Week 1 - 2 brief for Critical thinking seminars PDF

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MKTG101: Seminar task for weeks 1 & 2 Critical thinking, reading and writing

Critical thinking is an important, fundamental skill in developing a more rigorous approach to your studies. To support the development of this skill, there is a critical thinking task which will be discussed in the first two seminars. Please read the following two articles handed and be prepared to discuss article 1 in your first seminar and then article 2 in the week two seminar. When you read the articles, consider the following two questions so that you can contribute to a class discussion;

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Who is the writer writing for?

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What is his/her purpose in writing

Article 1 Source: The Financial Times, 23rd July 2019 https://www-ft-com.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/content/7d522ad8-abb4-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2

Leila Abboud

Can British farmers achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050? Unlike other sectors, agriculture both emits and stores greenhouse gas Activist Gail Bradbrook had a stark message for farmers at recent conference on climate change and agriculture held in a converted barn in the Cotswolds: given their reliance on the land, farmers should ally with the Extinction Rebellion movement ahead of protests planned for autumn in London. “Join us and bring your tractors!” the Extinction Rebellion co-founder said. “Stop being so fucking British!” The moment captured the dilemma facing British farmers. Like other sectors of the economy, agriculture will have to contribute if the UK is to meet its ambitious pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. But farming, which accounts for roughly 9 per cent of national emissions, is already confronting a period of profound change as it contemplates the prospect of life outside the EU. After Brexit, the annual subsidies farmers receive under the EU common agricultural policy will be replaced by a radical new system that emphasises the provision of “public goods”, such as clean water or wildlife habitat. Plus, the terms on which they will trade with Europe and the world remain unknown — export tariffs or new trade deals may make British farm products from beef to butter uncompetitive.

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With all the uncertainty, some farmers worry they are ill prepared to overhaul their practices to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Even before the UK’s net zero target, agriculture experts predicted that many smaller, unprofitable farms will be forced out of business after Brexit. Marian Harding, who runs Court Lodge Organics dairy farm in East Sussex with her husband David, said they wanted to help fight climate change, but were not sure how. Like most farmers, they have not analysed their operation’s carbon footprint. The largest source of greenhouse gases on Harding’s farm are the dairy cows, which naturally emit methane as they digest. Another is the manure and straw collected when the cows are kept indoors in the winter; the muck is kept and stored outdoors for use later as fertiliser. In one important way the Hardings’ organic farm already has a lower carbon footprint than a conventional farm — it does not use chemical fertilisers, which are made in energy-intensive processes and release nitrous oxide upon application. An expert looking at Mrs Harding’s farm is likely to suggest building enclosed storage for the manure muck so as to stop methane from escaping. “I guess we could do that,” Mrs Harding said. “But would it really make a difference?” Winning over wary farmers will be key if the agriculture sector is to cut its emissions. In one positive sign, the National Farmers Union has emerged as a vocal proponent of change, setting a net zero goal by 2040. But it will also take money: many farms simply do not have the capital to invest in new technologies, tools and facilities to reduce carbon emissions. The UK’s Committee on Climate Change, which advises the government on emissions targets, has called for the new post-Brexit farm subsidy system to be used to incite change. “Financial payments in the UK Agriculture Bill should be linked to actions to reduce and sequester emissions, to take effect from 2022,” it wrote in a report. The CCC estimated that land and agriculture projects to reduce emissions and store carbon would cost “under £2bn annually”, which is less than the roughly €3bn British farmers now get under Europe’s common agricultural policy. Much work remains to be done to figure out best practices for farms to reduce greenhouse gas. Techniques differ depending on whether farms raise livestock, have dairy operations, or are growing grains or raising fruit and vegetables in glasshouses. Farming produces three main gases that are dangerous to the climate: nitrous oxide from fertiliser use, methane from livestock, and carbon dioxide, which comes from electricity or fuel for tractors and vehicles. In the UK, where two-thirds of the farmland is only suitable for grazing livestock, 56 per cent of the roughly 49m tonnes of CO2 equivalent emitted annually comes from methane. Nitrous oxide accounts for a further 33 per cent and carbon dioxide 11 per cent, according to 2017 UK government statistics. The nature of the UK landscape means that the biggest wins will come from measures that help raise livestock while minimising methane emissions, such as tweaking their feed and better manure management. Reducing chemical fertiliser use is also important: one way is to inject it into fields instead of applying it on top, and satellite imagery can be used to apply only where needed.

