Mick Clifford: Faux outrage ignores what is at stake

Meat-tweetgate blew up last week when the EPA issued a tweet urging consumers to eat less red meat. The content was harmless but the reaction from farmer’s organisations was as if the EPA had announced that it was ordering firstborn calves from every dairy farm in the country be slaughtered.

For whom the tweet tolls? The hunt is on for the issuer of the latest tweet to cause outrage, horror and disturb a whole reservoir of anger. The anonymous bearer of offence must be identified, exposed to the glare of ridicule and, if there is any justice, fitted out for stocks where the vengeful public can effect righteous retribution.

Who has scandalised public decency this time? What we do know is that this person is most likely an employee, or agent, of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a body that is now taking on the role of demonising those who persist in eating their dinner in the middle of the day. And not just any dinner, but one for which the stable is the reddest of meat with two veg an optional extra.

Meat-tweetgate blew up last week when the EPA issued a tweet urging consumers to eat less red meat. The content was harmless, suggesting the citizenry “try veggie recipes” and “reduce your red meat consumption slowly: veggie lunches, meat free Mondays, etc.” Thereafter the foul stuff came into violent contact with the air conditioning. Reaction from farmer's organisations was as if the EPA had announced that it was ordering firstborn calves from every dairy farm in the country be slaughtered before the month was out.

Dermot Kelleher of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association was outraged. “You can’t have it both ways,” he told Morning Ireland. “They (the EPA) are either mandated by the government to do fact-based, unbiased research, to come up with scientific solutions, or they are political activists on behalf of the vegans.” 

He managed to evoke an image of the EPA clearing away some wasteground on planet earth to accommodate the landing of a UFO, from which would emerge a procession of this alien species known as Vegans.

Over on Newstalk the president of the Irish Farmers Association Tim Cullinan wanted to prepare the stocks for the miscreant who had fouled cyberspace with this anti-meat message.

“Farmers were horrified when they read about this tweet,” he told Shane Coleman. “There is huge rage among our members. We need to know who authorised to put up this tweet in the first place. Somebody coming out and saying we should eat less meat, that is wrong. I or anybody in the association has the right to ask who put it up in the first place. We want to understand how this came about and we don’t want it happening again.” 

Rumour has it that the offender is being fitted out for relocation abroad under the witness protection programme.

Capitulation

The spluttering rage did the trick. Within twenty hours the EPA had removed the offensive tweet, noting that it had not been intended to cause “anger” or “confusion”. This was nothing short of a supine capitulation to a vested interest that believes it and it alone should dictate policy in one of the biggest challenges facing mankind right now.

A small bit of perspective wouldn’t go astray. The EPA tweet was innocuous, containing the kind of basic advice that any dietary professional would endorse.

 It was also entirely in keeping with the brief of the environmental body as 14% of greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to meat production. Last June the EPA issued a tweet encouraging more cycling. This is also sensible, healthy, and designed to tackle emissions in the transport sector. If the Automobile Association acted like the farmers’ bodies had they would have claimed that the EPA is trying to drive us back to the days of the pony and trap.

There is no way around the reality that if we are to respond with any kind of urgency to climate change we have to cut down on meat production. Agriculture is legally required to reduce emissions by 25%. That does not mean there is going to be an imminent cull of the national herd. But it does imply that at least gradual change is going to have to come in meat production. Consumer habits will account for a share of that reduction, but not all of it. Instead of negotiating with the new reality, farm leaders reach for the lazy and silly option of trying to shout away the future.

Leadership is sadly lacking all around when it comes to climate. By right, the EPA should have told farm leaders to take a hike when they got their knickers in a twist

By right, the people in the EPA should have been confident that the elected government would back up their actions on behalf of the state. Not when it comes to climate. In 2019, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced he was trying to cut down on red meat to reduce his carbon footprint. Cue a spluttering rate and quick backpedal from this apparently outrageous statement.

Leo Varadkar was criticised by Charlie McConalogue after saying he was trying to cut down on eating red meat.

Among those who admonished him was then opposition agriculture spokesperson, Charlie McConalogue, who said that Varadkar should be giving leadership to the beef sector and not making such comments. These days, Charlie is the Minister for Agriculture. The EPA knows where its bread is buttered. Holding tough on the tweet was not an option when farm leaders tell the minister to jump and the response is to ask how high.

At every level of politics, climate continues to be the truth that dare not speak too loudly. For some, it is an opportunity to make political capital rather than attempt to lead. Last June a motion by a rural independents group in the Dáil condemned the government for “advocating a reduction or culling of the national cow population”.

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The contributions to the debate from Government and Sinn Féin deputies were sufficiently watery to ensure they could not be accused of angering farm leaders. Only one deputy appeared to have the sense and courage to tell it like it is. Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns represents rural Cork South West but that did not stop her relaying some home truths.

“The climate and biodiversity crises are the single biggest threats to the world and to farming, but not in the way that this motion would have us believe,” she said. “The only way farming will remain a viable livelihood for generations to come is if we take immediate measures to safeguard and protect our natural environment. The politicians who wrote this motion and those outside the chamber who are pushing the same anti-environment narrative underestimate farmers. We desperately need to open up the conversation about the future of agriculture in this country and the farming community knows that better than anyone else.”

Farmers are making changes and many among them are facing difficult transitions with some trepidation. But if the reaction to meat tweetgate this week is anything to go by they are not being led from the front. Equally, politicians need to face up to the hard reality that this issue can’t be considered in terms of whether or not it will account for a third preference transfer at the next election. The future is writ large and science tells us it is scary. So it’s high time that grown-up conversations replace the faux spluttering outrage.

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB