There is no corner of our lives the miserablists will not try to invade in order to put a stop to it. Any excuse will do.
We are all more conscious about the environmental impact of the food we eat, how we travel and the clothes we buy…
Nope. Don’t give it a thought. I am concerned about damage to habitat, which is why I am not a fan of electric cars, for example, but otherwise, I don’t buy the cow farts causing global warming bullshit. If I want to travel, I’ll travel although that’s off the agenda at the moment. I do not live my life worrying about the mythical climate emergency and I do not share the self flagellation activities of the far leftist activists disguised as journalists.
…but many of us won’t have given a second thought to the alcohol we consume.
Well, no, because most of us have lives.
That’s not surprising, as the effects on the climate of the production and supply of our favourite psychoactive drug has been largely ignored, even though it is well known by the drinks industry.
At every stage of alcohol production there is an environmental footprint: from growing the raw ingredients, to manufacturing; through to packaging and transporting the finished product. As the population of the world grows, so does the demand – on land – to produce food to sustain people.So, when land is given over to growing crops for alcohol production, this clearly reduces food-growing capacity. Unlike food, alcohol is not essential to life, resulting in a perverse situation where growing rice and potatoes for alcohol production is prioritised over supplying those who need these foods in many parts of the world.
The desire of the puritans to ban alcohol never ends. Every time they are defeated, they look for a new wagon to hitch a ride on. The environment is merely another excuse for a tired old authoritarian monster.
It is not just land that is scarce – water supply is at a premium in many regions across the globe. As global consumption of alcohol increases, so does the demand for water used to irrigate crops, and in the manufacture of alcohol.
Because whisky distillers in Scotland, a land with more than enough water, is contributing to drought in Africa. This is the level of argument here. And land is not scarce. Not by a long chalk.
So once again, the puritans are scraping barrels in an attempt to pursue their vision of a pleasure-free life for the rest of us. God, these people really are despicably awful. And I don’t drink.
But growing crops to turn into ‘bio-fuel’ instead of just pumping oil out of the ground is different in some way…?
Yes, because reasons.
I was thinking the same; I guess a lot of others will too. I wonder what the relative volumes or land areas are.
Certain people are a waste of oxygen. The solution is in their hands.
And they’ll none of them be missed.
Here’s a good breakdown of the costs of ethanol production from corn in the US, including the net energy losses incurred (who knew that?).
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2001/08/ethanol-corn-faulted-energy-waster-scientist-says
Yep. BBC did a 30 min hit piece on Palm Oil tree growing destroying x,y,z. However, no mention of the WHY Palm Oil trees being grown. BBC know green crap is bad, but won’t admit it, same as politicians – all because it sounds Nice
Renewable Energy? BS, once it’s used it’s gone. What damage are we doing by sucking GWs of energy out of climate? Are green crap policies fuelling Climate Change?
“Renewable Energy? BS, once it’s used it’s gone.”
There is no such thing as ‘renewable’ energy, since energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be converted to another form.
Strictly speaking it is matter that can neither be created nor destroyed. Energy is what is used to do that. We have become so used to the corruption of science and language used by the press, politicians and green activists, we forget all too easily those basic principles (and some never learned them in the first place of course). For example, they talk about fossil fuels being energy. It is fuel. The energy is expended during combustion and is given off in heat and motion. That’s if I recall my O Level physics accurately.
I take it that by ‘matter’ you refer to a physical substance rather than the ‘matter’ that astrophysicists keep discovering in black holes etc. Very little is known about that. All physical matter, whether gas, solid or liquid stores energy, and we can only make use of energy by converting it from one form to another. For example a light bulb – electrical energy changes to heat, which then changes to light (what the light then changes to when it dissipates I do not know – probably kinetic since light is both a particle and a wave, but it doesn’t get destroyed). To make the electricity in the first place, to drive the light bulb, you must first generate it by converting energy – whether light from the sun, kinetic energy from wind or water, or heat from coal/oil/nuclear.
“Energy can neither be created nor destroyed” is the first rule of thermodynamics, first stated by Julius Mayer in 1841.
http://scihi.org/julius-von-mayer-energy/
“And all is dust, remember this” – Enya, The Humming, Dark Sky Island.
This is 24 carat solid baloney anyway. Crop yields have increased vastly over the last 70 years or so across the board and as a result the number of people who are malnourished has correspondently reduced. What we have here is third rate rationalisation to support the writer’s preferred conclusion when the facts don’t support it at all. There is more than enough land to feed the world and make as booze as we want to drink.
Exactly. The green revolution (not Green freak nonsense, but the huge growth in agricultural output) has far out paced population growth. If the EU had allowed GM crops we’d been even further ahead.
And they’ll prise the booze out of my cold, dead hands before I give up one iota voluntarily.
Tomorrow:
How Growing Sugar Is Destroying The Planet
Sunday:
Fish Pooing in Sea Destroying Oceans
These are the same sort of vile people that I referred to under an earlier post. Unable to live their own lives and leave other people to live theirs. The environment is the go to excuse nowadays. Beer is actually nutritious, the fact that it gets you pissed is a bonus. The other thing about beer is that it is pretty easy to make it.
Stoney, might be easy to make but in all the years I brewed my own I remember just one batch that didn’t have that ‘twang’ to it. Got me pissed when I was skint though.
And David Norman @ 21.48 – 2021 is believed to be heading for record wheat yields:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/
At every stage of **tofu** production there is an environmental footprint: from growing the raw ingredients, to manufacturing; through to packaging and transporting the finished product.
If they want to be a bunch of fucking open-toed sandal wearing tofu munchers then they need to realise that they too are part of the problem.
Most of these policies are straight out of the manifesto of the National Socialist German Workers party of the 1930s. No wonder the BBC loves them.