What is the truth?
I have always been skeptical about research findings when it comes to issues that may scare people or horrifying. We frequently see that governmental and non-governmental organizations successfully make use of fact picking (like chickens that select the best feed particles to favor their nutritional needs) to underline their own political agenda or need money for research or promotion. Leaving out facts that may under mine their issue is quite common.
Underlining or even overstating questionable conclusions to create a scary scenario has become common practice. Most of us will recognize these habits from local or national organizations and politicians, especially in relation to animal welfare, food safety and environment issues.
The scientific community should stay away from this unprofessional attitude and myths prevent becoming “facts”. Recent disclosures of clear manipulations and use of incorrect facts in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) do not help increase the trustworthiness of the scientific community. When brochures and claims made by environment action groups are used, without checking the validity of the claims, to draw conclusions the Panel gives the impression it was captured by the goals of these groups. The discovery of several major and minor mistakes calls into question what is true about climate change and the role humans play in it.
For the poultry industry this is a crucial issue. We all know that the production of poultry meat and eggs is compared to other animal protein production methods, very efficient with regards to minimis the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If solid, independent, non political driven research can not prove that global warming is a man made issue, nor confirm that carbon dioxide plays a role as big as they want us to believe, then there is no need to invest heavily in systems that reduce the release of this gas.
Nevertheless minimis the production of obnoxious gasses should always be the goal of any producer not just for the sake of the environment but also to guarantee a healthy environment for the birds and workers. Therefore it is important, for many reasons, to know what the facts are, what the truth is and who we can believe and trust!
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