculture into the ETS and paying now. The accomplice in this is the PGGRC which you fund. One can only guess at their motivation, could it be to justify to farmers what they do with all the millions you pay them? Could it be to reinforce their submission to the select committee that all future research funding should be channelled through one agency (them one presumes) and this proves they deserve it? Or could it be to help Ravensdown with a bit of marketing ? Whatever the reason, the timing and the relationships between these groups and your money is suspicious to say the least. I am certainly glad I don’t pay any levies to them.
As for DCD itself I have read reports that the results are not what Mark Aspin from PGGRC is saying. They were from Ballance so you be the judge but whatever the truth of it is, thanks to PGGRC the perception is now that this product can save the planet and farmers now have the means to reduce their emissions so agriculture might as well be in the ETS now.
Maybe I see a conspiracy where there is not one but it is definately worth investigating further I suggest.
Click on this link for the article
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10571580
Press release
Nitrous oxide part of natural process, farming lobby group says
Reducing nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture will do nothing to counter global warming, according to Robin Grieve, spokesman for Pastural Farming Climate Research.
Pastural Farming Climate Research is a lobby group set up recently by farmers to fight the inclusion of agricultural emissions in any government emissions trading scheme.
Nitrous oxide is similar to methane, which is the other main agricultural emission, in being part of a natural cycle.
“These emissions simply return a greenhouse gas back to the atmosphere from whence it came a relatively short time before. There is no accumulating build-up of either greenhouse gas as a result and therefore no chance of global warming,’’ he says.
The only emissions that result in an increase in greenhouse gas in the atmosphere are those that result from the burning of fossil fuel.
“These are the emissions that could cause global warming; the entire world’s agricultural emissions could not even warm a small room,” Mr Grieve says.
He says the only way to slow the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to stop burning fossil fuels.
“Trying to reduce agricultural emissions might be a convenient way for the country to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions without inconveniencing those who like driving their cars and heating their homes, but it will achieve nothing.”
Mr Grieve says the application of a nitrification inhibitor, such as dicyandiamide (DCD) could do more harm than good because fossil fuels will be burned by the machinery used to apply the chemical.
“This will release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that has been locked away for millions of years. If it is true that global warming is caused by an increase in greenhouse gas then applying DCD using a fossil fuel powered vehicle will surely do it in a way that no amount of nitrous oxide emission from livestock urine could ever do,’’ Mr Grieve says.
Pastural Farming Climate Research has made a submission to the Government’s select committee on emissions trading, and is gathering funds from its members to conduct independent research on the climate model being used by the Government to calculate New Zealand’s liabilities. The organisation claims the climate model is faulty and needs to be fixed.