How big meat lies

lies and disinformation about plant-based meat

From DeSmog

This article by Sentient is published here as part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.


The meat industry and its proponents worked hard in 2024 — not only to increase sales, but also to rebrand and remain relevant. While overwhelming climate science continues to point out the harmful impacts of animal agriculture, and plant-based competitors continue to challenge the status quo, meat promoters stepped up this year, crafting and perpetuating clever narratives to keep consumers hooked.

“Amidst a climate crisis driven in no small part by agriculture, there is a growing interest in healthy, sustainable food,” Jennifer Molidor, senior food campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity, tells Sentient. “The industry has responded by flooding climate conferences with lobbyists promoting meat and dairy — in full force.”

And that’s not all. From promoting “beneficial” regenerative meat, to criticizing “ultra processed” plants, to promoting cow fat for skin care, to manipulating data, Big Meat sidestepped accountability to keep consumers coming back in 2024. 

Disinformation Trend #1: Meat Is ‘Natural’

One of the more popular PR messages regarding meat in 2024 was that animal products are healthier and more “natural” compared to “ultra processed” plant-based meat alternatives.

This messaging is not new. It’s years in the making, with full-page ads in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal back in 2021, and a $5 million Super Bowl commercial in 2020. Backed by the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), the ads vilified newly popular “fake meats” as full of “real chemicals,” highlighting “scary” ingredients like methylcellulose — a generally harmless compound used in many foods.

CCF is led by former tobacco lobbyist Richard Berman, and is supported by “restaurants, food companies and thousands of individual consumers,” according to its website. Forbes once described it as a front group for meat, tobacco and alcohol companies.

The narrative of “natural” meat versus “processed” plants persisted into 2024. The marketing tactic conveniently ignores the fact that 99 percent of animals raised for food in the U.S. are factory farmed in inherently unnatural conditions, and undergo much processing to become meat, dairy and eggs.

But this natural meat fantasy didn’t stop at food in 2024, spreading into lifestyle content, and feeding into a growing anti-technology, off-the-grid (though often still on YouTube), homesteading, carnivore and tradwife trend. Raw milk surged in popularity in 2024, as did eating raw meat, and using cow fat for skin care.

The FDA, CDC and New York State Department of Health put out statements this year warning of the health risks of consuming raw milk, and experts have taken to the media to warn of the risks associated with the carnivore diet, and with eating uncooked meat. Dermatology experts also told Sentient that the benefits of beef fat for the skin are minimal.

Though plant-based meat alternatives vary greatly when it comes to nutritional profiles, they are generally considered healthy. In fact, a 2024 review published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology found that risk factors for heart disease, such as LDL cholesterol and body weight, showed improvement when animal-based meats were substituted with plant-based meat alternatives. 

Disinformation Trend #2: Meat Is ‘Eco-Friendly’

Another pervasive meat message in 2024 was that beef — the highest-emitting meat — can somehow be good for the environment so long as raised on a farm that is regenerative, eco-friendly, carbon neutral or some other variation of such terms.

Regenerative agriculture, particularly holistic grazing, promises an alternative to our current food system that incorporates livestock in a way that can regenerate depleted soils. Such promises, however, fall short when it comes to actually curbing climate pollution.

Though regenerative agriculture aims to “bring back bovines,” as described in the 2023 documentary Common Ground, this grouping of grass-fed cattle with wild ruminants like bison is not accurate — at least as far as the environment is concerned. “That’s like comparing apples to oranges,” Molidor told Sentient earlier this year. While there is some debate about this, bison tend to graze over further distances in ways that cause less damage to plants and waterways. Cattle, on the other hand, tend to stick close together and eat just one type of plant until it’s gone.

The regenerative movement — which does offer some benefits for soil health — has also since been co-opted by the industrialized meat industry. A 2024 study by New Climate Institute found that 24 of the world’s top 30 food and beverage producers, including Cargill, Danone and Fonterra, refer to regenerative agriculture in their sustainability communication.

That said, 2024 also saw a possible win in the fight against misleading claims about climate-friendly meat, with Tyson Food’s Brazen Beef brand potentially no longer available for sale. After the U.S. Department of Agriculture rolled out a new “climate-friendly” beef label last year, Tyson soon rolled out its own version: Brazen Beef. Journalists and academics were quick to note serious issues with the claims on the product’s label, particularly the claim (with no data in support) of a 10 percent reduction in emissions.

“In order to claim a 10 percent reduction, you need to establish scientifically a baseline that everyone agrees is the common amount that beef produces,” New York University environmental scientist Matthew Hayek told Corporate Knights Magazine. “There doesn’t seem to be any data that the company itself, or the government who it created that certification in conjunction with, is able to provide.”

Tyson was subsequently sued in 2024 by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) for misleading consumers about its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The suit asked the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to ban Tyson from making “false or misleading marketing claims.” It remains before the court.

At the time this story was published, the webpage for Brazen Meats was not functioning, and the product appeared unavailable for sale, raising questions about the future of the brand. Sentient contacted Tyson about the status of the Brazen line, but did not receive a response by email. We also called Tyson’s consumer relations hotline, and were told by the representative, “I don’t see anything active with that name.” It also appears that a New Jersey meat packer that sold Brazen Beef no longer lists the product on its website.

Caroline Leary, chief operating officer and general counsel for EWG tells Sentient that despite the Brazen Meats webpage being down, the group “remains committed to holding Tyson accountable, by demanding transparency to ensure that consumers are not deceived by false promises of sustainability,” which still exist elsewhere on its site. 

Disinformation Trend #3: Meat Feeds the World

Inflation and food insecurity were also pressing issues in 2024. Meat, dairy and egg industries were there to capitalize, particularly at climate conferences held throughout the year.

At COP28 last spring for example, the Guardian reports that meat lobbyists “celebrated the cut-through of their message that industrial animal agriculture has an important role to play in addressing global hunger.” It adds that U.S. Pork Board representative Jamie Burr also stated that COPs provide an opportunity for U.S. agriculture groups to show how they “feed the world.”

