By MICHAEL SLOVANOS

NEW Zealand farmers fighting against government bureaucrats pushing for a methane tax, cite the established scientific fact that methane is only 0.00018%¹ of the atmosphere.

It is difficult to grasp the triviality of that statistic, say members of the Methane Accord. “Imagine this: if the whole of the atmosphere was the distance from Auckland Airport to Los Angeles (10,496 kms) then all methane on the planet would cover a small part of the push back on the apron at Auckland Airport – about 19 metres.”

But measuring the actual methane contribution of New Zealand’s ruminants to this infinitesimal amount of methane in the atmosphere produces even more mind-bogglingly minute figures.

The Kiwi farmers have consulted with some prominent atmospheric scientists to make their case against the tax and based on that evidence, they come to the conclusion that “it is simply not possible to measure ruminant methane’s trivial impact on temperature, let alone New Zealand’s.”

Yet on the basis of an alleged threat to the planet from farting, burping cattle, Australia’s Coles supermarket, supported by Meat and Livestock Australia and government bureaucrats over the past few years, have developed a completely spurious product called “Coles certified carbon neutral meat”.

The product first started appearing in 2023 after three Coles feedlots started adding the controversial “methane reducing” additive Bovaer to grain. Whether or not Bovaer poses some sort of health threat to either animals or humans is a moot point, the issue here is that it is totally uneccessary.

We don’t doubt that Bovaer helps improve the efficiency of cattle digestive tracts, but that contribution of methane to the environment is so small as to be immeasurable. In effect, the product is based on a fraudulent claim. Dosing grain with the supplement does little to nothing for methane emissions.

This scam is the equivalent of donating a box of Bandaids to a hospital, and then patting yourself on the back claiming your donation is helping to reduce the national incidence of traumatic injury.

According to the consultants Integrity Ag and Environment, who jumped on the anti-methane bandwagon in 2020 to get a slice of the action, “methane-reducing supplements are the next step to lower the carbon footprint of beef”.

We’re curious to know how reducing methane reduces carbon, or is “carbon footprint” just a virtue-signalling slogan sending the message to consumers that “we care for the environment”? We strongly suspect the latter.

“Principal scientist and managing director of Integrity Ag & Environment, Dr Steve Wiedemann has been working with Coles to track supplier performance and lower the emission intensity of beef for the past three years, Beef Central reported in November 2023.

“Bovaer is an effective product with strong research supporting mitigation rates of at least 50 percent and as high as 85pc, in the diets being used to finish cattle in the Coles Finest certified carbon neutral beef program,” he said. We would ask 50 to 85% of what? One less burp per 50, perhaps?

No doubt the “doctor’s” statement brought a warm inner glow to all involved, from Meat and Livestock Australia to Coles and the feedlot owners. What a pity the whole idea is a ridiculous sham – a solution invented for a problem that does not exist.

As pointed out by geologist Dr Ian Plimer, CO2 and methane emissions occur naturally from 1800 land-based and many thousands of undersea volcanoes. Total global ruminant emissions from sheep, cattle, gazelles, buffalo etc, make up an estimated 14% of that 0.00018% atmospheric methane while Kiwi farmers struggle to reach just 1% of all those ruminant emissions.

“Back to the airport, and all the planet’s ruminant methane is equivalent to 2.5 metres (of the 10,496kms) and New Zealand farmers’ emissions are represented by 25 millimetres or an inch if you are still catching up with metrics,” the Methane Accord background paper notes.

Despite the fact that there are 24.4 million cattle (dairy and beef) in Australia versus 9.96 million in New Zealand, the numbers around methane contributions to the atmosphere will still be infinitesimal.

But the science doesn’t stop there. The Methane Accord paper notes that all greenhouse gases are only 1% of the atmosphere, so one could compare NZ’s ruminant methane of “25 millimetres” with 104.96 kms or 1% of the 10,496km.

“It still sounds a ridiculous comparison. For every methane molecule there are at least 250 CO2 molecules and over New Zealand on most days, some 8,000 to 10,000 H2O molecules⁴. They are all doing the same thing. They are competing to bump into and absorb radiating heat, so the one lonely methane molecule suffers a serious handicap. It is grossly outnumbered.”

Regardless of these hard scientific facts, from 2012 to 2015 the bureaucrats at Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), in cahoots with the CSIRO, spent untold dollars skimmed from hard-working meat producers, on the National Livestock Methane Program (NLMP).

This program, says MLA, “included foundational, discovery-level research to identify technologies that could increase livestock productivity and reduce the production of enteric methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas.” Really MLA? A “potent greenhouse gas” that makes up, worldwide, 14% of a gas that is 0.00018% of the atmosphere!

Over Christmas, Methane Accord members were prompted by the constant setting of “environmental targets” by bureaucrats to post the following message on their Facebook page:

On the 11th day of Christmas, NZ farmers got from thee:
Eleven tightening targets,
Ten burping cows,
Nine farmers protesting,
Eight rushed solutions,
Seven experts guessing,
Six scientists scrambling,
Five methane inhibitors,
Four banks overstepping,
Three schemes for nothing,
Two failing advocates,
And a politician in a pine tree!

Farmers keep waking up to yet another target under the tree.

We are drowning in a sea of targets. It feels like every time you blink, another goal appears, all with different percentages, different baseline years, and different timelines. Some aim at emissions intensity. Others focus on net-zero. Some target specific reductions by 2030; others by 2050. Some even consider per kilogram of milk solids, while others look at total methane reduction. Confused yet?

You’re not alone. Remember too that all of these targets are directed at ’emissions’ reductions and not ‘warming’ reductions.

Faulty, outdated models have created huge CO2 equivalent numbers for farmers. These highly inflated CO2 numbers for NZ farms are then targeted by banks and woke meat and dairy companies for reductions. What these companies should have done is grow a spine and highlight that faulty models were used in the first place. They should have pushed back instead of rolling over.

If the focus was shifted to ‘warming’ instead of ’emissions’, and given that NZ ruminants contribution to warming is 4 millionths of a degree per year (which is immeasurable), then no action is required by NZ farmers.

That is the fundamental truth and this is why the Methane Science Accord exists; to bring scientific facts to the table. NZ farmers should not be political pawns.