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Scientists are researching whether some sheep and cow breeds naturally emit less methane, which would mean genetics could also help. In addition to finding ways to cut emissions, policymakers and academics have to come up with ways to measure and audit how much carbon is being stored on farmland. Such work is crucial because farming differs in one important way from other polluting sectors such as power generation or transportation: it not only generates greenhouse gas, but can also store carbon dioxide in soils, trees, and plants. Farming practices such as minimal tilling of the soil, planting cover crops between main cash crops, and crop rotation can all help boost the organic matter in soil so it holds more carbon. Additional gains can come from planting trees, hedges, and other flora. Even cows and sheep can be part of the solution, despite being cast by some as climate change villains. As they munch on and trample grasslands, they spur growth, accelerating the carbon cycle, and holding more gas in the soil. Currently, there is no policy framework to count on-farm carbon storage, or to give farmers credit for such initiatives. Efforts are under way to change this, however, so farmers may one day get paid for storing carbon. In a world first, Australia recently issued carbon credits to a family farm in Victoria for storing carbon in its soil, and US start-up Indigo Agriculture is developing similar projects. For the agriculture sector to flight climate change, policymakers have to both penalise carbon emissions and promote carbon storage, said Oxford economist Dieter Helm, who has been helping the government craft new environment and farming policies. “Agriculture now is a serious net emitter of greenhouse gases, whereas in the future that will have to go, and there will be a big opportunity to make it a net sequestrator,” he said. Some British farmers worry that the push to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which is often paired with expert advice for people to consume less meat and dairy, will lead to calls to stop raising livestock in the UK altogether. This would be an error, argues Joe Stanley, who grows crops and raises 150 longhorn cattle on his 750 acre farm in the East Midlands. Beef produced in Europe emits three times less greenhouse gas than beef raised in South America where land is often deforested for grazing, according to one Oxford university study. “There is nothing else you can do with this land,” Mr Stanley said of the British countryside. “You could take off the cows and plant trees, but then you’d likely just end up importing food from countries that pollute more than we do.” How milk producer cut its carbon footprint At Arla Foods — a dairy co-operative of 11,000 farmers in seven European countries, including the UK — efforts to produce milk more sustainably began more than a decade ago. Since 2005, greenhouse gas emissions produced by the company have fallen by 22 per cent, while milk production has risen by 40 per cent. Progress came from using renewable energies and reducing waste to landfill, as well as improving yields from dairy herds.

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Article 2 Source: The Guardian, Tuesday 9th August 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/09/vegan-corrupt-food-system-meat-dairy

George Monbiot

I’ve converted to veganism to reduce my impact on the living world Nothing hits the planet as hard as rearing animals. Caring for it means cutting out meat, dairy and eggs The world can cope with 7 or even 10 billion people. But only if we stop eating meat. Livestock farming is the most potent means by which we amplify our presence on the planet. It is the amount of land an animal-based diet needs that makes it so destructive. An analysis by the farmer and scholar Simon Fairlie suggests that Britain could easily feed itself within its own borders. But while a diet containing a moderate amount of meat, dairy and eggs would require the use of 11m hectares of land (4m of which would be arable), a vegan diet would demand a total of just 3m. Not only do humans need no pasture, but we use grains and pulses more efficiently when we eat them ourselves, rather than feed them to cows and chickens. This would enable 15m hectares of the land now used for farming in Britain to be set aside for nature. Alternatively, on a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200 million people. Extending this thought experiment to the rest of the world, it’s not hard to see how gently we could tread if we stopped keeping animals. Rainforests, savannahs, wetlands, magnificent wildlife can live alongside us, but not alongside our current diet. We believe we can solve the ethical problems by switching to free-range meat and eggs. Nothing is further from the truth because we have failed to understand this in terms of space, we believe we can solve the ethical problems caused by eating animals by switching from indoor production to free-range meat and eggs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Free-range farming is kinder to livestock but crueller to the rest of the living world.

