I’m going to question your claim that 80% of cattle feed is grass in the UK. I could believe that for sheep, and I note you actually stated the figure “for sheep and cattle”. Sheep are well adapted to over-wintering outside in all conditions and in all parts of the UK. However cattle are not and spend most of late autumn, winter and early spring in sheds. Now being in sheds does not directly mean soy or other feeds, it can mean hay that was harvested the previous year. But my instinct, without data, is that the 80% number is only achievable when you lump sheep and cattle together. If you just cite cattle then I’d guess the feed mix is similar to all other northern Europe countries. Why would it not be?
Hey, is no one checking my maths?
If one tree can absrob 25kg of CO2 a year, then to absorb the output of 8 billion tons of coal you would need 640 billion trees. Not 400 million trees.
Now from this I found that there are 3 trillion trees in the world. 400 billion in the Amazon (I wrongly cited 400 million.) So the coal burning is just slightly compensated by the number of trees in the Amazon. All good.
Best info I could find is the other CO2 production is 3 billion tons from cattle, 6 billion tons from burning oil, and 5 trillion tons from gas use. On top of the 640 billion trees needed to absorb the CO2 from burning coal, these add up to needing another …err, quite big numbers here, got stuck but we can safely say it requires lots more than there are trees on the earth.
But its a big place, the earth so that’s all ok. No?
On August first, German media stated that it is the day when humanity has consumed 50% of the earths resources for that year. This means that we need two earths. Moreover if all people would live like us Germans then we needed three earths.
Thank you fellow Germans…
I wished German TV would report on how exactly animals are being treated in slaughterhouses and before they get there. Most would stop eating meat I hope (like I did 13 years ago).
Concerning the amount of imported soy I will try to find relyable data and come back.
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I’ve found that soy bean production was 400 million tons last year and is growing at 4.4% per annum. 80% of soy beans are grown in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and US combined - so chances are that most European countries are importing most of their soy. The majority of rainforest clearance areas end up being used for soy production. Or palm oil. Cutting down billions of trees a year for that.
This environmental stuff always seem to end up with big numbers.
Probably very wise, UK chicken and its by products are still a prohibited import under our biosecurity laws, I forget the original reason but I think it was endemic diseases in the UK flock.
At “de.statista.com” I found that Germany has imported 3,19 Mil tons of soy beans in 2023, mainly from the USA. Wow, that seems a lot.
(edit: forgot the year)
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Not only is forest replaced with soy plants. The beans have to be transported thousands of miles with those huge ships.
In a German TV report from the company “Sulzer” who produces engines for those big ships an engineer was asked how far such an engine would go with one litre of crude oil.
The engineer responded “2 cm”. That would be 50 litres per meter or 50.000 per kilometer.
How far are Argentina, Brazil et. al. from Europe? Buenos Aires - Rotterdam is 7088 miles (11407 KM).
That would then be 570.350.000 litres of crude oil one way Argentina → Rotterdam.
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The numbers for large ships are astonishing. They can be burning 200-300 tons of fuel a day, or more.
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Fortunately the climate change and humanitys impact on the climate are only fake. Imagine they really existed, then concentrating a countries trade with a trade organisation half way around the globe would be highly questionable.
</irony_off>
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Globalism does not work… 
If you can’t produce it yourself locally, do without. In nature ant colonies only grow as big as food allows.
Wondering whether those are grown in the US or elsewhere?
International trade is as old as the hills. Back in 16th & 17th centuries fortunes were made from shipping spices and coffee from Asia to the UK. By the 19th century tea was being delivered in specially built and very fast clippers. Jute was imported to the UK for processing into sacks and linoleum. Cotton was imported, sugar was imported. Nations such the UK, Holland, Spain all became wealthy because of international trade. To suggest that it all stops and we rely only on home grown is very, very regressive and impractical.
In addition, surely we want to continue to export?
Oh come on, Britons would starve. That is absurd. Australia export 65% of its agricultural products, what do you want to happen to that? Just let it rot on the ground?
Didn’t those early trading ships use green energy (the wind) Lincs, and they didn’t have to join an elite gang and sell their sovereignty in order to trade ?
Although we couldn’t sustain our population by producing ‘in house’ (A) doesn’t that suggest that the population has been let get well out of hand…And (B) Could we do a helluva lot more to produce our own stuff instead of relying on China and other far east countries to supply just about everything in the shops today? Who incidentally still use fossil fuels to produce said stuff. Especially when we are sitting on at least 300 years worth of coal and oil?
Absurd indeed, please do explain if you can understand why farmers are paid to leave crops to rot. Malnutrition for those unable to afford basic food ingredients a reality now in UK.
How can I explain that? Is it true? If it is I can only presume it is the UK government policy but I have no idea why.
Unless there is no market for it. we have occasionally had circumstances where a bumper crop has been left to rot because it was not economic to harvest or because there was no one to pick the crop as happened in 2022.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/world/australia/agriculture-backpackers.html
Wait, are you suggesting that before the invention of the internal combustion engine (1853), no, before the invention of the condensation steam engine (1764), that it is very likely that ships used wind power? In this instance you are right, but from about 1880 steam (coal powered) ships were taking over from sail.
Then you write about elite clubs and selling sovereignty. What are you talking about? Genuinely confused by this claim.
I think that CCTPP could be meant. It is an elite club where the UK is a rule taker and has no say.
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