At COP29 last month, the strategy was the same, according to a report by DeSmog. Documents produced by the industry-funded Global Meat Alliance, obtained by DeSmog, encouraged members “to stick to key comms messages, including the idea that meat is beneficial to the environment and will help to ‘feed the world.’”

A spokesperson for the Global Alliance for the Future of Food told the Guardian in April that the idea that industrial agriculture is “critical to address hunger” is one of the greatest myths used by the industry to fend off criticism. Animal agriculture in fact contributes to world hunger, due to the inefficient use of arable land and resources to grow crops for animals, instead of people. Not only that, but the industry’s framing around food insecurity ignores how many climate researchers limit “eat less meat” recommendations to global north populations like the U.S., who consume far more than the global average. Studies suggest that food insecurity could actually be addressed, in-part, by transitioning to a more plant-based food system. Reducing the massive amount of land needed to grow food to feed livestock could lead to more crops being fed directly to people. One study theorizes that if everyone in the U.S. went vegan, an additional 350 million people could be fed. 

Disinformation Trend #4: Trustworthy Academic Research Supports Meat

The year 2024 also saw the meat sector lean even further into academia as a means to appear credible and sustainable.

As environmental scientist Jonathan Foley writes for Project Drawdown: “The livestock industry has spent enormous sums telling us fictitious stories of ‘environmentally-friendly’ beef,” including, he notes, “documentaries, think tanks, university labs, and social media influencer campaigns touting so-called ‘solutions’ to beef’s environmental footprint.”

In 2023, the Guardian exposed The Master of Beef Advocacy, or “MBA” program, created by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, to help meat promoters influence and educate the public on the “sustainability” of beef. That same year, the National Pork Board funded a nearly $8.5 million program with researchers from a variety of U.S. universities, to research and improve the industry’s reputation by boosting public “trust” in pork factory farms. And the year prior, The New York Times exposed how the UC Davis Clear Center did not disclose just how much industry funding it received to promote the environmental friendliness of meat and dairy, under the guise of public sector science.

In 2024, the meat industry took this method of information manipulation a step further, targeting another major competitor: cultivated meat. Once again backed by Richard Berman, another “think tank” was created, the ironically named Center for the Environment and Welfare, this time under the guise of helping “consumers, companies, and stakeholders navigate issues related to sustainability and animal welfare.” In 2024, the group conducted “research” and published media op-eds to thwart the progress of cultivated meat.

The Bottom Line

In 2024, the meat industry’s aggressive rebranding efforts, fueled by clever messaging and industry-backed research, sought to counteract competition from more sustainable plant-based alternatives.

As the inevitable impacts of climate change — along with other issues like bird flu — usher us into 2025, “it’s going to be increasingly difficult,” Molidor says, “for the meat and dairy lobby to rebrand their way out of these serious environmental and human harms.”

I became a vegetarian because I thought eating meat and fish was cruel, not for health or climate change reasons.  I thought it might be bad for my health.  In fact, it was the opposite.  I lost 15 kilos, my blood pressure is normal, my cholesterol is low, my blood sugar is normal, etc, etc.  

 

800 million Amazon trees felled for beef

Burning forest in Lábrea, Amazonas state in August 2020. Photograph: Christian Braga/Greenpeace

From The Guardian

More than 800m trees have been cut down in the Amazon rainforest in just six years to feed the world’s appetite for Brazilian beef, according to a new investigation, despite dire warnings about the forest’s importance in fighting the climate crisis.

A data-driven investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), the Guardian, Repórter Brasil and Forbidden Stories shows systematic and vast forest loss linked to cattle farming.

The beef industry in Brazil has consistently pledged to avoid farms linked to deforestation. However, the data suggests that 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) of the Amazon was destroyed near meat plants exporting beef around the world.

The investigation is part of Forbidden Stories’ Bruno and Dom project. It continues the work of Bruno Pereira, an Indigenous peoples expert, and Dom Phillips, a journalist who was a longtime contributor to the Guardian​​. The two men were killed in the Amazon last year.

Deforestation across Brazil soared between 2019 and 2022 under the then president, Jair Bolsonaro, with cattle ranching being the number one cause. The new administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has promised to curb the destruction.

Researchers at the AidEnvironment consultancy used satellite imagery, livestock movement records and other data to calculate estimated forest loss over six years, between 2017 and 2022 on thousands of ranches near more than 20 slaughterhouses. All the meat plants were owned by Brazil’s big three beef operators and exporters – JBS, Marfrig and Minerv​a.

To find the farms that were most likely to have supplied each slaughterhouse, the researchers looked at “buying zones”; areas based on transport connections and other factors, including verification using interviews with plant representatives. All the meat plants exported widely, including to the EU, the UK and China, the world’s biggest buyer of Brazilian beef.

The research focused on slaughterhouses in the states of Mato Grosso, Pará and Rondônia, important frontiers of deforestation associated with ranching. It is likely the overall figure for deforestation on farms supplying JBS, Marfrig and Minerva is higher, because they run other plants elsewhere in the Amazon.

All three companies say they operate strict compliance procedures, in an open and honest manner, to ensure they are meeting their sustainable goals.

Nestlé and the German meat company Tönnies, which had supplied Lidl and Aldi, were among those to have apparently bought meat from the plants featured in the study. Dozens of wholesale buyers in various EU countries, some of which supply the catering businesses that serve schools and hospitals, also appeared in the list of buyers.

Nestlé said two of the meatpackers were not currently part of its supply chain, and added: “We may scrutinise business relationships with our suppliers who are unwilling or unable to address gaps in compliance with our standards.”

Tönnies said: “These Brazilian companies process many thousands of animals per year for export,” and claimed it was unclear whether the company was the recipient of products from plants linked to deforestation. Lidl and Aldi said they stopped selling Brazilian beef in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

[The article is long; you can read much more here.]

