Another in my continuing series on applying the “commandments” from my most recent book, Painting by Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts…
“Americans ate 19% less beef from ’05 to ’14,” according to a recent headline. The article goes on to focus on the carbon footprint reduction associated with eating less beef and avoiding the methane emissions from the back ends of cattle and all the carbon-intensive stuff that has to happen to get that steak to your dinner table. The original study (hot linked in the article) the article is based on comes from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). It wasn’t just beef eating that fell during this period; chicken and pork were affected as well.
The article makes a valiant case for how Americans are “gradually changing their diets, driven by health concerns and other factors.” The original NRDC study’s aim is to show that the answer to the question, “Where’s the beef?,” is a victory in the war on climate change. It may indeed have something to do with that.
But the larger explanation for this quantitative result probably has as much to do with general economic forces. 2007 marked the beginning of the “great depression” and the economy has been on an anemic (relative) growth cycle since we came out of it. The beef ranch-to-table production and delivery cycle is not only carbon intensive, it’s expensive. Beef, for most people, is one of the most expensive foods they buy, and it would be natural to cut back on its consumption during bad economic times.
The article is a little more fair about all this than the original study. The author cites a survey in which 37% of Americans say price is the number one reason why they ate less beef. That’s somewhat out of step with the conclusion NRDC is trying to draw. The study avoids mention of ANY economic factors. It would have been more credible if there was even an attempt to “iron out” the affect of general economic conditions. Consumer economic activity generally has been substantially cut back since 2007.
Of course, the study also doesn’t explicitly CLAIM a correlation between consumer’s desire to impact carbon footprint by eating less beef, but you can bet it wishes to suggest one, it we invoke Commandment six in Painting By Numbers, “Understand the Business Model.” NRDC is an environmental policy organization (and an effective one at that).
What’s critical here is the aura around that 19% number (and I’m not even going to start in on the methodology to calculate it). In the study, it was all about an associated (not correlated) improvement in carbon footprint. In the article, it was about all the reasons except economic forces why Americans are reducing beef consumption (price being more of a footnote). In two iterations, there’s a great deal of political, cultural, and social “stuff” hanging off of that number. Imagine how laden it might be once it’s being discussed around the dinner table!
https://www.nytimes.com/…/…/beef-consumption-emissions.html…
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
