The new Customer Solutions Management unit will be led by Elders’ national marketing manager for meat and livestock, Hamish Browning, reporting to Elders’ general manager meat and livestock, Jack Gleeson.

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IF I hear the terms “global warming”, “climate change” and “carbon trading” again I think I’ll scream. Better still, go and live on a yacht without communication – just like the hermits of old did in their caves or poles.

Climate changes – it always has.

All the new taxes won’t do diddly, except burden us with higher costs. The antidote could be worse than the disease.

Climate change is in danger of becoming an excuse to do something, do nothing, increase regulatory controls over our lives and gouge prices.

There was an interesting TV documentary last Sunday on the Moche civilisation in Peru. It flourished around the seventh century enough for them to build large pyramids of clay bricks. Then it disappeared after a mega El Nino-La Nina brought 30 years of floods, followed by 30 years of drought.

All the human sacrifices (taxes) made at the time couldn’t halt what nature dealt out.

What we really have here is a mass hysteria from government, green groups and some scientists:

• The government wants to be seen to be doing something – to please and appease;

• The worse the picture painted by green groups becomes, the more legitimacy they gain and the more money they raise; and

• Some scientists have jumped aboard a gravy train. There is money and careers in research.

Back in the late sixteenth century the population of Europe whipped itself into a frenzied fear of witches. Thousands perished, often burned at the stake, as priests and others worked furiously to eradicate a perceived threat.

In one village in Germany in 1595, all the women, young and old, were burned after being tortured to reveal other witches; until just one small girl was left. That was when the villagers sat back and said: “Oh God, what have we done?”

This is an extreme example, but there is a very real danger of this type of response – a mass hysteria, whipped up by vested interests, resulting in knee-jerk reactions and unintended consequences.

We have had recent examples of this in the Victorian livestock industries. The OJD fiasco in the mid-’90s comes to mind. The story at one stage was that a scientist in France was working to prove a connection between Crohns disease in humans and OJD in sheep.

If he succeeded, the sheep industry would be finished. Therefore, we needed to eradicate OJD. Some vets saw another Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign (BTEC).

The government was able to cut a deal to shut the state’s vet labs and be seen to be acting responsibly; the VFF was able to say “look at what we’ve done” to its members.

This was a hysterical response to a simple, non-threatening problem that prompted knee-jerk reactions. Eradication failed, as they were told it would. Now we have a management program using vaccines, as a few astute people suggested at the time.

And who can forget the Y2K computer bug?

If we do have genuine climate change and it is carbon emissions based, all the carbon taxes in the world will do diddly without China and India reigning in their growing economies. And they’re not likely to do that.

If climate change is natural, the carbon tax could stall our economy big time and shaft us back into an 1800s standard of living.

When that happens, they’ll sit there like the good burghers of the German village and say: “What have we done?”

Meantime, there are far more immediate issues for Krudd and Co to address in Australia including the cost of doing business, over-regulation, the loss of Australia’s manufacturing base, foreign ownership, transport efficiencies, health and education and, on a global scale, the sheer number of people.

They’re predicting nine billion in 100 years’ time – 50 million in Australia. That’s the real problem. Just imagine how much carbon that many people will be pumping out. And how will we feed them?

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SOME dates to put in your diaries:

• Livestock Saleyards Association of Victoria – August 14-15, Bairnsdale (contact David Pollock, 9573 4551); and

• Livestock Transporters Association of Victoria – August 29-30, Bendigo (contact Melisa Champness, 0400 933713).

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* Win $1000: vote for your favourite Gippsland rural business – see page 14.