I beg you:  stop eating beef.  It is one of the biggest things you can do to slash your carbon emissions.  That's before we get to the cruelty and suffering involved in the cattle trade.  When the Amazon forest goes, it will be an irreversible tipping point.  And the whole world will pay.

Emissions: beef is like coal

 From The Economist

The impact of food on greenhouse-gas (ghg) emissions can slip under the radar. In a survey in Britain last year, the share of respondents saying that “producing plants and meat on farms” was a “significant contributor” to climate change was the lowest among ten listed activities. Yet two papers published this year in Nature Food find that food, especially beef, creates more ghgs than previously thought. Forgoing steaks may be one of the most efficient ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

In 2019 the un’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that the global food system was responsible for 21-37% of ghg emissions. This March researchers from the European Commission and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Office released a study with a central estimate near the top of this range. It attributed 34% of ghgs produced in 2015 to food.

This elevated share stems in part from accounting choices. The paper assigns the full impact of deforestation to the agriculture that results from it; includes emissions after food is sold (such as from waste and cooking); and counts non-food crops like cotton. But even when the authors excluded embedded emissions from sources like transport and packaging, they still found that agriculture generated 24% of ghgs. According to the World Resources Institute, a research group, cars, trains, ships and planes produce a total of 16%.

Another recent paper, by Xiaoming Xu of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and eight co-authors, allocates this impact among 171 crops and 16 animal products. It finds that animal-based foods account for 57% of agricultural ghgs, versus 29% for food from plants. Beef and cow’s milk alone made up 34%. Combined with the earlier study’s results, this implies that cattle produce 12% of ghg emissions.

Relative to other food sources, beef is uniquely carbon-intensive. Because cattle emit methane and need large pastures that are often created via deforestation, they produce seven times as many ghgs per calorie of meat as pigs do, and around 40% more than farmed prawns do. This makes beef a bigger outlier among foods than coal is among sources of electricity: burning coal generates just 14% more ghgs than burning oil, another common fuel.

These figures may understate the environmental benefits of shrinking the cattle population. Methane dissipates relatively fast, meaning that past bovine emissions soon stop warming the planet if those animals are not replaced. Such a change could also raise output of plant-based foods, by making land now used to grow animal feed available for other crops. It takes 33 plant calories to produce one calorie of beef.

The simplest way to cut beef output is for people to eat other animals instead, or become vegetarians. But convincing carnivores to give up their burgers is a tall order. Fortunately, lab-grown meats are moving from Petri dishes to high-end restaurants (see Technology Quarterly). Doing without beef from live cattle is hard to imagine, but the same was true of coal 100 years ago. Cultured meat could play an essential role in staving off a climate catastrophe.

There are 4 things you can do to slash your personal emissions:

1.  Become vegetarian
2.  Buy your electricity from a green electricity retailer.  (Make sure they're not fake green, using offsets to 'sanitise' their generation from fossil fuel sources.)
3. If you can, put solar panels on your roof
4. Switch your car to a plug-in hybrid, or if you can afford it, a full-electric.

Drivers of deforestation

From Our World in Data

Every year the world loses around 5 million hectares of forest. 95% of this occurs in the tropics. At least three-quarters of this is driven by agriculture – clearing forests to grow crops, raise livestock and produce products such as paper.1

If we want to tackle deforestation we need to understand two key questions: where we’re losing forests, and what activities are driving it. This allows us to target our efforts towards specific industries, products, or countries where they will have the greatest impact.

In a study published in Global Environmental Change, Florence Pendrill and colleagues addressed both of these questions.2 They quantified how much and where deforestation occurs from the expansion of croplands, pasture and tree plantations (for logging), and what products are grown on this converted land. They also combined this with global trade flows to assess how much of this deforestation was driven by international trade – we look at the role of trade specifically in a related article.

Here we’ll look at both where tropical deforestation is happening and what products are driving it.

Brazil and Indonesia account for almost half of tropical deforestation

The study by Pendrill et al. (2019) found that, between 2005 and 2013, the tropics lost an average of 5.5 million hectares of forest per year to agricultural land. That was a decade ago, but the world is still losing a similar amount today: using satellite data, researchers at Global Forest Watch estimate that global deforestation in 2019 was around 5.4 million hectares.3 95% of this was in the tropics. But where in the tropics did we lose this forest?

In the chart we see the share of tropical deforestation by country and region. It’s measured as the annual average between 2010 and 2014.

One-third of tropical deforestation happened in Brazil. That was 1.7 million hectares each year. The other single country where large forest areas are lost is Indonesia – it accounted for 14%. This means around half (47%) of tropical deforestation took place in Brazil and Indonesia. Again, if we look at more recent satellite data we find that this is still true today: in 2019, the world lost 5.4 million hectares to deforestation, with Brazil and Indonesia accounting for 52% of it.4 As we will see later, the expansion of pasture for beef production, croplands for soy and palm oil, and increasingly conversion of primary forest to tree plantations for paper and pulp have been the key drivers of this.

The expansion of pasture lands have also had a major impact on land use in the rest of the Americas – outside of Brazil, Latin America accounted for around one-fifth of deforestation.

The expansion of agricultural land in Africa accounted for around 17.5% of deforestation. This may slightly underestimate the loss of forests in Africa, for two reasons. Much of Africa’s deforestation has been driven by subsistence agricultural activities, which are not always fully captured in national statistics. Secondly, depending on the permanence of agricultural activities such as slash-and-burn farming, some of this forest loss might be classified as temporary forest degradation rather than permanent deforestation.

Beef, soy and palm oil are responsible for 60% of tropical deforestation

If we want to tackle deforestation we also need to know what causes it. That allows us to avoid the foods that drive deforestation or innovate the ways we produce them.

In the chart here we see the breakdown of tropical deforestation by the types of agricultural production.

