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The Citizen, 2019-10-31, Page 5Other Views Climate change isn’t animals’ fault Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense Recently I realized just how complacent I’ve become when dealing with truth in advertising (or lack thereof) and, like a lot of my revelations over the past few years, it was seeing the world through new eyes that prompted the realization. A lot of my recent discoveries have been as a result of now seeing through a father’s eyes, however the discovery that prompted this particular column came straight through Mary Jane’s eyes. During a recent shopping trip Mary Jane and I made without my wife Ashleigh, Cheerios was on our shopping list. Unbeknownst to me, Ashleigh, who makes the lists, had intended to put Honey Nut Cheerios, but hadn’t. So as I stood in front of the Cheerios display, I asked Mary Jane which ones we should get for her Mommy and she pointed to chocolate- flavoured ones. I told Mary Jane I didn’t think that fit her mother’s typical idea of a “healthy breakfast.” I grabbed a regular old box of Cheerios and we were on our way to the next item on our list. A couple days after we got home, Ashleigh discovered that we had regular Cheerios instead of the honey nut variety. She bemoaned the mistake saying she really doesn’t like plain Cheerios. Mary Jane asked me about it later that day, asking why Mommy didn’t like Strawberry Cheerios. I looked back at her for a second, trying to make sure I had heard her right before asking what she meant by Strawberry Cheerios. She took my hand and led me to the blue box which housed a classic yellow Cheerios box and pointed out that, in the middle of the heart-shaped bowl of Cheerios, there were definitely two full or half-strawberries. “See daddy, strawberries,” she said. I wondered how many years I’d been looking at those regular boxes of Cheerios and never noticed that there were, definitively, strawberries in the bowl on the box. At first I chalked it up to the old “part of this complete breakfast” statement that appears at the end of cereal commercials. You know, the complete breakfast you would probably feed a single person for three meals and still have leftovers? The cereal being hawked, plus a half a grapefruit, a couple of slices of toast, a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice, a perfectly- arranged fruit bowl and a bowl of oatmeal, just to be safe. But it didn’t say anything about a “complete breakfast” on the box. It just showed a box full of Cheerios with a couple strawberries and said “suggested serving” on the bottom corner of the box. Looking at it, I couldn’t even begin to try and explain to Mary Jane that there weren't any strawberries in with the cereal without getting into a far deeper discussion about “small print” that I’m sure wouldn’t fly with a three-year-old. I started doing some comparison shopping in my own kitchen and discovered that this was a pretty regular thing. My own Frosted Flakes, for example, have strawberry slices in them. Fruit Loops show oranges, limes, lemons and raspberries on the box. The only cereal without some kind of fruit on it was the no- name Mini Wheats. (I like variety when it comes to breakfast). When it comes to cereal, however, all that we should see is maybe some milk added to what comes from the box (and the imagination of an ad sales person in the form of a cartoon tiger, toucan, bee or Dracula knock-off). The whole situation made me realize that I’ve gone soft on advertising folks recently. See, advertising people are just a name brand of public relations (PR) people and, when you go to school for communications like I did, you quickly realize that your peers become part of a dichotomy. Either they are interested in communications for truth, like yours truly, or they’re interested in it for profit, like those PR folks. I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but PR used to be the enemy of journalists. Now our enemies are numerous, starting with orange- coiffed orangutan-like presidents and including all those nuts yelling “fake news” as well as actual fake news outlets making it that much more difficult for people to trust good journalism. Maybe that’s why, when I was recently shopping for a new car, I didn’t call a salesperson on the law that states that advertised prices are supposed to be honoured by dealerships and why my first thought was to try to explain to Mary Jane why there weren’t strawberries in the box. Now, journalists are so busy defending ourselves against near-despotic leaders and their rabid followers we might not be policing things like truth in advertising. It makes me long for simpler days. Fortunately for me, The Citizen is pretty far from most of those aforementioned leaders and most of our local politicians know the value of truth, transparency, sincerity and elegant speaking. Unfortunately for me, I still have to figure out how to explain to a three-year-old why there’s no strawberries in the box. Denny Scott Denny’s Den THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019. PAGE 5. Answer the question One of the most frustrating aspects of working to obtain information for a living is a flat-out refusal to answer a question. Sure, it makes our lives difficult as reporters, but evasion and ignorance surely grates on the nerves of just about everyone. This is nothing new and it is, of course, on full display with our neighbours to the south under President Donald Trump. His press secretaries (he’s on number three – and on his seventh communications director) have made a habit of dodging or outright ignoring questions, not to mention taking a trip to a certified fantasy land when they do answer. One of my favourite interviews of all time, oddly enough, involves someone doing very little question-answering. After being told he had to attend post-game press conferences, Rasheed Wallace, a basketball player for the Portland Trail Blazers, did as he was told, but answered every single question with “both teams played hard” after a 2003 playoff game. It was entertaining and it spawned great t- shirts (and a $30,000 fine for Wallace), but it must have been very frustrating not only for the reporters looking for answers, but for fans wanting to know what was on their favourite player’s mind. (The Trail Blazers would lose to the Dallas Mavericks in the first round.) I didn’t want to write this column last week with the federal election still undecided, but in the final days of campaigning, I was dismayed to see how party leaders treated the media and, really, voters just days before the election. In a campaign that brought out many cringe- worthy moments from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, watching