Have you ever woken in the night and suddenly heard an unexpected sound?
Maybe that’s what woke you!
Could it be a bird or bat in the roof space or maybe something else on the roof?
So you get up to investigate but whilst standing at the front door pondering the situation an arm suddenly appears out of a hole buried in the grass outside your front door.
You can imagine that Ashly Guardino from California was pretty spooked when this happened to her so a call to the police was definitely called for – and lo and behold what they found was that a man had been living under the property for months.
When pulled out from under the house, the arrested man was found to be as high as a kite!
Now over in New Zealand it seems that the Labour government there, lagging in the polls with a general election looming in October, has decided to appease farmers by delaying the implementation of a tax on the gaseous emissions from sheep and cows until the end of 2025.
Could be a bit of a blow!
The country is home to just five million people but has around 10 million head of cattle and 26 million sheep.
Nearly half the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions are the result of cows and sheep burping and more!
It has been claimed that methane gas is a much more potent threat to the environment than carbon dioxide from motor vehicles.
When the measure was first announced farmers, asserting that the introduction of such a tax would damage their livelihoods, blocked motorways and towns with their tractors in protest.
They also suggested that the imposition of such a tax could actually increase emissions globally as lost markets could result in farming being shifted to countries less efficient in food production.
And now New Zealand’s largest opposition party has proposed that any such tax should be delayed until 2030, this in spite of government assertions that the plan is necessary, workable, effective and fiscally responsible.
New Zealand’s red-meat lobby groups are “dismayed” at the plan but the government says that along with meeting commitments to cut emissions, demand was growing from foreign buyers for agricultural products backed by sustainability credentials.
Think I’m keeping out of this one but hope to see you again tomorrow,
Scott
