The Moose: Sustainabollocks

Sustainable. Carped on about by every single issue charity and pressure group, spouted by MPs and the public sector, and written into every companies mission statement and even painted on the sifde of all the vans

But what does it mean? Buggered if I know. It might have meant something one day, but now it's just a word that everybody uses to pretend they're environmentally friendly

Move to sustainable food systems could bring $10tn benefits a year, study finds

Of course it's also used in many headlines in The Guardian

A shift towards a more sustainable global food system could create up to $10tn (£7.9tn) of benefits a year, improve human health and ease the climate crisis, according to the most comprehensive economic study of its type.

You'd be forgiven, on reading that, for asking what type of food system do they mean, what would be the economic benefits, how would it improve human health and what would it do to prevent climate change?

You'd be forgiven, but you really should know better

It found that existing food systems destroyed more value than they created due to hidden environmental and medical costs, in effect, borrowing from the future to take profits today.

Food is causing health problems. food is causing climate change. Food makes profit. The first two are unlikely and unproven, and the third one is the pinnacle of all evil, according to the Guardian

God forbid, the people who create food for us, should be paid for their labours.

Food systems drive a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, putting the world on course for 2.7C of warming by the end of the century. This creates a vicious cycle, as higher temperatures bring more extreme weather and greater damage to harvests.

Greenhouse gas being carbon dioxide. Now it's been a while since I did basic science at high school, so please help me out here. There's a gas that all plant based life breathes, just like we breathe oxygen, and this gas is absolutely essential for growing food. It's on the tip of my tongue...

And speaking of greenhouses, they're what we use in colder countries, to grow food that requires higher temperatures. Am I right? As for extreme weather, when it's cold they tell us that weather isn't climate, but when the weather whips up a bit, they tell us it's cow farts

Food insecurity also puts a burden on medical systems. The study predicted a business-as-usual approach would leave 640 million people underweight by 2050, while obesity would increase by 70%.

How do you even respond to that? Schrodinger's fat whap? Sure, food insecurity might leave some people with not enough, but maybe that could be dealt with by encouraging people not to live and breed so much in the deserts of the world, where it's quite difficut to grow stuff

We still haven't got to some kind of proposal

The study proposes a shift of subsidies and tax incentives away from destructive large-scale monocultures that rely on fertilisers, pesticides and forest clearance. Instead, financial incentives should be directed towards smallholders who could turn farms into carbon sinks with more space for wildlife.

They want to stop subsidising Big Farmer (See what I did there?) and give the money to people with a large back garden?

To be honest, I don't actually understand what they mean by this, if anything

And what the blithering fuck is a carbon sink? Growing food, by it's very nature, is something that uses up carbon dioxide, if that's what they mean

A change of diet is another key element

Ahh! I suspect that is where all this bollocks was leading us

Overall, they estimate the costs of the transformation at between 0.2% and 0.4% of global GDP per year.

The ten trillion in benefits mentioned in the headline, actually not being financial benefits, but intangible nonsense about how much money could be saved by not being fat or not having climate change. In actual fact, the only financial impact would be a huge monetary cost

As well at the climate impact, it is a major driver of land-use change and biodiversity decline, and is responsible for 70% of freshwater drawdown.

It's also responsible for keeping eight billion people alive, so there's that

Numerous other studies have demonstrated the health and climate benefits of a shift towards a plant-based diet.

Yes, this whole thing has been another push to force everyone to go vegan

A report last year by the Climate Observatory notes that Brazil’s beef industry – and its related deforestation – now has a bigger carbon footprint than all the cars, factories, air conditioners, electric gadgets and other sources of emissions in Japan.

The only thing that says to me, is that we don't need to worry about the carbon footprint of all the cars, factories, air conditioners, electric gadgets and other sources of emissions in Japan

Changing the ways we produce and consume food will be critical to tackling climate change, protecting biodiversity, and building a better future. It is time for radical change.”

What radical change? Do tell, because this is getting tedious

The new study is not prescriptive about vegetarianism, but Rockström said demand for beef and most other meat would fall if hidden health and environmental costs were included in the price.

They want to raise the tax on meat to get us to stop eating it. That's it, isn't it? These people think they're so clever, but all they ever do is regurgitate the same old crap

The main challenge of the proposed food transition is that costs of food would rise. Rockström said this would have to be handled with political dexterity and support for poor sections of society otherwise the result could be protests, such as the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) demonstrations held in France over petrol price hikes.

Political dexterity? I assume that means either more lies, or police with batons. So he can see that artificially inflating the price of food for no reason may result in civil unrest, but he's right, so he wants to do it anyway