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AN TAISCE HAVE hit out at The Irish Farmers Journal (IFJ) for publishing “fake news” regarding climate change.
In an article published in the farming publication on 13 May 2017, former editor of the IFJ Matt Dempsey posed the question “Is the science on climate change sound enough to justify Ireland facing into an enormous ongoing diminution of our agricultural potential?”
Dempsey came to his conclusion following a lecture given last week by Richard Lindzen, a retired professor of atmospheric sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Dempsey believed that a key point of the lecture was the statement that “methane produced by cattle and sheep and nitrous oxide produced in tillage operations have very little role in whatever global warming is taking place”.
From this, Dempsey came to his own conclusion that, if accepted as scientific fact, this assertion would mean that “we could and should continue to increase our live-stock numbers subject only to the carrying capacity of our land and the availability of profitable markets”.
An Taisce has called on the relevant public bodies and statutory agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Teagasc and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, to come forward to challenge and correct the IFJ’s “explicit rejection of robust climate science”.
An Taisce is an independent charity that works to preserve and protect Ireland’s natural and built heritage.
“It is probably no coincidence that Dempsey’s enthusiastic acceptance of these contrarian talking points led him to the happy conclusion that farmers ‘could and should continue to increase our livestock numbers subject only to the carrying capacity of the land and the availability of profitable markets’.”
“This is nothing more than wishful thinking masquerading as analysis,” An Taisce said.
They have claimed that Dempsey must have been aware prior to publishing that Professor John Sweeney, Ireland’s pre-eminent climate scientist, refuted the entire basis of the lecture on which Dempsey based his article, in a recent radio interview in which Dempsey also participated.
“Despite this clear red flag, he and the IFJ persisted in recklessly publishing an article they must have had good reason to believe was wholly or largely untrue,” the organisation said.
An Taisce went on to defend free speech and the right of the media to express and defend a wide range of viewpoints, however they concluded that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts”.
The Irish Farmers Journal was contacted several times for comment.
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Those who disbelieve the facts about climate change generally have a financial incentive to do so. We’re a pathetic species really.
@Awkward Seal: We are getting better as a species – The speed of communication means that it is harder for those with an agenda like the Farmers Journal to spout lies and people fall for it. Faster and faster those who drive lies to spin their agenda as we have seen with this publication are held to account by public scrutiny
About time for a retraction and apology farmers journal????
@Awkward Seal: you may have a point seeing that Richard Lindzen previously claimed smoking did not cause cancer and has worked for Peabody Energy, the biggest coal producer in the world and oil merchants OPEC.
@Awkward Seal: You’re the one denying basic facts like the fact that natural variation is responsible for 90% of temp variation in Ireland.
@Awkward Seal: None of ye are scientists anyway when ye’re bandying around that terrible word – fact. Scientists deal with probabilities and correlations. Establishing definitive causality is notoriously difficult in science. What’s certain is absolutely nobody can predict with any degree of accuracy or certainty what effect the emission of greenhouse gases will have on our respective climate fluctuation. Nobody. What I’m amazed at is nobody though is mentioning the other substantial and real deleterious effects increasing agricultural intensification would have on our country – on our water courses, our hedgerows, our soil, our ecology, our tourism etc even our long term agricultural reputation as a “green” and safe producer
@An_Beal_Bocht: Are you a scientist?
@An_Beal_Bocht: The climate impacting effects of different gases have been basic science for over 100 years. The effect is not a scientific question. The estimation of the overall temperature increase caused at various levels of different gases (CO2 & methane) is more difficult to estimate (given secondary effects).
Given that we have already heated up the planet by 1 degree, the question is whether we keep aiming for 4 degrees, or change behaviour…
@Owen Martin: don’t go to far from home you may fall off the edge of the earth
An Taisce trying to close down the freedom of the press now. There are 2 sides to every story, 2 opinions, Let people make up their own minds. Don’t need big brother telling us all what to believe or have their will shoved down our throats. It’s all about debate and discussion.
@Alan Cooke: There are no two sides to an argument when facts are involved. For example, it is a fact that agricultural emissions are damaging the climate in the same way that it is a fact that today is Tuesday. On the other hand ‘blue is my favourite colour’ is an opinion. This can be debated. Surely, you know the difference between opinions and facts? Just because you dont understand the science behind the facts doesn’t make the facts any less certain.