Beef stands out immediately. The expansion of pasture land to raise cattle was responsible for 41% of tropical deforestation. That’s 2.1 million hectares every year – about half the size of the Netherlands. Most of this converted land came from Brazil; its expansion of beef production accounts for one-quarter (24%) of tropical deforestation. This also means that most (72%) deforestation in Brazil is driven by cattle ranching.5 Cattle in other parts of Latin America – such as Argentina and Paraguay – also accounted for a large amount of deforestation – 11% of the total. Most deforestation for beef therefore occurs in Latin America, with another 4% happening in Africa.

Palm oil and soy often claim the headlines for their environmental impact. They are categorised as ‘oilseeds’, which also include a range of smaller commodities such as sunflower, rapeseed, and sesame. They drove 18% of deforestation. Here we see that Indonesian palm oil was the biggest component of this. In neighbouring Malaysia the expansion of oil seeds was also a major driver of forest loss. Soybeans are the most common oilseed in Latin America. While many people immediately think of food products such as tofu or soy milk, most of global soybean production is used as feed for livestock, or biofuels. Just 6% is used for direct human food. The impact of soy production is one we look at in more detail in a related article.

Combined, beef and oilseeds account for nearly 60% of deforestation.

If we add the third largest driver – forestry products, which is dominated by paper but also includes timber – then we cover almost three-quarters. Across Europe and North America, forestry products mainly come from managed plantation forests that have been established for a long period of time, or are grown on previously unforested land. This is different from most tropical countries where forestry products also come from the logging of primary rainforests or their replacement with plantations. This destroys primary rainforests and, as shown in the chart, has been an important driver of deforestation in Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia.

We can tackle a lot of deforestation by focusing on a few key supply chains

If almost three-quarters of tropical deforestation is driven by the production of a few key products – beef, soybeans, palm oil, and paper – then we can achieve a lot by focusing our efforts on these supply chains.

There are some signs that progress is possible. Soybean production in Brazil was once also an important driver of deforestation in the Amazon region.6 In 2006, under pressure from retailers and NGOs, the world’s major soybean traders signed Brazil’s Soy Moratorium (SoyM) – the world’s first voluntary zero-deforestation agreement. Traders agreed that they would not purchase soy that was grown on deforested lands in the Brazilian Amazon after July 2006. Overall, it was a success: in the two years before the agreement, 30% of soybean expansion in the region came at the expense of forest; afterwards, deforestation declined dramatically and by 2014 only 1% of expansion was turning forests into land for oilseed production.7,8

But, as we show in our article on the impact of soy, there are also lessons to learn about how to implement these commitments more effectively. There is evidence that while the moratorium reduced deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon, some of this deforestation may have ‘leaked’ to neighbouring regions. Soybean production has shifted from the Amazon to the Cerrado region south of the Amazonas, often at the expense of forests there.9 This suggests that zero-deforestation agreements can be effective but must be considered in the wider context of how they shape forest and agricultural changes elsewhere. To combat this, researchers have suggested the SoyM be expanded to not only include the Amazon but also regions such as the Cerrado.10

If we can take similar action in the other industries – beef, palm oil and paper – then there is the potential to cut out a large share of deforestation today.

Looking to the future, a shift in focus towards Sub-Saharan Africa looks likely. The demands for increased agricultural production in Africa are going to be large, and could come at the cost of forests.11 Solutions there will have to focus on major improvements in crop yields so African farmers can produce more food without increasing the amount of land they need to do so.

Alternative ways of making high-quality protein could also be transformative. Beef is the leading driver of deforestation, and the demand for meat across the world will continue to grow in the coming decades. Technological innovations in meat substitute and cultured meat products would allow people to continue eating meat-like products without the destruction of tropical forests that come with it.

One of the biggest steps you personally can take to reduce emissions and avert climate catastrophe is to stop eating beef and drinking milk.  

The environmental impact of different foods

 From Visual Capitalist

Click on graphic to see it more clearly

Food and agriculture have a significant impact on our planet, particularly in terms of carbon emissions, water withdrawals, and land use.

To visualize how different food items contribute to this environmental impact, the above graphic ranks foods based on their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and water withdrawals, using data from Poore and Nemecek and Our World in Data.

Based on carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) measurements, beef comes in first place as the food with the largest carbon footprint, emitting an astounding 99 kilograms of CO₂e per kilogram of the final meat product.

CO₂e emissions are a standardized measure that express the warming impact of various greenhouse gases—such as methane and nitrous oxide—in terms of the amount of CO₂ that would have the same warming effect.

The production of beef is extremely resource-intensive, demanding substantial land, water, and energy resources. Cows also produce methane during their digestive processes, a gas that has a warming potential 27–30 times higher than that of CO₂ over a 100-year time period [and 82 times higher over a 10-year period].  (See data table in the article)

Following beef on the list is dark chocolate, albeit not very closely.

Most of dark chocolate’s emissions come from land use changes—such as deforestation— which alters the balance of GHG emissions and reduces the Earth’s capacity to absorb CO₂.

All in all, however, the data shows us that animal products are generally more emission-intensive than plant-based foods.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that more than two-thirds of the world’s freshwater withdrawals are used for food production.

Interestingly, the trend that we saw when considering the carbon footprints of foods also applies when it comes to water use. Among the top 10 most water-intensive foods in the world, 70% are of animal origin, highlighting that animal products aren’t only more carbon-intensive but also more water-intensive than plant products.Peanuts, rice, and nuts (which include hard-shelled fruits such as hazelnuts, chestnuts, and walnuts) make up the plant-based outliers in the list.  (See data table in the article from Visual Capitalist)

Eating locally sourced foods is often posed as a solution for lowering our ecological impact, leading to the growing popularity of concepts such as “The 100 Mile Diet.”

An analysis done by Our World in Data, however, shows us that what we eat makes more of a difference in lowering our environmental footprints than where our food comes from.

More specifically, the data highlights that transportation accounts for just 5% of global food emissions. Land use change and farming activities, on the other hand, account for a much more significant portion.

As such, redirecting our attention from the distance food travels to the emissions associated with its production can yield better outcomes in our efforts to make more sustainable food choices.

