The news week has been off to a roaring start, with announcements that the oil exploration ban was not actually backed by any paperwork has been followed up by the Church of Climatology High Priest James Shaw requesting us to eat less meat.
But he has no plans to make it compulsory, though a recent study found going vegan is the best thing a person can do for the environment.
"What we're trying to do is to ensure that there's settings right across the economy that make sure [...] that there are sufficient incentives to support that transition [...] And then essentially what consumers do is really up to them."
It won't be compulsory comrade, you'll just be strongly incentivised to conform to your new dietary plan.
Mr Shaw says encouraging Kiwis to say no to beef and lamb won’t harm our agriculture-led economy.
“New Zealand has enough land to feed about 40 million people with current production methodologies. We know that the middle classes in China and India and in parts of Europe and so on, there is a huge demand for our food products.”
Hahaha, for it not to affect the economy we'd still be needing to export meat as normal.
Simple economics dictates that If it were cheaper or even feasible to convert grazing land to crop land, it would have been done already. Any large scale switch over would have huge economic costs.
The most efficiently produced beef takes 36 times more land to produce than peas, according to the research, and created six times the emissions.
This is a meaningless figure, as all land is not equally suitable to agriculture and one can only eat so many legumes before turning into a effeminate left-wing soyboy.
A decision to eat less meat (or more) should be an informed individual health choice, not as a form of virtue signaling.
To bow to our new Religion of Peas overlords would be a big missed-steak.