Local Council Tells You to Eat Plants

It’s a long-held belief in Australia that local councils deal with the three Rs: Rates, Roads and Rubbish. But according to The Conversation last year: “Beyond roads, rates and rubbish: Australians now expect local councils to act on bigger issues, including climate change”. Do we? I wasn’t aware of that. Which Australians are they referring to? Yarra City Council in inner-city Melbourne have taken heed, and decided to go full steam ahead with their Climate Change policy, essentially forcing their views onto their residents: “Melbourne’s Yarra City Council tells ratepayers to go vegetarian to combat the climate emergency”. I don’t like to just listen to the headlines, I also like to get it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

Here’s the Council’s Taking Climate Action web page. As I’ve said in other videos, when it comes to climate action, you have to have as much diversity as possible, you have to have a giant solar panel sticking out of the top of the town hall, and you have to have the obligatory cute animal, in this case, a giant flying platypus.

Scrolling down, we’re met with their Climate Emergency Plan 2024-2030. Yes, this is a single council, one of 537 councils across Australia. Apparently, they’re going to save the world one vegetarian resident at a time. You can download the plan using this link.

Oh, it’s a wonderful read. Apparently, you have to use Aboriginal language as much as possible. “Yalinguth” (Looking to the past), “Yaalingbu” (Today). Boy, I hope I’m pronouncing those right. Of course, you can’t do or say anything anymore in woke Victoria without an Acknowledgement of Country. “Wominjeka”. They don’t explain what that means, but don’t worry, I’ve looked it up for you. It literally means: “F**k you residents, we’re in charge now!”. Yeah, I know. All that meaning in one little word. They of course acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people as the Traditional Owners and true sovereigns of the land. As I’ve said previously, either giver the land back, or shut the hell up!

Basically, the introduction can be summed up in one sentence: “We are in a climate emergency.” Noting that Australia is in the middle of some sort of super rare cold snap at the moment. Yes, climate change works in mysterious ways. The local council note that extinctions are occurring at up to 1000 times the rate. Noting that around 40,000 years ago, according to The Guardian, climate change killed off all Australia’s giant animals, the so-called megafauna. Although earlier reports by Australian Geographic suggest that humans most likely killed most of the megafauna. The point is, it was either Aboriginal people or climate change that killed all the animals 40,000 years ago.

Where was I? Oh yes, the Yarra City Council. On page 32, Impacts of animal agriculture, they state: “the high and increasing rate of consumption of animal products are likely to make it impossible to limit global heating to 1.5°C, even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated completely.” “It is widely understood that a shift to plant-based diets is critical in responding to the climate emergency.” So even if the Yarra City Council are running on 100% wind turbines or whatever, that’s still not enough! Its residents must also not eat meat! Remember, this is a city council. They seem to have delusions of grandeur!

In the same document under Objectives, they state that we should “move our banking and superannuation away from fossil fuel investments, and shift to plant-based eating”. They give some kind of fictional account of an apprentice installing a new solar system and eating “delicious plant-based sandwiches”. And under their Ambition section, they again mention moving your banking and superannuation away from fossil fuel investments, and shifting to plant-based eating.

Just in the name of openness, if you didn’t already know, I personally don’t eat meat. However, I’ve been around long enough to know that a person’s diet is very much a personal choice. The question is: Should a council be dictating what its residents should or should not eat? I think the answer from the vast majority of Australians would be a resounding NO! Councils should stick to taking out the garbage. For example, they should probably stick this Climate Emergency Plan into the nearest yellow recycling bin.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is the same council that don’t celebrate Australia Day because, “it is a day of mourning, pain and disconnection for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.”

Yarra City Council have lost the plot, have they not? They don’t seem to like Australia, and now they want to control what you eat. Interestingly, councillors dined on roast beef while deciding that you shouldn’t. As with their policies and documents, I think the Yarra City Council needs to be recycled.

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