I loves me some meat. If you’ve ever watched any of my cooking vids on YouTube or seen my dinner pics on Instagram, you know that I’m not one to shy away from a nice slab of animal-based protein.
I also love the earth. Back in high school, my nerdy cinema club friends and I won a local contest for creating an environment-themed short film. To this day, somewhere in a box of VHS tapes is a recording of the evening news the night they featured, in its entirety, the masterpiece known as “Klean-Fu: The Environmental Ninja.”
So I do pay attention to the popular narrative that cutting out meat is key to stopping climate change. I wonder, is there anything to it? Should I quit my carnivorous habit and leave the cheeseburger paradise that I so love?
The other day, I got some traction on Twitter by posting this:
It was in response to a post by author Nina Teicholz, who shared an article from ScienceNews called “Methane May Not Warm the Earth Quite as Much as Previously Thought.” In response, Teicholz said the following:
So, to celebrate Earth Day, let’s wade into the enormous cow paddy that is the debate about beef and climate change.
the argument
The argument goes something like this:
Cows burp.
Cow burps contain methane.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas.
Therefore, we must eliminate cows in order to stop global warming.
It’s this line of reasoning that has led to organizations like EAT-Lancet, in their “Global Planetary Health Diet” recommending that people limit their red meat intake to under 4 ounces per week (that’s about a bite and a half per day). It’s led politicians like New York City Mayor Eric Adams to begin removing meat from school lunches.
It’s nice to think that we can do something for the planet just by swapping out our burger for a bean burrito, but is it really that simple? The article that Teicholz references above suggests not.
the counter-argument
There are many ways to take this on. Some have pointed out, for example that before Europeans came along and mucked everything up, there were 30-60 million big ol’ bison roaming the Great Plains, eating grass, and yes, burping methane. They were hunted to near-extinction in order to make way for cattle — a mere 9 million of which live in the US today.
I’m no scientist, but I teach rhetoric for a living, so I can’t help but look for the logical fallacies and underlying assumptions in any argument. And this one has a few. It assumes, for example:
Cows are a significant source of methane in the environment.
Methane from cows is as damaging to the environment as methane from other sources, like natural gas.
The way that cows are currently raised in the US is the only way cows can be raised.
One person who is not afraid to address the complexity of this issue, and to call out these assumptions, is Diana Rodgers. A registered dietician, Rodgers runs the website Sustainable Dish, and the Instagram account of the same name. She’s also the author of the book Sacred Cow, (and creator of the documentary film based on it) which “probes the fundamental moral, environmental and nutritional quandaries we face in raising and eating animals.”
Rodgers not only makes the case for meat, but she argues for better meat. The Sacred Cow website has some great answers to the three points above, in the form of clever infographics:
1. Are cows a major polluter?
2. Is all methane the same?
3. Is there a better way?
The last of these is important, because the discourse around this issue perpetuates another logical fallacy — a false dichotomy. You’ll hear that we either keep growing livestock in a way that might be harming the planet or we give up meat altogether. In fact, we can have our steak and eat it, too… if we’re willing to go the extra mile to raise cows in an environmentally-responsible way.
Several ranchers have started doing this, including Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms and Will Harris of White Oak Pastures. Farmers like these are passionate about raising healthy animals and using age-old “regenerative farming” practices that produce nutrient-rich meat and also feed the land. I’m lucky enough to be able to get White Oak meats at my local organic market, but there are plenty of other folks out there who share these values and who you can patronize. Regenerative Farmers of America has a tool on their website that you can use to find someone in your area.
By learning about where our food comes from, and voting with our dollars, we can take steps toward becoming what Rodgers calls a “sustainavore.” It’s difficult to do, and rather expensive in our current food system, but if we are what we eat, then it might be worthwhile to seek out foods that will nourish us and the planet.
As Rodgers says, “it’s not the cow, it’s the how.”
This is so good, Dave!! Thank you for all of these resources.
Also, I’m reading about farmers capturing the methane and using it for work processes around the farm