26% of global emissions come from food, skewed heavily towards beef, dairy and mutton.  By comparison, ~30% come from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity, and ~20% from land transport.   The biggest single step you can take to reduce your emissions is to stop eating beef and mutton, and to minimise your consumption of cheese and milk.  Become vegetarian---it's better for your health, and for the planet's too!     If you can, buy your electricity from a green electricity provider (and not one that uses dodgy "offsets" to "reduce" its emissions) and, if you can't afford an EV, buy a hybrid.  They only cost a couple of thousand dollars more than the petrol-only version, but will reduce your emissions from driving by ~40%.

2 million hectares of Queensland forest destroyed

 From The Guardian

More than 2m hectares (4.94m acres) of bushland in Queensland that included large swathes of possible koala habitat has been cleared over a five-year period, new analysis shows.

The research, commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by the University of Queensland academic Martin Taylor, found almost all land clearing that occurred in the state between 2016 and 2021 was in areas where threatened species habitat was “likely to occur”.

Almost two-thirds of the cleared area, or 1.3m hectares, was marked by the Queensland government as “category x”, meaning it was exempt from state vegetation laws that regulate land clearing. Some 500,000 hectares of that land was koala habitat, the report said.

Taylor, an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland and former WWF-Australia conservation scientist, conducted the analysis by comparing state government land clearing data to federally mapped areas of environmental significance.

The majority of recorded land clearing occurred in regrowth forest that was more than 15 years old, which Taylor said made it capable of providing rich habitat for native animals.

“Industry voices like to say this is just controlling knee-high regrowth, so it’s just vegetation management,” he said. “[But] a 15-year-old eucalypt forest can be at least 10 to 15 metres high – they are forests.”

Taylor said that while laws in Queensland allow for regrowth forests to be reclassified as remnant once they mature, the requirements to do so are unclear.

“A lot of regrowth 15 years and older could have already become what they define as remnant, making it more difficult to clear,” he said.

Gemma Plesman, a senior campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said the report documented deforestation on a “frightening” scale. She said the state’s annual statewide land cover and tree study (Slats) shows land clearing was driven by beef production.

According to the beef industry, more than 10m cattle graze on Queensland pastures, making it the biggest beef producing state in the country.

“Fast food chains and retailers should be aware that the beef they are selling could come from properties that have bulldozed koala habitat with no government oversight,” Plesman said.

Plesman said environmental law reforms being developed by the federal government needed to address concerns around deforestation in Queensland to be effective.

“This shocking data should be a wake-up call,” she said. “They must address what has made Australia a global hotspot for deforestation.”

The Wilderness Society Queensland campaign manager, Hannah Schuch, said deforestation in Queensland was driving biodiversity loss.

“It’s having an impact on iconic native species like the koala, the greater glider, the red goshawk, it’s tearing down their homes and pushing them towards extinction,” she said.

“We know that erosion and sediment runoff from deforestation is another threat to the already at-risk Great Barrier Reef,” she said.

A spokesperson for the federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the government was in the consultation process to develop new national environment laws. However, three organisations familiar with the draft laws say they would continue to allow widespread deforestation.

Michael Guerin, the chief executive of Queensland farming body AgForce, questioned the accuracy of the Slats data which was used in Taylor’s analysis. He said deforestation rates were overstated. [Of course he did]

He suggested there should be an on-the-ground survey to confirm deforestation rates. [which is much more expensive and not necessarily more accurate. In fact aerial surveys often miss small areas of clearing, meaning the real total could be higher.]

“Let’s come out and ground truth it,” Guerin said. “Let’s get out on the landscape and spend the money and time so we’re confident about what’s happening. The industry and community is up for that.” [yeah, right]

Australia's "decline" in emissions is solely due to LULUCF (Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry)    There have already been questions and accusations that the data are dodgy.  One claim is that partially cleared land is not picked up by the satellites; only fully cleared land is.  This latest analysis simply adds to the evidence.  

Oh, and I beg you: stop eating beef.  

Going vegan would cut farmland by 75%

 From The Economist

“Veganuary” might be considered an attempt to cut out the middle creatures. Many vegans—even those who dabble only during the first month of the year—restrict their diet to reduce animal suffering. But many also do so for environmental reasons. Eliminating meat, fish, dairy and eggs would reduce emissions. Enjoying a prime steak or vintage cheese, for example, means feeding the animals that produce meat and dairy with plants, rather than consuming those plants directly. Beef farming produces 31 times more CO₂ emissions per calorie than tofu production does and generates only 5% of the calories that go into producing it.

That inefficiency means humans need to grow more plants than they would in a vegan world. For all the spread of veganism and the growing popularity of partial alternatives, such as veganuary, meat-eating is increasing globally. Its geography and composition is changing too. China’s appetite for its favourite meat, pork, appears to have peaked; beef is becoming more popular. India, which eats very little beef, is drinking more milk. Africa, with its fast-growing population, will demand more meat in future. Already, of all habitable land, half is used for agriculture, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation. Of all food production around 80% is dedicated to pasture or crops for animal feed, according to Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek, the authors of an extensive study of global food systems.

The research comes with considerable uncertainty. Although it compiles data from 38,700 farms and 570 studies, mapping the environmental impact of food production is difficult and imprecise. Roughly half of the data are from before 2010, for instance. But the study gives a sense of what land use could look like, if diets changed radically.

If everyone were vegan, agriculture would need just a quarter of the land it uses today. Even a diet avoiding only meat from cattle and sheep would cut land use in half. What might that surplus space be used for? Quadrupling food production is not a viable option. Some current pastureland, for example in the Scottish highlands, could not be converted to high-yield cropland. But in most places where agriculture is currently expanding, such as the Brazilian Amazon, a shift from animal to plant production would mean more food per acre. Surplus farmland could be used for other purposes, such as forestry, or restored to rainforest.

