Gareth Morgan, a celebrity economist, has labelled farm lobby groups Neanderthals. Such an attack is in keeping with the acerbic, ‘grumpy old man’ image that he promotes on television, but it is quite unfair. The arguments he uses to support this view are flawed.
Firstly Gareth informed those eager to learn about farming from an economist that it takes 1000 litres of water to produce 1 litre of milk. This is the sort of information economists are known for; complete nonsense. There is a little less than 1 litre of water in a litre of milk and that is all. Gareth is confusing water with a thing called virtual water. Virtual water has been invented by eco people. In the case of the milk, they measure how much water it takes to grow the grass, how much water the cow drinks, how much it takes for the cow to be milked and the milk processed etc etc. The actual figure is 200litres of virtual water to produce 1 litre of milk but let’s not get too critical, accuracy is not everyone’s cup of tea. A cup of tea by the way takes 35 litres of virtual water to produce, a 250 ml cup of coffee takes 140 litres, a glass of red wine 120 litres and a hamburger a whopping 2400 litres. With all the hamburgers that fly out of the door at MacDonald’s each day, it is amazing that there is any water left in the world.
And yes our economist is concerned that water will become scarcer because of global warming. Where does he think this water is going to go to? Global warming will not make water scarcer because no matter how much it might warm, water can’t go anywhere. Anyway I just read a comment by a scientist who said global warming was going to cause more flooding; so go figure.
It does not take 2400 litres of water to make a hamburger just as it does not take 1000 litres or even 200 litres to make a litre of milk. This is because virtual water is not real and should not be confused with real water. Real water cycles around and around, the rain grows the grass, which is eaten by the cow which returns all that water to the environment so that it can carry on and help produce something else. The same water makes lots of things. Even the water in the litre of milk is returned to the atmosphere eventually, to be rained down upon us once more.
These virtual water campaigners ignore the cyclical nature of water and as such virtual water is a waste of time, as are those who specialise in this field. As are our carbon accounting specialists. This is because ‘carbon’ is a virtual unit itself. The word ‘carbon’ does not apply to anything real, it applies to a unit they invented called a carbon dioxide equivalent. This unit is derived only by ignoring the cyclical nature of carbon, particularly livestock carbon emissions. Virtual water and carbon are both units created by people attempting to create a problem where none exists. What they say is nonsense, but they have been successful convincing the more gullible in our society, including most of our politicians. They could enjoy similar success with the new crises they are manufacturing using virtual water.
Gareth accuses the farm lobby of being Neanderthals because they believe units such as virtual water and carbon have no relevance in a real world. These farmer groups have questioned the validity of these units and do not believe in them. To me these are not the actions of Neanderthals; they are the actions of highly intelligent critical thinkers with independent minds. Neanderthals had none of these attributes, they had very small brains; they did not have the ability to question or to think critically. For these reasons it is likely that if Neanderthals were alive today they wouldn’t question, they would just believe it takes 1000 litres of water to produce just 1 litre of milk.