Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor
- The Green New Deal seems to embrace the anti-beef and dairy industry sentiment of the environmental left.
- Green New Dealers want to remake American society, including how to produce and eat food.
- “I think it’s pretty clear they want to change people’s consumption habits,” said one economist.
The Green New Deal isn’t just a climate change manifesto targeting U.S. energy, it also looks to drastically change how food is produced and, ultimately, what Americans eat.
“I think it’s pretty clear they want to change people’s consumption habits,” Nic Loris, an energy economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey introduced highly anticipated Green New Deal bills in early February, calling for “net-zero” greenhouse gas emissions within 10 years through a radical transformation of America. The bills also call for a slew of new social justice and welfare programs totally unrelated to global warming.
The accompanying FAQ’s reference to eliminating “farty cows” sent ranchers into a panic, fearing Democrats were taking aim at their livelihoods. Environmentalists have targeted the beef industry for years, and concern over methane only gave activists more ammunition.
“Livestock will be banned,” Wyoming GOP Sen. John Barrasso, who represents lots of cattle ranchers, warned on the Senate floor after the Green New Deal was introduced. “Say goodbye to dairy, to beef, to family farms, to ranches.”
“Farty” was eventually deleted — in fact, most of the methane cows emit is from burping, not farting. The entire gaffe-riddled FAQ was eventually taken offline by Ocasio-Cortez’s staff amid the ridicule.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey hold a news conference for their proposed “Green New Deal” to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 10 years, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. Feb. 7, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst.
Even so, the legislation itself is no less radical than Ocasio-Cortez’s Kinsley gaffes. The bill calls for “working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers … to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible.”
“It’s technologically feasible to shut down factories and farms,” Loris told TheDCNF in an interview. “It can happen today.”
Loris’ point is that the seemingly benign language in the Green New Deal resolution is worryingly broad. Technological feasibility is an open-ended phrase the government has used to crush industries in the past. (RELATED: GOP Presents A Climate Change Solution That’s Not Socialism. It’s Called Natural Gas)
The Obama administration, in fact, used a similar rationale to impose a de facto ban on new coal plants. The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) essentially ruled the best way to reduce emissions from coal plants was to, well, use natural gas or renewables.
Loris said the Green New Deal seems to endorse the long-held disdain for industrial agriculture harbored by the environmental left, especially when it comes to beef and dairy operations. The resolution even calls for policies to encourage small-scale, “sustainable” farming. Does that mean they want the whole country to go local and organic?
Miss USA and two other dairy cows eat their breakfast after their morning milking at EMMA Acres dairy farm, in Exeter, Rhode Island, U.S., 7 April, 2018. REUTERS/Oliver Doyle
Ted Nordhaus, director of research at the eco-modernist Breakthrough Institute, said the bill seemed to push so-called “regenerative agriculture” policies that often include implementing grazing methods to sequester carbon dioxide in the ground.
Proponents of “regenerative agriculture” say it would benefit farmers and ranchers, especially for ranchers who finish their cattle on grass. However, claiming that these methods can make beef operations carbon neutral is dubious, Nordhaus said.
Cows and other ruminant animals are a major source of methane — a byproduct of their unique digestive system. Livestock and their manure cause about 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. agricultural sector, according to Breakthrough’s senior agricultural analyst Dan Blaustein-Rejto.
So any effort to cut U.S. agriculture emissions would necessitate dealing with cattle and dairy operations. With Ocasio-Cortez claiming humanity only had 12 years before catastrophe, what wouldn’t a concerned climate activist be willing to do?
In fact, the 2018 United Nations report behind Ocasio-Cortez’s 12-year-to-apocalypse deadline said “dietary shifts away from emissions-intensive livestock products” as one of the societal changes needed to keep future warming under 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
EPA data show U.S. agriculture emissions on the rise since 1990 while the country as a whole has cut emissions largely because of the natural gas boom. Agricultural emissions are mostly increasing because of methane from livestock manure management.
Master Chef Wolfgang Puck pours liquid nitrogen at a wagyu beef chuck during a media preview of this year’s Academy’s Governors Ball in Los Angeles, California, U.S., Feb. 15, 2019. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Per capita beef consumption peaked in the 1970s, Nordhaus said, mostly over health concerns and innovations that brought down chicken and pork prices. Norhaus said continuing that trend was necessary to further limit emissions.
“A Green New Deal that was serious about reducing greenhouse gases from the U.S. agriculture sector would focus on supporting more, not less, intensification and improving the environmental performance of intensive systems through better cattle breeding, medical care, and then dealing with manure ponds and similar,” Norhaus told TheDCNF.
However, the Green New Deal resolution seems to suggest the opposite and reflects the environmental movement’s general opposition to industrial farming operations that provide Americans with affordable, abundant food.
The resolution calls for “supporting family farming,” “investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health” and “building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food.”
Democrats and environmentalists that endorse the Green New Deal — every Democratic senator running for president in 2020 cosponsored the bill — tend to oppose large-scale industrial livestock operations.
The Organic Consumers Association, which also backs the Green New Deal, calls concentrated animal feeding operations “a disaster for the environment and our health.” The group also seems to oppose industrial-scale agriculture that currently feeds billions of people.
An animal rights activist from Animal Equality holds a dead pig during a gathering to protest the treatment of animals at Paulista avenue in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Dec. 9, 2018. REUTERS/Nacho Doce
“We need stop the industrial overproduction of food — the root cause of agricultural pollution, food waste and greenhouse gas emissions,” Eric Holt-Gimenez, executive director of Food First, told Civil Eats.
Likewise, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, who’s running in 2020, railed against “the industrial animal agriculture industry” and its supposedly “devastating” impacts on the environment in a recent interview.
“The tragic reality is this planet simply can’t sustain billions of people consuming industrially produced animal agriculture because of environmental impact,” said Booker, a vegan. “It’s just not possible.”
However, research by Virginia Tech and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that eliminating the livestock industry would only reduce emissions 2.6 percent domestically, but that shift also came with a host of different health concerns.
That 2017 study found that eliminating livestock would deprive Americans of key nutrients and animal proteins, including calcium, vitamins A and B12 and some fatty acids. In fact, people would need higher-calorie diets to make up the nutrient loss.
Given everything else about the Green New Deal, including its democratic socialist overtones, it’s got many ranchers worried the resolution is more about changing people’s lifestyles and not just about reducing emissions.
Grass-fed beef products are pictured at a Whole Foods Market in Pasadena, California, U.S., July 24, 2017. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Could Americans see a carbon tax on meat? What about policies against feedlots and other large-scale beef operations? Or what about incentives to eat less beef and more poultry and pork? Pro-vegetarian tax credits?
“A carbon tax on meat and dairy would have a hard time making it from economics textbooks into law,” environmental economist Richard Tol said in an email.
“I can see them nudging people through tax credits and mandates like they do with energy systems,” Loris said, referring to policies like tax credits for wind turbines, solar panels and energy efficiency upgrades.
“When you decide to incentivize one product over another that’s effectively a tax,” Loris said.
Rejto was skeptical of some sort of meat tax as well but said the government could incentivize “practices like feeding cattle algae or giving them drugs that reduce methane emissions could further reduce emissions.”
USDA could also “direct its research into cell-based meat and other next-gen meat alternatives,” Rejto added. “This could lower the cost of high-quality beef alternatives and reduce meat consumption through market forces.”
Yeah, nobody is taking my beef away. Beef is one of the greatest foods on the planet, the absolute supreme meat of the meats. All meats bow down in awe of the Almighty Beef. If the Left thinks banning guns is hard, just try seeing what happens if they start trying to take away hamburgers, steaks, Hillshire Farm sausages, etc…
One word…. ribs. Or three… baby back ribs… as the lobsters raise a defiant claw.
FOOD FIGHT!
(You started it, Kyle. We’ll probably both be sent to Dean Wormer’s office. 😜)
.
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Seriously, our infallible, wise, omnipotent overlords have already determined that a bowl of gruel three…nah… two times a day is all that we need or deserve. If we can’t get by on that, then we probably weren’t much use to the glorious state anyway.
Beef? It’s
what’s for dinneronly a memory.The deal with these communistic idiots is that they never think about unintended consequences. The all-out ban on meat consumption would be devastating for wild populations of edible animals all over the country. People would just resort to eating fish, deer, wild hogs, and other available animals as a substitute until all of those native populations are wiped out.
The GND is an unprecedented grab for power and control in the U.S. which, in my opinion, is not at all dissimilar from the radical totalitarian ideologies of the past, including communism. It represents the Left’s increasing intolerance for economic freedom and their lack of control over the lives of individuals. One could almost argue that one of the only things missing from the GND is the suspension of human rights. So why did we even fight a Cold War against far-left ideology?
The GND is the product of an ideological mindset which appears to have largely rejected the progress this country has made in its history that has brought us to the current level of wealth, prosperity and quality of life we now enjoy. The climate alarmist narrative is merely the icing on the cake of environmentalist ideology — an attempt to pound the last nail in the coffin of that progress. Just keep turning the screw tighter and tighter until success is achieved.
With socialism blended into it as the replacement for the free market, the GND represents the merging of far leftist ideology with radical eco-ideology. It is already being referred to as eco-socialism. Govt acquires the power and control of Big Brother in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, and the warnings Orwell left behind are increasingly just faded, distant and forgotten memories among GND supporters.
But having said all of this, it is comforting to know that the GND’s chances of finding it’s way into law are very slim (from what I’ve read). I recall reading that the Senate (with its Republican majority) is going to vote on it sometime in the near future where it is highly likely to fail. GND supporters are already whining about the upcoming vote (it’s too soon!). We can only keep our fingers crossed that it does not resurface sometime in the future if and when the Democrats get complete control of Congress as well as the White House. God help us if it does.
…. and Vladimir Vladimirovich is laughing his head off standing at the front door of the lunatic asylum.
“Soylent Green is People!!!!!!”
It’s PC or Planned Cannibalism. In Stork They Trust.
This is about taking resources away from political opponents. People in the beef industry tend to be conservative. Same as the coal industry.
I am involved in research projects to measure fugitive emissions, including methane, from livestock farming operations, such as dairy farms. Actually cows produce more of their methane from burping, not farting.
When your Founding Fathers created the Electorial College , it was a attempt to prevent the najority voting in the towns and cities, who had largely forgotten where their food came from, to tell them the country folk what to do.
Here in ,South Australia its called a “Gerrymanda”and its recognised as not democratic, but in we had such a Gerrymander way back, and foe some 26 years this State boomed.
Then we had Democracy take over, and its been downhill ever since.
MJE
Pretty much, yes. What people tend to forget is that by the Constitution the individual states are supposed to have the most power, not the central Federal government. It’s actually the states that elect the president, not the population as a whole. In 2017 the Electoral College worked precisely as designed, keeping a few large cities, namely New York, LA, and Chicago, from overriding the rest of the country.
And that is a point that really pisses off those on the left!
The EC worked even better in 2016!
The Grey New Deal is a blight on humanity, community, and the environment.
Perhaps it’s a neural dysfunction.
That said, artificial B-12 supplements? No thanks. Nature’s rules. They’ll have to take my North Sea salmon out of my cold, dead hands. Perhaps a New York-style strip steak, medium-rare. Thanks!
Oh, and cheese. Goat cheese!
Leftists will try to alter people’s dietary preferences at their own risk.
One virtue signaller said: “… we need to stop the industrial overproduction of food ….” Then a vegan politician said: “… can’t sustain billions of people consuming industrial produced animal agriculture ….” These 2 should compare notes.
No, they are perfectly in sync with the ultimate goal of it all, reduce the human population to 200-300 million maximum. Every so often one of them lets it slip and we get a glimpse behind the curtain. Very scared of the Utopia the left is defining for the rest of us. Starting to remind me of Logan’s Run.
Why does this “New green deal” remind me of Mao’s “Great leap forward”, or Pol Pot’s “ Year zero”?
In the film “Snowpiercer”, y’know that film where “scientists” try to stop “global warming” by spraying the atmosphere with a chemical. The “lower classes” were fed a “jelly”, as the film progresses, made out of cockroaches.
And, of course, the train they are all on is powered by “perpetual motion”.
For the Green New Deal to have any chance of working, there is going to have be a great deal of ‘controlled and banned ‘ things, for the peoples good of course. This will involve government involvement at all levels of people’s lives, from transport to food and accommodation.
And of course to ensure the people understand the importance of ‘correct behaviour’ there will need to control of the media to ensure the ‘right message ‘ is heard .
And sadly there will of course have to be ‘punishment ‘ for those that fail to show ‘correct behaviour ‘ a small price to pay for ‘saving the planet ‘
If it all sounds very familiar that is because it is ‘familiar’ and it usual results in the building of walls not to keep people out but to keep them in .
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez certainly is very intelligent, has great personality and is credit to the United States diverse politics, at least for the time being anyway.
The fact that she is spectacularly wrong in most of her pronouncements, that is beyond of interest to most of her admirers, at least for time being.
I’m sure that on the other side has many just as intelligent people of charisma and agreeable personality, so get them out on the public pulpit. If you don’t the USA conservatives are going to have a big problem on their hands. Good luck to her and those who oppose her. Bring in popcorn.
“Livestock will be banned”
“Say goodbye to dairy, to beef, to family farms, to ranches.”
Here comes the sting, designed to inflict life long cullinary punishmen to their sworn enemy, the while male carnivourous conservative capitaist.
Trump should introduce a vegetable tax in response and claim it’s to make sure these idiots pay more for the wall.
The GND is also much MUCH more than energy and controlling what we eat.
Here’s a few more:
– “Profound” and “unprecedented” lifestyle changes on us earth killing middle class asses.
– Creating an interdependent world (so we don’t blow each other up and hence, rich people can continue to enjoy their vast wealth)
– Getting the middle class and poor to fund more government programs and overseas economic development programs. This then gets the rich off the hook of being taxed more for social programs and also benefits their bottom lines as they will move industries to these new nations/places that have new economic infrastructure completed (thanks to the middle class and poor in developed countries).
– Global rationing of the world’s resources on a per capita basis.
And there’s even more green goodies than this.
Let the Dems self destruct. While there are plenty of sanctimonious people out there willing to have the federal government pass dictatorial laws, most people can see crazy.
I am allergic to all grains. So their New Green Deal leaves little for me to eat
Since chicken is less expensive than beef most of the time, I have a bunch of chicken in the freezer, plus some beef and pork (ham, bacon). I have next to nothing in the way of junk food in my cupboards or fridge or freezer, so I don’t know what Ms. Babbling Brooks is talking about. I doubt that she has ever turned on a stove, cooked a full meal for anyone including herself, or had to prep anything more difficult than opening a box of cereal, if she even does that.
When was the last time that person went grocery shopping? Did her own laundry? Made her own bed? Based on the level of pure ignorance she has publicly displayed, including that NGD idiocy, my guess is that she is so out of touch with the real world, she has no basis for any of her rather grandiose gobbledygook statements, all of which are meaningless, but definitely offer an implied threat.
Oh, well, I still have two oil lamps that belonged to my great-great grandma out on the farm in the Niobrara cornfields. Maybe I should get Lehman’s catalog and buy a few more. I can get lamp oil at the hardware store, and my stove will light up with kitchen matches, so I can still cook.
I swear, both of my cats have 100 times her IQ level.
You know it’s bad when even Nance is concerned.
For Valentines day, my wife and I went for steak. I had a 12 oz NY Strip Loin. That is life!
Anything from the left is always about control. Why anyone would consider any other aim or final gaol in leftist political machinations is beyond me.
Wake up, people, the political left is humanity’s enemy and always will be.
“She’s gonna take away our meat, I’m voting for her.” said no majority ever.
Don’t kid yourselves – it’s not just food.
They’re also coming for your car, your house, your heat, your gun, your freedom of speech, your freedom to reproduce, and anything else that stokes their control-freak paranoia.
And all they had to do was stoke up enough progressive hatred, so that all they had to do was position it against ‘the other side’ – progressive knee-jerk bigotry at its purest.
Just for the record, … not only am I a former believer of human-caused global warming (as it used to be called), I also am a former vegetarian, who over the past ten years, re-introduced meat into my eating habits.
I have no regrets on either account. I am much wiser now.
CO2 is not evil.
Meat is not evil.
Eat some meat, and enjoy the heat (all fraction of a degree of it).