him smile and nod as a reporter asked him a question, only to answer with a completely unrelated statement was, for me, one of his more frustrating decisions. Jess and I sat in a Montreal hotel, a trip to celebrate our second wedding anniversary, and watched Trudeau speak in Hamilton, where reporters pressed him on the potential of a minority government and what it would mean for Canada; a relevant question, especially considering that’s exactly what happened. All he could do was talk about Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his cuts, the dangers of a Conservative government and wanting a strong voice to lead Canada. Trudeau, a media darling who has been accused of “buddying up” to the press, seemed to do anything but along the campaign trail. Then there was Conservative leader (for now) Andrew Scheer and his refusal to answer legitimate press questions addressing the report that his party hired Warren Kinsella’s firm to launch a social media campaign to “seek and destroy” Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada. He was just flat-out not going to answer the question, no matter how many reporters asked him about it. Just days before Scheer hoped to be elected the leader of Canada, he refused to address whether or not he directed a social media campaign aimed to stoke fear and discredit a political rival. (Has anyone checked his phone bill for calls to Ukraine?) To think Canadians weren’t entitled to know if a potential leader would engage in social media sabotage showed Scheer’s character and the election results bore out those concerns over the dirty tricks he could play in Ottawa. When asked if he was worried Scheer may have targeted the Liberal Party, Trudeau failed to directly answer the question. Again. While Trudeau has been a vocal advocate for a free and healthy press, those words ring hollow if he won’t then respect those reporters enough to directly answer their questions. During the Rural Talks: Climate Change in Huron County conference in Blyth last week, a gentleman rose during a question session and, after telling any beef farmers present to cover their ears, told people if they really wanted to make a difference in preventing climate change, they should stop eating meat. Pity your neighbouring livestock farmer who is a perpetrator of a great crime against humanity and the planet, if you read the propaganda – and it does become propaganda not information at a certain point. That’s because the information reaching the public is impossibly one-sided. It’s like a recent Globe and Mail article on Jonathan Safran Foer’s book We Are Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast. Assigned to interview the author was someone who identified as a vegan. Well first of all, let’s get this straight. Livestock have not caused climate change. We had livestock for millions of years before climate change became an issue. The greenhouse gases (GHG) that are causing climate change only became a problem for the planet when we began digging up the sun’s energy from millions of years ago, stored in coal and oil, and burning it to make today’s comfortable life possible. If animals burping after they eat plants is causing global warming, then we should celebrate the poachers in Africa who are killing elephants. A single elephant produces enough methane in a single day to power a car for 20 miles. The hunting of the North American bison to near-extinction is regarded as a tragedy, but according to those who single out livestock farming as a major cause of climate change, the hunters should be praised. After all, estimates put the bison population in North America in 1500 at between 30 and 60 million, each one burping and passing methane. Then there are the deer and the elk, the zebras and the wildebeest and all the other wild animals that eat plants and produce methane. Should we blame them for the planet’s issues with climate change? After all, it’s easier than looking at human behaviour. And guess what? Grasslands that animals eat from are among the greatest sequesters of carbon. Millions of acres of grasslands on which cattle feed are helping the planet, not hurting it. Much of this land is not suitable for growing crops, and even if it were, cultivating the land would diminish its stored carbon. Dr. Patricia McCarney, president and CEO of the World Council and City Data, speaking at Rural Talks last week, emphasized the importance of having good, comparable data when dealing with the problems. Most of the climate change literature about farming is out of date, suggests the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI). The recent report of the International Panel on Climate Change doesn’t mention “the Canadian agriculture sector has made significant progress in making soils in crop and animal production a net carbon sink, as well as reducing emission intensity from animal agriculture,” according to the CAPI study co-authored by Al Mussel, Ted Bilyea and Margaret Zafiriou. The CAPI study says that greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian agriculture peaked in 2005, even though food production has continued to increase. “Canadian beef production has become much less emissions intensive as a result of new genetics, increased feed efficiencies and better pasture management,” says the CAPI study. “Canada is now one of the lowest emitters for animal protein, particularly beef, in the world.” Farmers are part of the GHG problem, for sure, just like anyone else. Powerful diesel engines on machinery have replaced the vast majority of muscle-powered tasks of the past. Still, new technology and management practices are changing even this. But there are two dominant narratives that get in the road of an enlightened debate on climate change and animal agriculture. One is the animals-first beliefs of groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals which sees using animals for anything but companionship as unethical. Even eating an egg or a slice of cheese made from cow’s milk is exploiting the animal according to true believers. Then there’s the “blame somebody else so I don’t have to change” way of thinking that makes it convenient to push the guilt off onto someone we don’t know. Most urbanites never see a farmer, and after all they’re kind of backward, so it’s easy to blame them instead of ourselves. What’s changed from the time before the climate did? There are more of us, with more cars, flying to more vacations, heating our homes to warmer temperatures in winter and cooling them in summer. Before you blame the animals, cut your own GHG emissions first. Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk Advertising and Strawberry Cheerios