{"id":257523,"date":"2023-05-15T13:54:28","date_gmt":"2023-05-15T11:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=257523"},"modified":"2023-05-15T13:54:31","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T11:54:31","slug":"europeans-war-against-food-ignores-water-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=257523","title":{"rendered":"Europeans war against food ignores water pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From\u00a0CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Duggan Flanakin<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Organic vegetables. Mangold in farmers hands<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to the World Health Organization<\/a>, 31 million Europeans have no access to public sanitation and 48 million do not have piped water at home. At least 300,000 Europeans follow San Francisco\u2019s practice of defecating openly \u2013 but in the countryside rather on public streets. But just as in the United States, water quality has taken a back seat to \u201cclimate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On another front, the European Commission has adopted a \u201cSustainable EU Food System,\u201d an initiative that intends to set agricultural policies for European farmers from the top down \u2013 by bureaucrats most of whom have never plowed a field. The Czech-based Society for Animals commented that a mandatory sustainable food system framework must cover areas related to the environment, climate, water, air, soil, the impact on farmed animals for food \u2013 as well as trade, transport, economic instruments, and strict food import rules.No farmers need apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, in once-prosperous Europe, the European Environmental Bureau\u00a0reported in 2021<\/a>\u00a0that over a fifth of all Europeans were at risk of falling into poverty or social exclusion because food is seen as a commodity and not a human right. Only bureaucrats can save Europe, they add. No foodneed be consulted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EEB declared that \u201cit is absurd to expect that simply giving people information about the nutrition or sustainability credentials of food and relying on them (the people) to make the \u2018right\u2019 choice\u201d is no match for the evils in the \u201cfood environment\u201d manufactured by market forces. Only if policymakers \u201cstep up to their role as defenders of the public good,\u201d using \u201call policy instruments at their disposal,\u201d is there hope that European eating habits will be conformeed to the bureaucrats\u2019 demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief among the bureaucratic \u201csolutions\u201d is the claim that \u201cEurope has a moral responsibility to reduce the land and resources needed for our own food consumption.\u201d The reason? We, they tell us, are living \u201cin a world where fertile land is dwindling due to climate change and environmental degradation and global population is increasing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiously, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported in 2021 that the global value generated by agriculture, forestry, and fishing grew by 73 percent in real terms between 2000 and 2019, and total production of primary crops grew by 53 percent during the same period. Agriculture, they noted, employs 27 percent of the global workforce. [Real world fact<\/a>: Increased levels of carbon dioxide over the past three decades have caused an 11 percent increase in green foliage over the globe\u2019s arid regions.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of this grand scheme has already been playing out in the Netherlands, where the government in 2022 announced a plan<\/a> to buy up and close down up to 3,000 farms \u201cnear environmentally sensitive areas\u201d to comply with European Union nature preservation rules. Specifically, agriculture is responsible for about half of nitrogen emissions that are alleged to be causing the disappearance of native species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The European People\u2019s Party stood up<\/a> for the farmers, calling agriculture a \u201cstrategic sector\u201d that delivers food security in Europe and beyond and plays a crucial role for the vitality and economies of rural communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EPP set its sights against the proposed Nature Restoration law, noting that the implementation of existing nature legislation has led to bureaucratic nightmares and planning deadlocks that have endangered rural economic viability, food security, renewable energy production, and crucial infrastructure. Such laws, said the EPP, are a direct assault on property rights, and taking 10 percent of farmland out of production would be extremely irresponsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March, to the chagrin of the planners, the farmer-citizen movement (BBB), created in 2019 in the wake of widespread farmer protests (tractors blocking highways, for example), won 15 seats<\/a> in the Dutch Senate with almost 20 percent of the vote. The BBB\u2019s aim is to fight the government plan to force farmers off their lands, reduce livestock and crop production \u2013 that is, to protect their livelihoods from the foibles of urban disrespect for those who feed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle is on in Europe for the future of farming \u2013 and in a world dominated by urban politics, farmers and other rural residents whose livelihoods for centuries have been intertwined with those of farmers are viewed as just \u201cnot with it.\u201d After all, urbanites today eat heavily processed foods and are being introduced to such delicacies as artificial meat and crickets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Biden Administration is continuing his former boss\u2019 war on agriculture. According to a \u201cstudy\u201d funded by a $10 million grant back in the Obama years, fine particulates (dust and soot emissions) from farm operations are killing 17,000 Americans annually. Poppycock, says the Union of Concerned Scientists, citing other studies<\/a> claiming fine particulates kill between 100,000 and 200,000 people a year. Back in 2011 EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claimed fine particulates were responsible for a fifth of all U.S. deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In both Europe and the U.S., the eagerness of urban \u201cintellectuals\u201d (bureaucrats) to attack farmers and rural residents has increased as globalist institutions have grown in wealth and power. Concentrated power is easier for the very wealthy to influence, and just as with the pharmaceutical industry\u2019s vaccine gambits surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, the rules government creates always seem to benefit the rich at the expense of the common people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is little profit to the wealthy in replacing aging water and wastewater and sewer lines, cleaning rivers and streams of accumulated pollution, or even providing running water to those in isolated communities. To the bureaucrat, there is nothing sexy about enabling the hoi polloi<\/em> to enjoy water recreation in cleaned up lakes and streams. The regulations they impose on farmers and rural areas do not affect their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Europe and America \u2013 and in developing nations as well \u2013 people who live on and from the land are fighting to protect their homes and families from the \u201cwisdom\u201d of urban elites. This is, ultimately, the great battle of our day. [Note: AIs require neither food nor water for sustenance.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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