Substitutes have a place
I write in response to Leigh Campbell's letter about a meat ban campaign ("Resist meat ban campaign", August 8). Yes, there is considerable development of plant-based meat "substitute" products, and even laboratory-grown meat.
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As a veterinarian, meat eater, and rural dweller, I am absolutely in favour of a high-protein food source that can be produced with 100 times less water per kilogram, and on 10 times less land area.
That is the claim of Impossible Foods. I trialled an Impossible burger while on holiday and even my teen boys determined it was indistinguishable from meat.
The need for meat alternatives is not driven by ideology. It is a real response to the increasing difficulty of good food supply chains as areas are impacted by drought, trade tariffs and regulations and fodder supply issues.
We have a local butcher closing down in its current format. In that same shop about 12 months ago one customer complained about beef prices and was told that supply would come in from overseas when the local price became unsustainable.
Most of us have seen the hay runs to support stock in areas where feed is scarce.
Plant-based or synthetic meat substitutes will not replace a roast. But on the barbecue and as a high protein food source in some developing countries, they certainly have a role to play.
Sarah Pollard Williams, Brucedale
Sir Humphrey approves
The letter ("Column misses the point", July 31) is a good example of how climate alarmists, themselves, "miss the point".
The first obvious statistical flaw is that the writer cites some statistics which are probably irrelevant anyway but defy scientific scrutiny because they conflate two differing forms of measurement into an "apples and oranges" argument.
Read more letters:
Citing a scary yearly "40 billion tonnes of carbon" emitting into our atmosphere which is "only 100km deep" combines two values (weight and volume) into a conclusion which we can't even begin to evaluate.
It's like me moaning about having 1500g of tomatoes but only one 20cm saucepan so soup's off the menu; you can't compare two differing measurements and hope to make sense.
And those statistics ignore the fact that a huge amount of the CO2 cited is absorbed by, and is essential to, all of the plant life on the planet before it travels even a few hundred metres into our 100km deep atmosphere.
Your correspondent equates the recently failed local attempt to declare a "climate emergency" with "leadership".
The common factor in all recent attempts to alarm us is that none of the bods involved, including your correspondent, has ever suggested a simple remedial thing that we might do that makes sense. "Stop Adani" is closest the climate fascists can come to a positive suggestion about something we can do that everyone might consider reasonable.
Their sole rationale seems to emulate Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister, whose answer to every problem was to announce a committee who would "look into it" until the problem dissolved.
If people see a local solution to a "climate" problem they should tell WWCC who will glom onto it with delight.
Otherwise, simply calling out for someone else to do something about forming a committee to address an unproven threat is just time wasting: although Sir Humphrey would approve.
Robert T Walker, Wagga
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