 

See also:


Emissions: beef is like coal


Lab-grown food will save the planet

The magic of trees


Imitation & vat meats the norm by 2040


Agriculture's carbon footprint

Agriculture's carbon footprint

In Oz, a right-wing government has just been re-elected with an increased majority.  It proposes to subsidise new coal power stations, because it knows (though it denies it) that renewables are one third the cost of coal, and so coal power stations would otherwise never be built.  In the US, you guys have had a rabid-right government for nearly three years, which like our bizarrely named "Liberal" Party, also believes in pushing the fossil fuel waggon.

Markets have moved in favour of renewables, and will go on doing so.  But expecting politicians to do something is a waste of time—they are too timid, too many are in the pay of fossil fuel companies, and too many are locked into the dotty right-wing belief system which equates environmental action with socialism.

So it's up to us.   We can buy electricity from a green supplier.  In a couple of years, we will be able to afford to buy an electric car.  In the US, the 5-year cost of a Tesla Model 3 is already better than for a Honda Accord, if you include lower fuel costs and maintenance.  It won't be long before EVs sweep away petrol/diesel vehicles, because they're better as well as cheaper.  Fine, so far.  But agriculture is responsible for 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions.  We'll need to do something about that too.  And we can take individual steps here to cut emissions.

Source: The BBC

I have to confess, I had no idea just how carbon-intensive beef was—roughly ten times as high as beans and nuts.  Eating one serve of beef once every day will create 2.2 tonnes of emissions.  Annual per capita emissions from burning fossil fuels in Australia are 15.83 tonnes, in the US, 15.53.  So not eating beef every day would by itself be the equivalent of cutting emissions from fossil fuel by 14%.  In countries with lower per capita emissions, the percentage decline would be even greater.

The biggest impactors are meats, fish and—alas!—chocolate.  The lowest are dairy, eggs, tofu, beans and nuts.  Nice to see beer is there too.  By the way, tofu has no flavour, but it absorbs the flavour of what it's cooked with.  So you can "extend" fish or meat by cooking tofu chunks with them.  Actually, I'm very partial to tofu with lemon juice, herb salt, and olive oil, myself.  But then I've been vegetarian for over 40 years.

The best can often be the enemy of the good.  Yes, it would slash your personal food emissions 95% if you became vegan. Yet, doing just a little is better than doing nothing.  Cutting your meat from every day to every second day would make a big difference.  And eating less meat would improve your health, too.

We have 30 years to slash emissions to zero.  It's not enough to wait for "them" to act.  We must do what we can ourselves, in addition to pushing for collective political change.  The problem isn't going to magically go away.  Cutting out beef and pork could cut emissions by 10 or 15% all on its own.  Add green electricity and an electric car and the carbon emissions you are responsible for could be reduced by three quarters.   Let's do it.

Greenhouse gas emissions per 1000 calories

 Here, I talked about greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram.  This chart shows greenhouse gas emissions per 1000 calories.  The chart is from Our World in Data.

The conclusion is the same:  even without becoming fully vegetarian, by avoiding beef, fish, lamb and mutton, you could significantly cut your emissions from food, which makes up ~30% of total greenhouse gas emissions.  Becoming fully vegetarian would cut your emissions even more.  And becoming vegan would be even better.  Don't say tofu is just as bad as beef---in the chart from my previous post, tofu produces 3.2 kilograms of CO2-equivalent per kilogram vs beef's 99 kg CO2-equivalent.

Purity is not essential.  Going from eating meat three times a day to once a day reduces your emissions and animal suffering and forest clearing.  Eating meat once a week instead of once a day, ditto.  You get the picture.

Not eating meat is something we can do personally, individually.  So is buying our electricity from a green supplier* and driving a hybrid or EV.  Together, taking these steps could reduce your emissions by ~70%.  

* Many so-called "green" electricity providers use carbon offsets to "reduce" the carbon emissions produced by burning fossil fuels to generate their electricity.  Most carbon offsets have turned out not to reduce emissions, i.e., to be fake, and many of them are out-and-out scams.  Choose a provider that generates all its electricity from its own wind, solar, nuclear, hydro or wave/tidal electricity, or from contracts it has with wind and solar farms.

Denmark introduces a carbon tax on agriculture

Source : Vegconomist

 From Vegconomist

Denmark looks set to introduce what is claimed to be the world’s first carbon tax on agriculture, following negotiations between the government, farmer organisations, trade unions, industry, and environmental NGOs.

The agreement is expected to be formally approved by the Danish parliament in August, and will see a tax of DKK 300 per tonne CO2e introduced on livestock emissions from 2030. This will rise to DKK 750 per tonne CO2e in 2035, but with a basic deduction of 60%; this means that the effective tax will be DKK 120 (€16) per tonne in 2030 and DKK 300 (€40) per tonne in 2035.

“We are investing in the future of our agricultural sector”

The proceeds raised by the tax in 2030-31 will be returned to the industry as a support fund to aid the green transition. The tax is expected to reduce emissions by 1.8 million tonnes of CO2e by 2030, enabling Denmark to achieve its legally binding target of cutting emissions by 70%.

Additionally, 250,000 new hectares of forest will be established in the coming years, and targets have been set to protect at least 20% of nature. Fees for slaughterhouses will be raised by DKK 45 million (€6 million) annually from 2029, and funding will be allocated to upskill labour.

The agreement has been reached despite Europe-wide backlash from farmers against proposed EU environmental policies, which led to some targets being dropped earlier this year. New Zealand has also recently scrapped plans for a tax aimed at tackling livestock emissions.

With the new tax, Denmark continues on its trajectory of progressive agricultural policies. In 2021, the country allocated 580 million DKK to farmers who produce plant-based foods; this was said to be the first time in history that plant foods had been given priority in an agricultural agreement.

In October 2023, Denmark became the first country worldwide to publish a national action plan for plant-based foods. The plan aims to strengthen and promote the country’s plant-based sector as part of the shift toward climate-friendly diets. Its publication came just a few months after a report found that Denmark’s financial sector currently lacks the objectives, knowledge, and ambition to invest in sustainable foods.