@Alan Cooke: There’s no two sides for this issue Alan,
The facts speak for themselves, its not like 50% of scientists don’t believe in this. basically 99.99% agree climate change is real and caused by humans.
The other 0.01% have a vested interest in claiming its not, generally this is because they are funded by organisations that don’t want change.
@Sean Murphy: This is a lie, the AMO has far bigger impact on temps in Ireland than Co2
@Barry Somers: You’re spreading fake news Barry. The AMO and temps in Ireland have 90% correlation. Co2 has tiny impact.
@Barry Somers: I seem to remember reading that 99.99% of scientists in the Middle Ages thought that the earth was flat?
@Each Way Thief: That’s hardly a comparison. They weren’t scientists as Science as we know it was only developing then.
And it didn’t take long for them to realise the truth once the capability of determining that truth was invented.
@Alan Cooke: yes, and that is precisely what An Taisce are doing – I don’t get your point!
well at least Matt Dempsey had the courage to put his name to the article not like these faceless people in An Taisce who come out with these baseless facts every so often.
@Bennythekid: an Taisce…ie…anti rural D4 spout taps!
@Bennythekid: Look it up Benny. The press release (link below) has not one but two NAMED contacts. Facts are facts, irrespective of whether or not you like them.
http://www.antaisce.org/articles/climate-fiction-at-the-irish-farmers-journal
@John Gibbons: without foundation baseless -An Taisce people are forceful and aggressive but also cowardly.
@selfsustainable: correct and they tend to remain anonymous -Matt Demseys picture is featured at the beginning of this article and his name is mentioned TEN times -are any of these braveAn Taisce people named-not likely(cowards).
@Bennythekid: they’re pretty easy to spot in the comments sections under anything ‘an taisce said’….passive aggressive is their little MO but when you play thier passive game, they end up getting pretty riled, play them and sit back and enjoy their little hysterics. :)
@Bennythekid: lol , says ‘” bennythekid” . Just drop into their offices if you wish to chat about whatever irks you
If he had said what he really meant I would have had more respect for him. i.e Environmental regulations are affecting farmers profits – therefore we should ignore them to clear the way for making as much money as possible, and leave future generations to clean up the mess left by greenhouse emissions.
@Sean Murphy: Well Sean, the 24 hours of Tuesday is a fact followed by the 24 hours of Wednesday and each of these days represent one full 360° rotation of the Earth or a rotational rate of 15° per hour using the Lat/Long system. Accurate watches were developed based on this principle and it still is the foundation of the GPS system.
Then came along the modellers who decided to bypass the principles which create the 24 hour and Lat/Long system and argued that there are more days than rotations even though it is an impossibility -
” It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year” NASA /Harvard
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/JennyChen.shtml
Unlike academics stuck in their classrooms ,farmers and most everyone else has common sense and that the Earth turns each weekday and a thousand times in a thousand weekdays. To believe otherwise ,and many do, is absurd in the extreme.
@Gerald Kelleher: Do you ever let this go? Your misunderstanding has been explained to you multiple times here, but you wilfully refuse to read anything that *might* contradict you.
If you are really stuck with this, I’ll happily explain again.
@Gerald Kelleher:
@George Salter: Explain what !, that you believe that there are more rotations than weekdays !. The Sun comes into view each dawn followed by the stars after twilight each weekday as the Earth turns once .
I’ll let you into a secret, they recently tried to rewrite the solar vs sidereal fiction for something equally pathetic -
“At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about 23 hours,” says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA Goddard. “In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 standard seconds.” NASA
The thing about this is that academics can ‘forget’ an old ideology when it suits or whitewash the old false notion to make way for an equally false one, in the case where global warming can morph into climate change or morph back into global warming when it suits.
The actual development of timekeeping is a joy to behold and inspiring for those who are independent and reasonable people rather than drones for empirical convictions.
@Sean Murphy: Ok. I’m online arguing with a guy who is trying to complicate the fact that today is Tuesday. This debate is over
@Sean Murphy: you’re hysterical, no different to those people who burned witches in 1600s
@Sean Murphy: You kids are funny even though you take yourselves seriously. It is not so much that you can force yourselves to believe in more rotations than weekdays but deny yourselves the privilege of enjoying how timekeeping evolved from principles that emerged in antiquity.
