Yet Another Article Gets It Wrong About Beef and Climate Change

Perpetuating the Myth Is Dangerous

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

Just yesterday, September 8, 2023, Vox.com published an article by Kenny Torrella titled “Climate-friendly” beef could land in a meat aisle near you. Don’t fall for it. They add a subtitle that reads, Tyson Foods and the federal government refuse to show their math for a new sustainability label. Judging by the subtitle, the article intends to expose the ruse companies like Tyson Foods are engaged in when it comes to greenwashing their products. All good so far.

And then there is the opening line: “One species accounts for around 10 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions: the cow.”

The Numbers Don’t Align

It is hard to go any further when the very first line of the article is patently false. In the US, for instance, the EPA identifies that all agriculture accounts for 10% of emissions. Obviously, cows cannot be the only contributor. Here is the pie chart EPA publishes.

Source: Environmental Protection Agency

Cows are part of agriculture. They certainly do not account for all of the emissions contributions of agriculture. It is simple math.

Deceptive statements like this reinforce incorrect ideas about the contributions of activities to climate change. The rhetoric goes on with an equal level of deception.

Every few months, like clockwork, environmental scientists publish a new report on how we can’t limit planetary warming if people in rich countries don’t eat fewer cows and other animals.

The “new report” cited, however, was published in 2019. I would guess that if these reports were coming out like clockwork, there is probably a more current version to cite.

I am not an apologist for Tyson Foods or agribusiness. As a two-time organic farmer, I’ve run into the evils of agribusiness more often than I care to remember. But detesting agribusiness is no reason to mislead readers into thinking that not eating beef is a significant climate strategy; it is not.

Cows vs. Deforestation

Here’s what Torrella says:

The 1.5 billion cows farmed worldwide for cheeseburgers and ice cream sundaes each year accelerate climate change in three main ways: they eat grass and/or grain, like corn and soy, causing them to burp out the highly potent greenhouse gas methane; they poop a lot, which releases the even more potent nitrous oxide, as does the synthetic fertilizer used to grow the grain they’re fed; and they take up a lot of land — a quarter of the planet is occupied by grazing livestock, some of which could be used to absorb carbon from the atmosphere if it weren’t deforested for meat production.

Note the rhetoric. It implies that 1.5 billion cows are farmed only for frivolous foods like cheeseburgers and ice cream sundaes, when in fact dairy and beef are nutritious foods appreciated around the world — so much so that much of the world wishes they had more, not less. The dripping sarcasm in the accusation of frivolousness is a clue as to the intent of the author.

But beyond that, he says that the sources of the emissions from cattle are burps, poop, and deforestation. There is little doubt that deforestation adds carbon emissions, but in and of itself, deforestation has nothing to do with cows. For example, Indonesia is one of the biggest deforesting countries in the world, but the land is used for palm oil plantations, pulpwood, logging, and mining, not cows. It’s different in Brazil where most deforested land is used for cattle grazing. In either case, however, the cows are not producing the carbon resulting from deforestation — the act of deforesting the land is causing it. If you want to help climate change, stop the deforestation, don’t blame the cows.

Cows Produce More GHG Than Cars?

Beyond that, Torrella cites burps and poop. Okay fine. But as he says, there are 1.5 billion cows farmed each year. Guess how many cars are in the world today? Just under 1.5 billion. Do you think there is any comparison between the emissions of a farting cow and the emissions of an operating car?

Studies have shown that passenger vehicles account for 39% of the emissions generated by the entire transportation sector, which includes, trucks, trains, shipping, and airplanes. In the US, the entire transportation sector accounts for 29% of total emissions, according to the IEA. In other words, those passenger vehicles account for 11.3% of total emissions (39% of the total 29%). So, put that in your head: 11.3% of total emissions come from the 1.5 billion cars registered on the planet.

The author goes on again:

Meat and dairy production account for at least 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions…

That’s right, the assertion is that cows produce more emissions than cars.

Even if Cows Are the Problem, Not Eating Beef Won’t Solve It

The article, which does an admirable job uncovering the greenwashing of Tyson Foods with the help of USDA and some other big green organizations, remains embedded in this underlying assertion that not eating meat is the best thing one can do to fight climate change. He says it clearly:

[This leads] many environmental scientists to conclude that eating more plant-based meals is one of the best actions people can take to fight climate change…

Even if you can produce credible scientists to make this claim, the idea still rests on a specious idea — that we can boycott our way to reduced emissions. Beef consumption is rising, not falling, worldwide, because people like to eat beef. In fact, beef consumption is expected to rise by 14% worldwide this decade. What that means is that the boycotters are never going to get everyone to join in, so while they may continue their boycott, the net effect on emissions is zero. How can this possibly be “one of the best actions people can take to fight climate change?” Methinks there is a wee bit of ideology seeping in here.

I don’t object at all to the takedown of Tyson Foods, the USDA, and Big Green for the obvious greenwashing on the Tyson part of the story. But in so doing, Torrella is advancing a deceptive, inaccurate, and completely ineffective action recommendation for stopping climate change. Friends, climate change is not about eating beef; it is about burning fossil fuels. If you want to make a difference, find a way to stop burning those fuels. Help the system stop burning them by spreading solar or buying and driving an EV. And by all means, work politically to stop deforestation. Just don’t think that because you are eating lettuce tonight instead of beef, you have done your part. You have not. There is much more for each of us to do.

Anthony Signorelli