In March of last year, the Danish Climate Council recommended that two-thirds of the meat consumed by Danes should be replaced by plant-based foods, and suggested that high-emission foods such as beef should be taxed.

Beef and mutton produce the most methane in agriculture, and methane is 80 times as potent a greenhouse gas over 10 years as CO2 (it takes 12 years for methane to decay into CO2).  Also, expanding beef production means more land clearing, though obviously not in Denmark.  Globally, these two factors make agriculture a major source of greenhouse gases.  In 2024, 88% of Denmark's electricity came from renewables.   And 56% of Denmark's car sales are EVs/PHEVs.   Agriculture is the logical next step to cut emissions.  Heat pumps are another.  Compared to the rest of Scandinavia and Europe, Denmark has fewer heat pumps installed per 100,000 people, partly because its heat pump subsidies are smaller.  Heat pumps are far more efficient for heating in terms of energy use than old-fashioned gas or oil boilers.

Meatball from a long extinct mammoth

Vow created the mammoth meatball to demonstrate the potential of meat grown from cells, without the slaughter of animals. Photograph: Aico Lind/Studio Aico

From The Guardian

A mammoth meatball has been created by a cultivated meat company, resurrecting the flesh of the long-extinct animals.

The project aims to demonstrate the potential of meat grown from cells, without the slaughter of animals, and to highlight the link between large-scale livestock production and the destruction of wildlife and the climate crisis.

The mammoth meatball was produced by Vow, an Australian company, which is taking a different approach to cultured meat.

There are scores of companies working on replacements for conventional meat, such as chicken, pork and beef. But Vow is aiming to mix and match cells from unconventional species to create new kinds of meat.

The company has already investigated the potential of more than 50 species, including alpaca, buffalo, crocodile, kangaroo, peacocks and different types of fish.

The first cultivated meat to be sold to diners will be Japanese quail, which the company expects will be in restaurants in Singapore this year.

“We have a behaviour change problem when it comes to meat consumption,” said George Peppou, CEO of Vow .

“The goal is to transition a few billion meat eaters away from eating [conventional] animal protein to eating things that can be produced in electrified systems.

“And we believe the best way to do that is to invent meat. We look for cells that are easy to grow, really tasty and nutritious, and then mix and match those cells to create really tasty meat.”

Tim Noakesmith, who cofounded Vow with Peppou, said: “We chose the woolly mammoth because it’s a symbol of diversity loss and a symbol of climate change.” The creature is thought to have been driven to extinction by hunting by humans and the warming of the world after the last ice age.

The initial idea was from Bas Korsten at creative agency Wunderman Thompson: “Our aim is to start a conversation about how we eat, and what the future alternatives can look and taste like. Cultured meat is meat, but not as we know it.”

Plant-based alternatives to meat are now common but cultured meat replicates the taste of conventional meat. Cultivated meat – chicken from Good Meat – is currently only sold to consumers in Singapore, but two companies have now passed an approval process in the US.

In 2018, another company used DNA from an extinct animal to create gummy bears made from gelatine from a mastodon, another elephant-like animal.

Vow worked with Prof Ernst Wolvetang, at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering at the University of Queensland, to create the mammoth muscle protein. His team took the DNA sequence for mammoth myoglobin, a key muscle protein in giving meat its flavour, and filled in the few gaps using elephant DNA.

This sequence was placed in myoblast stem cells from a sheep, which replicated to grow to the 20bn cells subsequently used by the company to grow the mammoth meat.

“It was ridiculously easy and fast,” said Wolvetang. “We did this in a couple of weeks.” Initially, the idea was to produce dodo meat, he said, but the DNA sequences needed do not exist.

No one has yet tasted the mammoth meatball. “We haven’t seen this protein for thousands of years,” said Wolvetang. “So we have no idea how our immune system would react when we eat it. But if we did it again, we could certainly do it in a way that would make it more palatable to regulatory bodies.”

Wolvetang said he could understand people initially being wary of such meat: “It’s a little bit strange and new – it’s always like that at first. But from an environmental and ethical point of view, I personally think [cultivated meat] makes a lot of sense.”

The large-scale production of meat, particularly beef, causes huge damage to the environment, with many studies finding there must be a big reduction in meat-eating in rich nations in order to end the climate crisis.

Cultivated meat uses much less land and water than livestock, and produces no methane emissions. Vow said the energy it uses is all from renewable sources and that foetal bovine serum, a growth medium produced from cattle foetuses, is not used in any of its commercial products. The company has raised US$56m (£46m) in investment to date.

Wolvetang thinks there will be increasing crossover between the technologies used in medical and human stem cell research and the production of cultured meats.

For example, cells can be programmed to develop in response to their immediate environment, meaning cuts of meat containing muscle, fat and connective tissue could be grown.

Seren Kell, at the Good Food Institute Europe, said: “I hope this fascinating project will open up new conversations about cultivated meat’s extraordinary potential to produce more sustainable food.

“However, as the most common sources of meat are farm animals such as cattle, pigs, and poultry, most of the sustainable protein sector is focused on realistically replicating meat from these species.

“By cultivating beef, pork, chicken and seafood we can have the most impact in terms of reducing emissions from conventional animal agriculture.”

Swapping out red meat & creamy pasta sauce

Well, I knew about the red meat. But creamy pasta sauce? 

From The Guardian

Simple grocery hacks – including swapping out red meat for chicken or plant-based alternatives, opting for dairy-free milk and yoghurt and choosing fruit toast instead of muffins – could substantially cut household greenhouse gas emissions, new research has found.

A report by the George Institute for Global Health found switches could reduce a household’s climate pollution by six tonnes a year [i.e., roughly 2.4 tonnes per capita in Australia, compared with total emissions of 15 tonnes per capita per year], which it said was roughly equivalent to the emissions from an average household’s grid-based electricity use.

Researchers estimated the emissions for more than 25,000 everyday grocery items available at supermarkets including Aldi, Coles, Woolworths, Harris Farm and IGA.

