Cows and climate
Henry Mencken was an American journalist, satirist and cultural critic, who lived from 1880 to 1956. He may have been from a different era, but I find some of his observations are still entirely relevant:
The imaginary hobgoblin I wish to discuss today is the instruction to ‘eat less meat to save the planet’. In the UK this week, there is discussion about the UK Food Strategy, which calls for a 30% reduction in meat-eating. This document is supposed to be a food strategy but the primary goal of ‘eat less meat’ is promoted as an environmental benefit. Call me old-fashioned, but I have always believed a food strategy should be based on nutrition.
‘Eat less meat’ seems so unscientific; it is advice for everybody whether you eat meat every day or once a week. It feels much more like an often-repeated nudge to slowly alter our behaviour. The ‘save the planet’ part of this slogan is surely designed to be make us feel guilty. Who would want to be the person who brought about a climate catastrophe because of their over-indulgence in animal protein?
The idea behind this notion is simple: cows and sheep burp methane; methane is a greenhouse gas; eating less meat will result in fewer cows and, therefore, less methane; if we eat less meat we will save the world from over-heating. This is the story being pushed upon us, but it is nonsense. Ruminant animals have been burping methane for about 50 million years without any effect on all the fluctuations of climate throughout that vast timescale. Cows and sheep cannot add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. They simply recycle a few of them because the plants they eat grew by taking carbon dioxide out of the air in the first place, and methane is oxidised to carbon dioxide within 10 years.
Whenever we are told what to do by self-appointed experts, I always wonder who is going to benefit from the actions we are advised to take. If we all reduce our meat intake by 25% it will make absolutely no difference to the climate, but it will make a difference. Small family farms throughout the country will be forced into bankruptcy if they lose 25% of their turnover. The land will be bought cheaply by large corporations, who will probably obtain taxpayer-funded subsidies to put wind farms and solar panels in the fields. Our meat will be replaced by lab-grown synthetic meat, produced by a small group of global companies.
Does this sound too far-fetched? Influential organisations and powerful people are already making it happen, as I explain in my latest video -