They Can’t, Because The Narrative Is Set

More than 20 scientific experts have written to the UN’s food agency expressing shock at its failure to revise or withdraw a livestock emissions report that two of its cited academics have said contained “multiple and egregious errors”. The alleged inaccuracies are understood to have downplayed the potential of dietary change to reduce agricultural greenhouse gases, which make up about a quarter of total anthropogenic emissions and mostly derive from livestock.

But if they do that, how can they then proceed with the aims of destroying Western agriculture and forcing us all to go vegan? 

One of the signatories to the letter, Jennifer Jacquet, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami, compared the FAO’s complaints process unfavourably with those of a science journal, “where you could at least expect a correction to the article”. The FAO’s “pathways toward lower emissions” study was originally billed as “an updated comprehensive overview” of global livestock emissions and was launched at last December’s Cop28 climate summit. Behrens and Hayek said it inappropriately used their work on now outdated nationally recommended diets (NRDs), double-counted meat emissions, mixed different baseline years in analyses, and omitted the opportunity cost of carbon sequestration on non-farmed land.

It's nice to see some scientists aren't about to let the UN roll over them without a fight. 

Not As Described, 'Guardian'...

Oh..? A terrible holiday accident, 'Guardian' headline writer? 

Fifty-nine people, including a newborn baby and other children, have died after a wooden sailing boat believed to be carrying refugees wrecked against rocks off the coast of Italy’s Calabria region.

Ah. Of course not.  

A Turkish national has been detained on suspicion of human trafficking, according to the Ansa news agency. The vessel is believed to have left Turkey four days ago with people from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan onboard.

And what's the expected response to this attempt to breach countries' borders? 

As rescuers continued their search, Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, called for European governments to “stop arguing” and “agree on just, effective, shared measures to avoid more tragedies”.

Well, of course. No doubt we should agree to leave our doors wide open to prevent burglars hurting themselves trying to break in... 

It Was Also The Most Pointless Answer....

The United Nations rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights squeezed onto a school bench alongside a dozen children in one of Glasgow’s most deprived neighbourhoods and posed a question: “Who should help poor people?”

“The rich people,” Soroush, one of the children, shot back. “It’s unfair to have people earning billions of pounds and have other people living on benefits.”

It was perhaps the frankest answer Philip Alston received on a two-day visit to Scotland, where a million people live in relative poverty, including one in five children.

Note that 'relative' in there. These children are not 'living in poverty' at all.

Little Soroush isn't rooting through a garbage pile for enough to eat, or sleeping on the streets, or dying of a relatively-curable illness.

The children were asked to jot down what being poor might mean for a person. John Adebola-Samuel, 12, quietly penned: “He cannot afford meals. He cannot buy trainers. He cannot watch TV.”

Remember when you could go to a Scottish school and quote children called Hamish & Morag? Are there any left?

While Alston met Sturgeon, Karen Reid, 35, a single mother of four in the deprived Pilton neighbourhood - close to affluent Stockbridge and the elite Fettes College public school - told the Guardian how she last worked nine years ago, struggled with depression and once drank so heavily she suffered permanent nerve damage to her hands and feet.

Her disability allowance has been stopped, costing her family £600 a month.

And relieving the taxpayer of having to support a workshy drunkard. Sounds like a good deal to me!

Alston is in Belfast on Saturday before finishing his tour in Essex and London. He will announce the conclusions of his investigation at a press conference on Friday.

Don't bother. I can already predict what he'll say.