As you sit down to your Christmas dinner tomorrow will the animals on the table in front of you get even a fleeting thought?
I don’t ask because I am trying to put you off the turkey and ham, beef, salmon or even lamb your family traditionally feasts on during this most sacred family day.
My goal here is not to turn you towards vegetarianism, veganism or any other food related ism out there.
Read more: West Belfast man on how love of Black Mountain nature landed him his dream job
The aim is to get you to have a think about the conditions we now allow those animals to be raised in just so we can consume them.
I saw a magical video on Twitter just the other day featuring a mummy pig allowed outside with one of her piglets. And I’ll tell you what, it was magical.
Her leaps and bounds through the field reminded me of a puppy playing and I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear as I witnessed her unbridled joy.
Most of her species in this place, however, never see the light of day. Their days are spent confined in cages on the concrete floors of huge pigs sheds, where their only role is to grow babies before being trapped in place to feed them. And it breaks my heart.
You can argue all you like that those animals are here only because they were bred for bacon - and that’s fine. Back when my granny was a child, that happened too - but the pigs were allowed to roam the farm and had good lives before being slaughtered for their meat.
The rates we are killing them at is half the problem - I have no idea how much land you would need to give the 1.84 million pigs killed for their meat in Northern Ireland so far this year any semblance of a happy life until they die.
But I would say it’s a lot more than the sheds in which we have them confined.
In 2001, 1.33m pigs faced the chopping block here and since then it has risen steadily to a figure equal to our human population in both 2020 and 2021 - 1.9 million.
Yet when’s the last time any of you saw a pig - apart from inside a lorry on its way to slaughter?
We’re doing the same to turkeys, chickens and two-week old calves packed into lorries and boats for long export journeys to Europe - without any food.
Cattle and sheep aren’t being killed in anywhere near the same numbers as pigs or poultry - the latter of which perishes at a rate of millions per week across the UK - I’m struggling to find easy to access stats for Northern Ireland.
Up to December 17 - 491,132 cattle and 460,559 sheep were killed here. Both species, I am sure, have their own crosses to bear because of the human lust for beef and lamb but at least they get outside from time to time.
The point to all this is not to tell you not to eat meat - that’s your choice. But I wanted to highlight the impact of producing just so much of it.
If we were to divide the pigs, cows and sheep reared for their meat in Northern Ireland each year - the current yield would roughly provide each of us with a whole pig and roughly a quarter of a lamb and cow each to eat every year.
When you consider how a 1,000 pound cow provides around 430lbs (195kg) of meat, a 90lb lamb - 34lbs (15kg) and a 250lb pig - 144lb (65kg) of retail worthy cuts - that’s 215kg of meat each a year. And that’s even before we consider poultry.
The NHS advises the average person to eat no more than 70g of red meat a day - that’s 25.5kg each a year! So not only are we producing way more meat than the people of NI could ever possibly eat - the animals in our care are suffering because of the conditions we keep them in to ensure the quick turnaround of their flesh.
I know we have laws governing such things - but I put it to you that there’s absolutely nothing ethical about the way those laws allow us to treat these sentient beings, who have wants and needs like we do.
Then there’s the impact the constant push for growth in the industry is having on our environment. Waste from almost 3 million pigs, cows and sheep is a hell of a lot to process - and again - we haven’t even considered the impact of the poultry sector.
That’s slurry, manure and waste that could contain antibiotic residue, all sorts of germs and an overabundance of nutrients that once spread on our fields or entering rivers, lakes, and the sea impact everything from the soils we rely on to grow other sources of food to the oxygen levels in water, fish need to live.
So you see, the meat on your plate this Christmas isn’t just a meal. It represents so much more - and if we all just shut up and swallow it - nothing will ever change for the better.
Belfast's bike traffic lights
I have it on good authority that the bike traffic light installed at Castle Street junction is now working again.
A number of cyclists had highlighted how it wasn’t working to change the lights when they approached.
So I asked the Department for Infrastructure what was going on.
A departmental spokesperson said: “When the traffic signals at Castle Junction were updated following the reopening of Primark, a microwave detector was provided to detect cyclists approaching the junction from Castle Street.
“Unfortunately, this detector was vandalised and damaged beyond repair and a replacement had to be ordered.
“This was fitted [on Wednesday] and is being tested to ensure optimum performance.”
They said that over the longer term the site will be “used as a test site for a new type of video analytics cycle detector which will ensure all users are detected”.
There are also low level cycle indicators at a number of locations in Belfast including:
- May Street/Alfred Street
- College Square North/College Avenue
- Royal Avenue/Castle Street
- Middlepath St/Station Street
- Middlepath St/Dalton Street
Have your say on NI offshore wind
I’m delighted the Department for Economy is finally getting its act together on renewable power generation for NI - after years paying the sector little heed.
They issued a public consultation this week on their Draft Offshore Renewable Energy Action Plan which includes proposals to develop 1GW of offshore wind and marine renewables.
RenewableNI says it could create enough electricity to power over a quarter of NI homes.
I don’t know about you - but I’m for cheaper and more environmentally friendly energy after the amount my bills have risen this year.
The consultation closes on March 16, 2023.
You can have your say online at https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/consultations/draft-offshore-renewable-energy-action-plan by emailing RenewableElectricity@economy-ni.gov.uk.
You can even write to them about it at OREAP Consultation, DfE Renewable Electricity Team, 6th Floor Adelaide House, Adelaide Street, Belfast, BT2 8FD.
Happy Christmas, everyone
It’s been a tough few years for everyone.
Just when we thought there was some light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, rising fuel and food prices coupled with stagnant wages crawled up to bite us all.
It may not be the festive season many had envisioned as we cut corners to make ends meet.
But I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a peaceful and as happy Christmas as possible.
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