Quotas for everyone!

Fresh from hearing of plans to buy-out and cull 200,000 dairy cows, there are now proposals to introduce quotas on air travel. Car travel quotas will probably be next, followed by limits on phone use, TV viewing, and showering. The latter could be the most contentious, especially among teenagers who love their long, leisurely showers with no thought for the water and energy scarcities they are creating. Limits on family size might also be a thing as the world’s population is currently 8 billion. It all points to more restricted lifestyles, curtailed by the ambition to protect the planet from human activities. Let’s hope the proposed flight restrictions do not extend to politicians, NGOs or other environmentally conscientious attendees at the exotic COP conference locations. Otherwise, who will save us all from ourselves? OK, I jest! But seriously, a 200,000-cow cull looks impressive until you realise that Brazil plans to increase its cattle herd by 24 million within the next seven years, bringing it to over 200 million head. Australia’s cattle herd increase of 4.22 million since 2020 looks paltry by comparison. Is there an Irish joke in there somewhere?