Thread by @NicholasDCarter

Is White Oak Pasture's (WOP) an example of regenerative grazing perfection? Or just another example of exaggerated claims with paid-for 'scientific' results?

whiteoakpastures.com

Here's the full story not being told and a THREAD worth sharing for those promoting WOP. (1/10)

Quantis released this below report showing how WOP cows have a 111% lower carbon footprint than conventionally farmed cows and how they stored more carbon than is emitted in their lifetime.

blog.whiteoakpastures.com/hubfs/WOP-LCA-… (2/10)

However, Quantis also released this report "proving" bottled water is environmentally friendly: nestle-watersna.com/en/nestle-wate…

Clearly, Quantis has no concern about accepting funding and finding the results that the paying customer wants. (3/10)

Then, Quantis went beyond their paid for study on "proving" the environmental friendliness of bottled water to urging it be promoted in National Parks:

quantis-intl.com/bottled-water-…

If that's not enough to completely disregard any results from Quantis, here's more issues: (4/10)

Quantis concluded: “The WOP beef is potentially on-par or better than other non-beef protein sources with regard to it’s (sic) carbon footprint."

But then clarified: "Within our margin of error, there is a potential that the WOP beef production is climate positive” (5/10)

But WOP’s website simply states: “White Oak Pastures is storing more carbon in its soil than its pasture-raised cows emit during their lifetime… Shop Now: Carbon Negative Beef”. Of course, this is misleading. (6/10)

But it's unsurprising, as WOP’s owner, William Harris, boasted to The New York Times in 2015: “We cheat to win” (and a neighbour of his concurred).

nytimes.com/2015/03/11/din… (7/10)

Quantis’ report uses a 100-year timeframe for accounting for methane with no discussion of why it doesn’t use a 20-year timeframe for methane, which the IPCC uses.

Keeping the time horizon at their 100 years versus 20 years decreases the value of methane by about 2.5X. (8/10)

Lastly, the report does not account for carbon in livestock respiration or its reflection in carbon absorption forgone by grazing cattle instead of allowing the land to regenerate forest.

This alternative use needs to be included in true environmental assessment. (9/10)

So overall, it's just another example of exaggerated claims. There's really not a need to fabricate results, since this style is superior to the average form of grazing. However, they still pale in comparison to biodynamic full plant-based farms. (10/10)

https://twitter.com/NicholasDCarter/status/1143914777464303616