@Sean Murphy: how dare nature make the climate complicated for us latte drinking simpletons
wat is happening my head hurts
@Neal Ireland Hello.: nothing to worry about, good to engage brain every now and then
When we all know farmers contribute multiples more to climate change than all the cars in the world combined but they have still got to be greedy and look for more profits on top of their vast grants
@Oh Sheeple Stand Up: “…up our live-stock numbers to the capacity of our land” is an extremely worrying objective. This would mean removal of all native woodlands, boglands, parks. This will drive the extinction of most of our nature. There is a move to target the increased meat diet of China.
We require 18 times more land for meat production versus plant food production to feed ourselves.
Sadly our government are on tentative election mode and will not confront the farming community regarding environmental or natural heritage issues.
@Biróg: bang on, agriculture intensification has reaped untold damage in this country in the last 30 years, just look at the state of our water for a start
All planets in the solar system possess a climate so it is a matter of defining climate so as to provide a description for all planets including the Earth . The degree of inclination defines how conditions respond to a planet’s orbital motion around the Sun regardless of distance or planetary composition.
http://calgary.rasc.ca/images/planet_inclinations.gif
Jupiter’s inclination generates conditions similar to what is experienced at the Earth’s Equator across all latitudes. the inclination of Uranus generates conditions similar to those at the Earth’s poles across most latitudes.
Climate is defined as a spectrum between Equatorial ( 0° inclination) and Polar (90° inclination). With a few simple adjustments the Earth has a largely Equatorial climate with a minor but sizable polar input.
When people get over the ridiculous notion that they can control planetary temperatures like a household thermostat ,genuine climate research can begin.
@Gerald Kelleher: If two people sat in a temperature controlled room (say between 17-22°C) denoting our climate as you put it, dress one of the people in a jacket, hat and wrap them in a blanket. That person is essentially insulating himself further resulting in experiencing greater increase in temperature. Which is what we are essentially doing when releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually. We live under this atmosphere which regulates the planets temperature, this can not be ignored.
And for the love of God Gerald, please provide the source of your claim that “Climate is defined as a spectrum between Equatorial ( 0° inclination) and Polar (90° inclination)” . A link to a credible source with the definition stated will suffice nicely. Appreciated!
@Derek: “If two people sat in a temperature controlled room (say between 17-22°C) denoting our climate as you put it..”
Said no such thing.
If the Earth had a inclination like Jupiter’s it would experience little or no change across the seasons for all latitudes, if it had an inclination like Uranus then there would be massive swings across the seasons, Climate is the rate of change of weather across the seasons where an Equatorial climate keeps those changes to a minimum and a 90 degree inclination those changes are at a maximum. It is called common sense and so what if some readers get it and others don’t, it is really only the beginning of genuine climate research.
@Gerald Kelleher: Even the ones with no atmosphere? Or the ones with no definable surface?
@George Salter: Work it out yourself -
http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/1999-11
Btw, watch the time lapse speed up about 50 seconds in and enjoy the two distinct surface rotations Uranus has to the Sun. The Earth also has these dual surface rotation corresponding to our planet’s two distinct day/night cycles – the daily day/night cycle and the polar day/night cycle.
@Jason Gilbert: No point in throwing good information after bad or rather those who have themselves driven demented about petrol pumps , carbon dioxide, footprints, the Earth is a greenhouse and so on.
If modelers really want to be useful they can inspect the climate spectrum common to all planets and play around with different inclinations for the Earth, not by trying to pass speculation off as fact but just to get a good handle on planetary climate and what makes the Earth’s climate just right for habitation .
It is not right to dump anxiety on kids for no good reason like the Church of old who used to sell indulgences to excuse human behavior only the carbon dioxide racket is much more lucrative for the secular guys and those they fund to keep the racket going. That being said , genuine climate research is being blocked by what is clearly a bandwagon of convictions by those who know no better.
Climate change itself is fake news. The people who push it hate facts and are only interested in pushing their own agenda. The fact is that there is a 90% correlation between temperatures in Ireland and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Co2 has a tiny impact. Natural variation we know has the most impact on temperatures. Yet, no media in Ireland nor An Taisce will recognise this simple fact. Then they call others fake news.
@Owen Martin: and 97% of climatologists disagree with Prof Martin, or are you a coal merchant?
@William Grogan: I have yet to meet a climatologist who can prove Im wrong or the many geologists who agree with me
@William Grogan: appeal to authority just means you’ve lost the argument.
@Owen Martin: Owen, nobody has to prove you wrong. You need to prove yourself right. It’s called the burden of proof.
The absolute majority of scientsists who are experts in a huge diverse range of areas all agree on this topic.
Getting scientists to agree on anything is like herding cats.
The evidene is irrefutable and has yet to be scientifically refuted.
Also, if a scientifically proveable natural reason or climate change was discovered you would see scientists all over jump on that. That is show science works.
@Fozz: No, it is more like Piltdown man where academics ran with an idea and even though it was a prank they took over 40 years to drop the pretense ,they proclaimed it as a victory for academia. A paper at the time wryly commented on how ‘science works’ -
“Anthropologists refer to the hoax as ‘another instance of desire for
fame leading a scholar into dishonesty’ and boast that the unmasking
of the deception is ‘a tribute to the persistence and skill of modern
research’. Persistence and skill indeed! When they have taken over
forty years to discover the difference between an ancient fossil and a
modern chimpanzee! A chimpanzee could have done it quicker.” Daily
Sketch
Academic institutions are a lot older than most democracies and move at their own pace, normally to secure their own salaries and reputations. The internet has changed much of this hence the screaming ‘denier’ stuff.
@Owen Martin: Given that you walk away from an argument when someone proves you wrong, I am not surprised that you do not acknowledge being proven wrong.
Spouting misleading facts does not change basic science.
I am a strong believer that climate change is due to manmade emissions but I also strongly believe cow farts have a negligible effect on climate change.
Industrial emissions due the coal burning and other fossil fuel burring outlets are the primary cause.
The airline industry is the biggest polluter due to highly inefficient jet engine spewing out unburnt aviation fuels.
Measurements taken in the days following 9/11 show the extent of this pollution.
Don’t ask me for links to prove this, look it up yourself, this is a comment not a proposition.
@Kevin Barry: while I agree with most of what you said, methane from cows is a significant green house gas, and is approx. 21 times more harmful than CO2, the good news is it remains a far shorter time in the atmosphere (~11 years) compared to CO2 and is not emitted to atmosphere at the same levels as CO2 yet it’s effects are still worrying and only add to existing factors. Reducing it would go a significant way to curbing the current acceleration we are witnessing.
If course they’re not going to publish news contrary to their own interest. They know whose money they rely on.
They certainly should be held accountable for publishing dangerous lies as fact.
This planet is doomed. I’ll be giving Elon a call later.
@Nicholas J Campbell: you’re in the grip of an hysteria that you yourself wont follow through on. Why arent you living like a hermit ?
climate change is so popular because it confirms our innate biases so we dont listen to facts
http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2016/12/evolution-vs-climate-change.html
I believe climate change is real but it’s being used against us. The vast majority of
@Steve: Emissions come from the developing world (>70%) and countries like China and India are the worst offenders. These countries promote regulations while doing absolutely nothing in their own countries to destroy manufacturing through over regulation.
The Irish farmers will get a surprise when CETA is up and running, GMO crops from the North Americas and hormoned milk with steroid beef from South America. Ceta by then will run farmers into the ground?
Farting cows?
We’ll get an other subsidy for this.
Irish farming
Get paid to look after your own stock
It is difficult to interpret tone from the article presented. An Taisce’s assertion that Dempsey is rejecting the science seems to be a little strong. At best the article questions it. Dempsey’s articles are opinion pieces, so should be read as such. As for fact, all man activities have an impact on the environment, I wonder how much CO2 was generated with all these comments for example? Livestock’s long Shadow is frequently brought out to beat farmers with by comparing livestock to transport etc. But Livestock’s long Shadow uses LCA for cattle emissions and tail pipe emissions for cars so the methodology is not treating like with like. Irish agriculture is reasonably C efficient and will continue to become more C efficient with adoption of new ideas and technologies. Increases in production are coming off more efficient use of the existing land base not by turning forests into fields. Oh, and by the way, most CH4 from cattle and sheep is belched out not farted out.
have your say