Sadiq Khan is the long term Mayor of London. Three weeks ago, he attended the C40 summit, a global conference of mayors in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He answered a journalist’s question with the following pearl of wisdom. According to Khan, there are three classes of people. Khan is a life long Labour Party member, but he was not referring to upper, middle, and working classes. No.
Khan explained that the first class was composed of individuals like himself who quickly realised that biotechnology was the best thing since white bread (and presumably very profitable too, to the right class of people). This first class, according to Khan, rushed out to get Covid vaccinated right away in a surge of altruistic fervor.
The second class was, according to Khan, essentially ignorant and didn’t know what to think. Apparently, these folks can be easily led and therefore were an ideal target for government control and propaganda. Sort of biddable mayor-fodder I suppose.
The third class was truly evil and of course unvaccinated. They are of such a delusional nature that they are unreachable and therefore not worth bothering much about (except possibly to make sure they will never be allowed to work again).
Sadiq finished with a flourish saying
“In my new role as Vice Chair on the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) Steering Committee, I will ensure that London is a beacon to the world and helps to generate the opportunities that will accelerate the pace of change to create better cities for all.”
Well done Sadiq, you marshall those second and third class folks into line.
You may not have been following Cop27, in which case you might have missed a photograph of Rishi Sunak, Justin Trudeau, and, you guessed it, Klaus Schwab smiling for the world, wearing near identical flowery patterned shirts. So what do these chummy mates really believe in?
I suppose that most of the people at Cop27 are drawn from the upper reaches of the first class, and therefore must have travelled to Sharm el-Sheikh first class. But no, 400 participants arrived in private jets, thereby showcasing their upper first class credentials.
One of the great concerns of first class fliers is the number of cows who are irresponsibly pushing out methane. New Zealand to the rescue. An article “New Zealand targets cow burps to help reduce global warming” shows just how much can be achieved with antipodean ingenuity, a can-do attitude, and a large dash of biotechnology experimentation. Just about nothing it seems.
The New Zealand government has made a solemn promise that it will stop cows from burping.
This is apparently the subject of a huge scientific endeavour to cut ruminant methane production. New Zealand scientists are coming up with some surprising solutions that ‘could’ put a big dent in those anticlimactic emissions. According to the article, among the more promising are genetically modified feed, methane inhibitors, cow face masks, and a potential game-changer —lo and behold a vaccine. Hold your horses, or is it cows, none of these have so far been shown to work, so the government is actually going to start off by taxing farmers—the mainstay of our economy. We are planning to shoot ourselves in the hoof.
According to a scientist who has been working at Gumboot central research facility in Hamilton for 15 years (without so far succeeding), a vaccine would stimulate an animal’s immune system to produce antibodies, which would then dampen the output of the methane-producing microbes. One big upside of a vaccine is that it would likely only need to be administered once a year. Sound familiar?
At one greenhouse at the Gumboot campus, scientists are developing genetically modified clovers. Visitors (and presumably cows) must wear booties and medical scrubs to prevent any genetic escape. Did anyone tell them about the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
New Zealand farmers are not waiting around for all the research to come to fruition. On the Kaiwaiwai Dairies farm near the town of Featherston, a humble kiwi farmer Aidan Bichan said they’ve been reducing their methane output by getting more efficient, including increasing the milk production from each cow, using less processed feed, and replacing milking cows less frequently. Unlike the highly paid biotechnologists at Gumboot central they are actually getting results, but they are getting taxed for it. Doesn’t big government just get you all excited?
I suppose that years ago on the Serengeti plains, the North American prairies, the South American Pampas, and the waddies of Asia there were billions of animals on the hoof and the climate was all under control, but now the sheep and cows have gotten out of hand. You can even see herds of these irritating beings from the plastic windows of private jets, despicable.
Circling around the fringes of Cop27 (possibly in his private jet) is Bill Gates. I am not sure what comprises his breakfast menu, but I have a fair idea of what he wishes mine should become. Like much at Cop27 it should be synthetic. In other words, made up by someone who owns a portfolio of global patents, but not an ounce of humanity or a sprinkling of scientific caution. Gates is an investor either personally or through Breakthrough Energy Ventures in several of the companies he mentions in his latest book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” including Beyond Meats, Carbon Engineering, Impossible Foods, Memphis Meats, and Pivot Bio. Yummy.
Seriously though, the science of the evils of cows is actually not that sound or holistic. See this article in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews “Livestock, methane, and climate change: The politics of global assessments”. Cows might not be such a bad thing after all. On the other hand, the climate credentials of private jets are well known. They are not pretty. I can recognise the rank hypocrisy, even though I am a member of the third class.