They found replacing 1kg of beef mince with chicken each week could cut more than two tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually, while switching to a meat alternative would save 2.5 tonnes.

Switching one creamy pasta sauce to a tomato-based option each week could remove 270kg CO2 over a year.

Prof Simone Pettigrew, the George Institute’s head of health promotion and a professor at UNSW Sydney, said food was a necessity that contributed to about 30% of global emissions [but that includes land clearing to farm beef and mutton].

“Australians are deeply concerned about the climate, and many people want to do the right thing. But it’s hard to know which products are more sustainable when that information is not available on pack.”

While researchers had known for some time that meat was worse in terms of emissions, and that vegetables were better, Pettigrew said there was a “mountain of products that sit in the middle, and they tend to be the types of packaged foods that sit on our supermarket shelves”.

To make it easier for consumers, the institute has translated its findings into a “planetary health rating” ranging from 0 (worse for the planet) to 5 stars (better). Individual product ratings are available via a free ecoSwitch app, which also suggests alternatives with lower emissions.

If consumers found some swaps too challenging – such as cutting coffee or chocolate – there were plenty of options across other categories such as snack bars, pasta sauce or salad dressing, Pettigrew said.

“There are quite substantial amounts of difference that people can make through relatively minor switches as part of their grocery shopping.”

 

We are not helpless in our struggle to slash emissions.  Yes, much can only be done by governments and companies.  However, we can cut the emissions we are directly responsible for, by making the right choices.    Becoming vegetarian, having an electric car, getting solar panels if you can afford them, stopping flying, replacing your gas/oil heating with a heat pump--taking all these steps could cut the emissions you are directly responsible for by 50 to 80%.

Source: Our World in Data

Vitamin B and anxiety

From SciTechDaily 

 

Research from UC Davis Health shows that people with anxiety disorders have noticeably lower amounts of choline in their brains. Choline is an essential nutrient involved in brain metabolism and communication.

The findings, published in the Nature journal Molecular Psychiatry, come from an analysis of 25 studies. The team compared neurometabolite levels, which are chemicals created during brain metabolism, in 370 people diagnosed with anxiety disorders and 342 people without anxiety.

Across these studies, choline levels were about 8% lower in individuals with anxiety disorders. This difference was most clearly seen in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for guiding thought processes, emotional control, and behavior.

“This is the first meta-analysis to show a chemical pattern in the brain in anxiety disorders,” said Jason Smucny, co-author and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. “It suggests nutritional approaches — like appropriate choline supplementation — may help restore brain chemistry and improve outcomes for patients.”

Choline (pronounced KOE lean) plays a key role in maintaining cell membranes and supporting memory, mood, and muscle movement. The body produces only a small amount, so most must come from dietary sources.

Anxiety Disorders Are Widespread and Often Untreated

Anxiety disorders affect about 30% of adults.

Richard Maddock, senior author of the study, is a psychiatrist and research professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He also conducts research at the UC Davis Imaging Research Center, where MRI technology is used to explore brain health.

Maddock has spent many years treating patients with anxiety disorders and investigating the biological factors that contribute to these conditions.

“Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting about 30% of adults. They can be debilitating for people, and many people do not receive adequate treatment,” Maddock said.

Anxiety disorders include:

• Generalized anxiety disorder
• Panic disorder
• Social anxiety disorders
• Phobias

How Brain Circuits and Chemicals Shape Anxiety Responses

Anxiety disorders involve changes in how different brain regions respond to stress. The amygdala, which influences feelings of safety or danger, and the prefrontal cortex, which helps with planning and decision-making, often react differently in people with anxiety disorders.

Chemical imbalances also play a role. For example, the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, a key part of the body’s “fight-or-flight” response, is frequently elevated in anxiety disorders.

Under typical circumstances, the brain can distinguish between manageable challenges and true threats. In anxiety disorders, everyday situations may feel far more dangerous. People with generalized anxiety disorder, for instance, often experience persistent worry about routine concerns and struggle to control feelings of nervousness.

MRI-Based Technique Reveals Brain Chemical Differences

Maddock and Smucny have long studied brain chemistry and its connection to mental illness using a non-invasive method called proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, or 1H-MRS.

This technique relies on an MRI machine to measure chemicals inside tissues. Instead of creating an image of the body, 1H-MRS identifies the specific metabolites present in the brain.

In earlier work, Maddock noticed that patients with panic disorder showed reduced choline levels. That observation helped motivate the current meta-analysis. Despite expecting to see lower choline, Maddock was surprised by the strength of the pattern.

“An 8% lower amount doesn’t sound like that much, but in the brain it’s significant,” Maddock said.

Dietary Choline Intake May Be Important for Brain Health

The researchers suspect that the heightened fight-or-flight activity seen in anxiety disorders may increase the brain’s need for choline, leading to lower levels.

“We don’t know yet if increasing choline in the diet will help reduce anxiety. More research will be needed,” Maddock said. He warned that people should not attempt to self-treat anxiety using large amounts of choline supplements.

He emphasized the importance of good nutrition for overall well-being, including mental health.

“Someone with an anxiety disorder might want to look at their diet and see whether they are getting the recommended daily amount of choline. Previous research has shown that most people in the U.S., including children, don’t get the recommended daily amount,” Maddock said. “Some forms of omega-3 fatty acids, like those found in salmon, may be especially good sources for supplying choline to the brain.”

Other foods that provide choline include beef liver, eggs (particularly the yolk), beef, chicken, fish, soybeans, and milk, among others.

Reference: “Transdiagnostic reduction in cortical choline-containing compounds in anxiety disorders: a 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy meta-analysis” by Richard J. Maddock, and Jason Smucny, 5 September 2025, Molecular Psychiatry.
DOI: 10.1038/s41380-025-03206-7

Lecithin (made from soy) is rich in choline, and can be bought as a supplement from your supermarket.  It's involved in fat metabolism, and one or two teaspoons a day sprinkled over your breakfast cereal, or stew/soup, is prolly worth taking, especially if it helps with anxiety.