The radical environmentalists don’t seem to be aware of the unintended consequences of their extreme goals. Balance seems to be a concept that has long since left the building. On Monday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog illustrating one aspect of the problem.

The article quotes an article from The Guardian on May 1:

Northern Ireland will need to lose more than 1 million sheep and cattle to meet its new legally binding climate emissions targets, according to an industry-commissioned analysis seen by the Guardian.

The large-scale reduction in farm animals comes after the passing of the ​​jurisdiction’s first ever climate act, requiring the farming sector to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and reduce methane emissions by almost 50% over the same period.

… Analysis by KPMG, commissioned by industry representatives including the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU), estimates more than 500,000 cattle and about 700,000 sheep would need to be lost in order for Northern Ireland to meet the new climate targets.

Separate analysis by the UK government’s climate advisers suggests chicken numbers would also need to be cut by 5 million by 2035.

So we are going to destroy the food supply, starve massive numbers of people, and call it saving the planet? For whom are we saving the planet? Is that a question that needs to be asked–do you think the ruling class will starve?

The article at Power Line Blog concludes:

So if you do away with cows, sheep, chickens and pigs, you are basically doing away with agriculture in Northern Ireland. But people will still need to eat. The environmentalists don’t care, of course. But others do:

Although farm labour only accounts for 7% of the country’s labour force, many more depend on the rural economy. Altogether the rural population makes up about 40% of the total in N Ireland. Destroying a large part of farming sector there would be catastrophic for the rural sector. Replacing the meat and dairy sector with, for instance, potatoes would decimate incomes and lead to mass migration out of the countryside.

My guess is that no democracy will actually go through with the idiotic “green” promises that governments have made. I hope not, anyway. As for the autocracies, they have been careful not to promise anything meaningful, and they wouldn’t follow through in any event. This gives them a huge economic and human advantage to the extent that democracies fulfill their irrational commitments.

Do you still believe that environmentalism is actually about the environment?