The meat production and climate change battle rages on. Last week, a Dutch city said they would spend their public advertising euros to tell folks that meat production is bad for climate change and public health. How many times have you heard this ideology broadcast from anti-meat activists?
The fake meat companies worked that angle for years, and folks got excited. Their stock market values were high during their initial rally, but the hype ended, and their stock prices are trading much lower than their record high. Thank retailers that they don’t display those products in the meatcase anymore. Those products have earned their own display space.
I’m constantly perplexed about the anti-meat crowd and the various ideologies they have, from “It’s bad for you to kill a live animal for consumption,”” to “They are responsible for climate change.” A report from the University of Illinois suggested that animal agriculture was responsible for 57% of greenhouse gases.
You have seen this kind of research from various universities over the years, and it concerns me about the credibility of those institutions and the funding they receive.
This climate change society we live in appears to be driven by economics, even though the issue and its consequences are debatable and even though it’s hard to find an honest conversation on the subject. We see the development of electric vehicles expanding rapidly. The state of California is debating the legal sale of cars and trucks with internal combustion engines.
This new infrastructure will require and consume tremendous amounts of electricity we don’t currently have. How is this country going to produce the electricity to power all of America? Windmills and solar panels? I don’t think so.
I think most everyone would agree that this was a hot summer; we’ve had them before. Some areas of the West have received ample moisture while others haven’t—yes, we are in a drought. It is forcing us to realize we don’t know how to manage our limited water resources. In the West, you must realize that rain is the exception and can’t be relied upon. We have dry years and drier years and an occasional wet one to keep us optimistic.
But these meatheads that study the effects of animal agriculture have an undying ideology that will never be changed. USDA has said that animal agriculture contributes just 3% of greenhouse gases, mostly methane. Many anti-meat groups continue to use the United Nations’ “Livestock’s Long Shadow” study that claims cattle contribute 17% of greenhouse gasses. That study has been disproven multiple times, and it should be embarrassing to those researchers who continue to use it.
Animal agriculture knows they have a methane issue, but few seem to know that animal agriculture has been working to capture that methane for other uses. When it comes to implementing new research and technology that will make agriculture more efficient, farmers and ranchers are doing it. It’s economics, which I doubt many university researchers understand. The only economics they understand is grant money.
These days, it comes down to who you believe: USDA or the United Nations climate change crowd. Frankly, I’m skeptical of both, and I certainly don’t trust anything the United Nations does. Most university research on global warming is debatable because most want to justify what they already think.
It’s like today’s media. Stories are sensationalized to get readers. There are not many in the media that don’t have a political slant—Wall Street Journal is the closest to a balanced publication as I know, and of course Western Livestock Journal.
I’ve been in the media all my life and have become skeptical of media outlet goals. Especially when it comes to politics. Most broadcast media outlets appear to have taken sides on current events. If you gave two reporters a simple story to cover and told them to keep it to the facts, my guess is you would have two completely different records of the event. And ideology would show through at some point.
Last week I received a trade journal called Editor and Publisher. They had a story titled “American democracy in crisis: The press reframes democracy coverage to capture a perilous, critical moment in U.S. history.”
Most of the media people interviewed were writers for publications such as The Guardian, MSNBC, HuffPost and Washington Post—publications that are strong on opinion and less so on hard news. I felt like this publishing trade journal was endorsing a specific type of messaging to journalism. Do you think American democracy is in crisis? Keep up with the rain dance. — PETE CROW
