Esoteric philosopher G. I. Gurdjieff reckoned that the human race was in a state of perpetual “waking sleep” that prevented us from achieving higher levels of being.
This major – and authoritative – report caused the usual ripples in the news media, which lasted a few days, and then it was as if it had never existed. It was back to abnormal. We’d wished the bad news away.
In our green and pleasant land, news coverage concentrated on the one thing that would guarantee to outrage us: the shocking idea that we need to eat less meat. Predictably, representatives of primary industries reacted by chowing down on the idea that because we do things differently here on New Zealand farms, the issue doesn’t apply to us.
Apparently, New Zealand agriculture isn’t as intense or as carbon toxic as the countries discussed primarily in the UN report. Therefore, said the farming bodies, we can let ourselves off the hook and eat our meat until the cows come home.
And that was the end of it, more or less. There’s always another bomb going off somewhere or another big rugby match to get the lion’s share of the next day’s news. Never mind about the world going to hell in a hat. If we put our heads in the sand and pretend the UN report never happened, she’ll be right mate!
So here’s the thing: the latest UN report on climate change was a huge undertaking involving many countries and top scientists and, before it could be collated, all participating countries had to agree on the details. So, if anything, the report will already be somewhat watered down, and the situation even more serious, and the planet even more imperilled than we realise.
Whatever our farming methods down here in paradise, we’re not immune to climate change and we’re not carbon zero. And it doesn’t take a genius to observe what’s not happening in New Zealand. We’re not all going out and buying EVs even though many of us could afford them.
We’re not even taking a little bit of time to live more sustainably, because, you know, that little bit of time could be used for something really important, like eating a cream donut or catching up with friends on Facebook.
Farmers are not planting trees (heck, they can’t even be bothered giving their animals shelter from the increasing number of serious weather events) and their land is awash with chemical nitrates that make the grass grow but leech into streams and lakes. And our so-called ‘better farming practices’ show that an increasing amount of stock feed comes from unsustainable imported palm kernel.
Yes, there are good farmers, but how many are doing the right thing? The UN climate change report was essentially about land as a limited resource and, ultimately, the need for more beef around the world means that more forests must be cut down, which accelerates the planet’s dire problem. The solution isn’t simple, but if we all made a conscious decision to cut down our meat intake by 50% (or more), then we’d be doing something real. And we might even find that we’re coming out of our “waking sleep”. (GARY STEEL)
Gary Steel is an Auckland-based journalist who runs online vegetarian resource www.doctorfeelgood.co.nz.
He can be contacted via beautmusic@gmail.com
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