When people criticise farming, they usually preface it with the word intensive. But extensive farming, almost by definition, does greater harm to the planet: more land is needed to rear the same amount of food. Keeping cattle or sheep on ranches, whether in the Amazon, the US, Australia or the hills of Britain, is even more of a planet-busting indulgence than beef feed-lots and hog cities, cruel and hideous as these are. Over several years, as I became more aware of these inconvenient truths, I gradually dropped farmed meat from my diet. But I still consumed milk and eggs. I knew the dire environmental impacts of the crops (such as maize and soya) that dairy cows and chickens are fed. I knew about the waste, the climate change, the air pollution. But greed got the better of me. Cheese, yoghurt, butter, eggs – I loved them all. 4

Then something happened that broke down the wall of denial. Last September I arranged to spend a day beside the River Culm in Devon, renowned for its wildlife and beauty. However, the stretch I intended to explore had been reduced to a stinking ditch, almost lifeless except for some sewage fungus. I traced the pollution back to a dairy farm. A local man told me the disaster had been developing for months. But his efforts to persuade the Environment Agency (the government regulator) to take action had been fruitless. I published the photos I had taken in the Guardian, and they caused a stir. Yet the Environment Agency still refused to take action. Its excuses were so preposterous that I realised this was more than simple incompetence. After publishing another article about this farce, I was contacted separately by two staff members at the agency. They told me they had been instructed to disregard all incidents of this kind. The cause, they believed, was political pressure from the government. That did it. Why, I reasoned, should I support an industry the government refuses to regulate? Since then, I have cut almost all animal products from my diet. I’m not religious about it. If I’m at a friend’s house I might revert to vegetarianism. If I’m away from home, I will take a drop of milk in my tea. About once a fortnight I have an egg for my breakfast, perhaps once a month a fish I catch, or a herring or some anchovies (if you eat fish, take them from the bottom of the food chain). Perhaps three or four times a year, on special occasions, I will eat farmed meat: partly out of greed, partly because I don’t want to be even more of a spectre at the feast than I am already. This slight adaptation, I feel, also reduces the chances of a relapse. I still eat roadkill when I can find it, and animals killed as agricultural pests whose bodies might otherwise be dumped. At the moment, while pigeons, deer, rabbits and squirrels are so abundant in this country and are being killed for purposes other than meat production, eating the carcasses seems to be without ecological consequence. Perhaps you could call me a pestitarian. Even so, such meals are rare. My rough calculation suggests that 97% of my diet now consists of plants. I eat plenty of pulses, seeds and nuts and heaps of vegetables. That almost allows me to join the 500,000 people in Britain who are full vegans – but not quite. Of course, these choices also have impacts, but they are generally far lower than those of meat, dairy and eggs. Paradoxically, if you want to eat less soya, eat soya directly: eating animal products tends to mean consuming far more of this crop, albeit indirectly. Almost all the soya grown where rainforests once stood is used to feed animals. Replacing meat with soya reduces the clearance of natural vegetation, per kilogram of protein, by 96%. After almost a year on this diet, I have dropped from 12 stone to 11. I feel better than I’ve done for years, and my craving for fat has all but disappeared. Cheese is no more appealing to me now than a lump of lard. My asthma has almost gone. There are a number of possible explanations, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with cutting out milk. I have to think harder about what I cook, but that is no bad thing.

Meat eating is strongly associated with conventional images of masculinity, and some people appear to feel threatened by those who give up animal products. An Italian politician this week proposed jailing parents who impose a vegan diet on their children, in case it leaves them malnourished. Curiously, she failed to recommend the same sanction for rearing them on chips and sausages. By chance, at a festival this summer, I again met the man from Devon who had tried to persuade the Environment Agency to take action on the River Culm. He told me that nothing has changed. When there’s a choice between protecting the living world and appeasing powerful lobby groups, most governments will take the second option. But we can withdraw our consent from this corruption. If you exercise that choice, I doubt you will regret it. 5

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