Confuse, Defend and Downplay: Inside big beef’s climate messaging machine
The US beef industry is creating an army of influencers and citizen activists to help amplify a message that you shouldn’t be too worried about the growing attention around the environmental impacts of its production.
JOE FASSLER: The US beef industry is creating an army of influencers and citizen activists to help amplify a message that will be key to its future success: that you shouldn’t be too worried about the growing attention around the environmental impacts of its production. In particular, it would like you not to be especially concerned about how meat consumption needs to be reduced if we are to avoid the most violently disruptive forms of planetary heating (even if all fossil fuel use ended tomorrow). It definitely does not want you to read scientific papers showing wealthy nations must reduce meat consumption to keep below the average global temperature rise of 2C, a threshold to stop systems collapse, mass extinctions, fatal heat waves, drought and famine, water shortages and flooded cities…
In a free, by-admission-only, online training course created by the US beef industry called the Masters of Beef Advocacy (MBA) program… what you get is multiple misleading – but scientific sounding – narratives about beef industry sustainability and repeated appeals for students to engage proactively with consumers online and offline about environmental topics. Via a private Facebook group for graduates, the NCBA also distributes infographics and industry talking points to deploy in online conversations…
MBA-trained “advocates and spokespeople help educate consumers and influencers about the role of beef in a healthy diet and how beef farmers and ranchers raise beef responsibly and sustainably”, according to one document the Guardian has seen from the Cattleman’s Beef Board, which earmarked $572,700 for the initiative for 2023. The Cattleman’s Beef Board is the organization that oversees the federally-enshrined beef checkoff program, which funds industry marketing and promotion through a fee ranchers pay on every head of cattle. “These advocates also help to respond when there is misinformation in the public about beef production and other beef-related issues,” the document says about graduates of the MBA courses…
According to a landmark study in the peer-reviewed journal Science, every kilogram of beef consumed adds a whopping 99.5 kgs of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gasses to the environment, on average. It was the most climate-damaging food studied, and the competition wasn’t even close. According to a subsequent analysis of the results by researchers at Oxford University’s Our World In Data project, beef consumption is 2.5 times – 250% – worse for the climate than the runner-up, sheep and lamb. Eating beef puts more than four times more strain on the atmosphere than eating cheese. It’s more than seven times worse than farmed fish, eight times worse than pork, and 10 times worse than poultry. It’s 21 times worse than eggs. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: