(This essay originally appeared in It’s Freezing in LA in October 2021.)
Imagine it’s 2009 again – can you remember, a life before social distancing and masks? – and the American Clean Energy and Security Act, aka Waxman-Markey, is bouncing around Congress, aiming to create a cap-and-trade system to control national carbon emissions. Now, imagine a conglomerate of corporations lobbying to stop it in its tracks. They succeed, and the bill dies in the House.
Are you picturing a room filled with oil industry reps from the likes of Exxon and BP? If so, you’d be right – but only partially.
Among these age-old climate nemeses were a less expected group: American meat giants. An NYU study this spring sets out the extent of Big Meat climate denialist campaigns clearly: it’s an effort that ranges from attempts to thwart climate change legislation to concealment of their own massive contribution to the crisis.
Trade groups, like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Council, have spent a cool $200 million on lobbying against environmental measures
First there are the trade groups, like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Council, which over the past 20 years have spent a cool $200 million on lobbying against environmental measures, including mandated emission reporting by farms. They’re joined by top meat producers – like Tyson Foods, contributed $25 million to the lobbying effort, a larger share of its revenue than even Exxon spends on similar campaigns. (A new investigation from Feed the Truth gave Tyson a mere 3 on a 100-point scale measuring transparency in political giving; Tyson generally shares no details on its political and lobbying expenditures.) Clearly, Big Meat has a lot at stake.
Despite the best efforts of these lobbyists, it’s no secret today that factory farms spew out greenhouse gases by the millions of tons. If cows were their own nation, they’d be the world’s third-largest emitter. Nearly 15 percent of emissions are created by animal agriculture, giving the industry a seat next to the transportation sector. A Gallup poll last year reported that nearly a quarter of Americans cutting back on meat, of whom 70% were motivated by environmental concerns.
Just four of the world’s 35 largest meat and dairy companies have made net-zero commitments
But the millions of people subbing beans for beef are only one piece of the puzzle. Where we’ve collectively faltered, and Tyson et al. has prevailed, is in accountability on a bigger scale. The NYU study determined that just four of the world’s 35 largest meat and dairy companies have made net-zero commitments by 2050. These plans typically focus just on energy use, proudly detailing plans for efficient lightbulbs and cooling systems, bypassing the companies’ single greatest source of emissions: the raising of animals for food.
Some producers go on to greenwash even these activities: Dairy Farms of America recently congratulated themselves with a press release that they’re ‘[m]itigating methane emissions from cows by supporting advances in feed efficiency’. Poultry giant Mountaire Farms has concocted a holistic-looking ‘One Health Certified’ logo proclaiming environmental stewardship but requiring no actual reduction in emissions or pollutants. Ultimately, these greenwashing tactics fail to address the massive elephant in the room: we’re eating too many animals.
Meat has become so cemented as the Western dietary default that its ubiquity is uncontested – even among some leading climate groups
So far, the industry has been successful in evading fault for that fact. It has cozied up to predominantly right-wing legislators through massive donations and in return has scored seats at many tables – from influencing state legislatures to pass ag-gag bills that stifle whistleblowing, to joining a presidential advisory committee on the pandemic (meat plants were being declared ‘essential’ to keep profits flowing). It is through this, mostly invisible, infrastructure that meat has become so cemented as the Western dietary default that its ubiquity is uncontested – even among some leading climate groups.
Ahead of Earth Day this year, my organization, Better Food Foundation, set out to determine how much the climate movement is confronting or perpetuating this problem. Our research found that environmental organizations, often looked to by the public as models of sustainable behaviour, are increasingly divesting from industrial animal agriculture by committing to plant-forward internal food policies – including four of America’s top 10 environmental NGOs. It’s becoming harder and harder to be both a regular at the McDonald’s drive-thru or the local steakhouse and a card-carrying environmentalist.
Yet, six years after Cowspiracy sent shockwaves through the environmental movement, a handful of environmental leaders still remain silent. We received no response from groups like the National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which maintains a partnership with Tyson Foods. Similar to most Big Meat sustainability plans, the partnership only addresses the company’s corn production and ignores the massive environmental toll of its intensive chicken production. Meanwhile, the National Audubon Society runs a conservation ranching certification that, although addressing some unsustainable farming practices, ultimately encourages beef consumption and ignores the need for reduction completely.
It is particularly disconcerting when world food leaders collude with large corporations that control three-fourths of the world’s food resources
Of course, NGOs can’t change this landscape alone. Writes Stephanie Feldstein of the Center for Biological Diversity in Yes! Magazine, ‘Our food system is driven by inequitable subsidies that favour animal agriculture, food deserts in low-income neighbourhoods, and other policies that limit access to healthy, sustainable food. The meat and dairy industries receive millions of dollars in bailout money, while we don’t grow enough fruits and vegetables to meet federal dietary recommendations.’ So it is particularly disconcerting when world food leaders, like those at the UN’s Food Systems Summit this summer, collude with large corporations that control three-fourths of the world’s food resources but can only feed one-third of the world’s population, according to organizers of a global boycott of the event.
Too many food and climate leaders seem more interested in marketing meat companies, or greenwashing minor tweaks to their destructive activities, than holding them accountable for their role in our current crisis. This props up the industry’s anti-climate lobbying and rampant greenwashing. And while their peers are rapidly ushering in a more resilient and sustainable plant-based default, they, like the climate deniers before them, will be left behind.
Join the work of the Better Food Foundation to encourage EDF and other environmental leaders to bring about a plant-forward climate movement: sign up as a DefaultVeg ambassador.