Here's the Michigan University study that came up in the recent (overblown) #Biden/#beef controversy: css.umich.edu/sites/default/… What would the carbon footprint reduction be when Americans would reduce beef intake with 90% (VERY hypothetical)?

Let's look at the numbers... THREAD👇
Here are the scenarios (converted to yearly data):

- baseline: Americans diets = 1.8 tCO2-eq/p/y
- halving animal foods = ?
- additional reduction of beef to 10% = ?
Here are the predicted savings (per person, per year):

- halving animal foods = 1.2 t CO2-eq/p/y --> -0.6 t
- + beef restriction (to 10%) = 0.9 t --> -0.9 t
In other words, on a TOTAL carbon footprint of 17 t CO2-eq/p/y for an average American, the dietary change would result in a % saving of:

- halving animal foods: 4%
- + beef restriction (to 10%): 5%
On aggregate, this would mean a 224/330 MMT saving for the entire US, which on a TOTAL CO2-emission output of 6600 MMT equals 3-5% savings in national emissions.
This, by the way, is not all that far from the estimate by White & Hall in their 2017 PNAS modelling paper, using a different methodological perspective: if we would make the US livestock free, emissions would drop with some 3%.
pnas.org/content/114/48…
Time & again, studies report the same footprint reduction for Western diets that severely restrict meat & dairy: 1-6%

Something, but not really a game changer. Plus, it undermines food traditions & the restrictiveness may come with nutritional trade-offs.
aleph-2020.blogspot.com/2019/06/greenh…
Moreover, these calculations are based on several assumptions that need there own contextualization. An overview can be found here: aleph-2020.blogspot.com/2019/06/greenh…
If you read all of the above, you'll see that the "cows vs cars" comparison that the folks from Minnesota University are making in their document is very misleading. And yet, this comparison is recycled over & over again as a slogan, especially by people with anti-livestock bias.
Sorry, *Michigan, not Minnesota

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More from @fleroy1974

13 Apr
The @UN #FoodSystems Summit aims at transforming the way the world eats based on 5 Action Tracks.

This is the composition of #AT2. One would expect a sound consortium, given the impact this will have on all of us. If you don't identify the problem, let's spell it out. Thread 🧵
The Chair is the founder of EAT, an organization advocating a near-vegetarian "Planetary Health Diet" through an interventionist "Great Food Transformation". dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6…
She's also a WEF Young Global Leader; no surprise that the initiative is to be seen as a "Davos for food" with leading food multinationals in its slipstream (the 'plant-based' market being their new business model) - check this thread for background:
Read 19 tweets
31 Mar
Who has information on this shady "Earth Love Foundation", linked to Davos' Young Global Leaders, & to the equally shady "Tellus Mater", founded by Jamie Arbib? Arbib also founded Rethinkx - the ones claiming collapse of animal ag by 2030 cliscep.com/2015/11/22/can…
This is what RethinkX is about:
Note that Arbib is also on the advisory board of EAT
Read 6 tweets
7 Mar
The @UN #FoodSystems Summit will have a massive influence on food policies & dietary guidelines, GLOBALLY, for decades to come

Action Track 2 ("Sustainable diets") is preparing us for a quasi-vegetarian "Planetary Health Diet"

Look who's in charge - 😱‼️👇
(+@WEF in background)
Also look at who's the leader representing "civil society" - that is, allegedly, you and me? How was this selected, who was responsible for it, and why was it allowed?

Nobody identified a problem here?

From the UN Food Systems Summit's working paper for Action Track 2.

"Healthy diets SHOULD include..." Not may, no: SHOULD.

Not even a mention of meat, dairy, fish, eggs.

Instead: we - yes you!- SHOULD eat beans, nuts & grains

docplayer.net/200350226-Draf…
Read 12 tweets
5 Mar
You may have read @john_vidal's piece on the protests by farmers & rights groups, denouncing the perverse influence of the @WEF over the @UN #FoodSystems Summit.

Let's look closer at what's going on here.

Thread 🧵👇
First, we need to understand that the Summit's intend is to fundamentally change the way we eat.

You would expect something like this to be supervised by the @FAO Committee on World Food Security. Instead, incomprehensibly, the @UN Headquarters in Rome took over.
Worse: the fact that the @WEF & @UN have signed a Strategic Partnership Framework to "accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" opened the door to corporate influence.

As a result, the Food Systems Summit has been hijacked.
Read 24 tweets
4 Mar
💣‼️ “The @FoodSystems summit appears extremely biased in favour of the same actors who have been responsible for the food crisis [...] The @UN [has been urged] to sever the “strategic partnership” with the @WEF"
theguardian.com/global-develop…
"“The @WEF will exploit the @FoodSystems summit to streamline neoliberal globalisation. It will mean that global inequality and corporate monopoly would be sidetracked rather than confronted as the root cause of hunger and extreme poverty"
Background on the Davos #GreatFoodTransformation take-over of the Summit here:

aleph-2020.blogspot.com/2020/08/ideolo…
Read 10 tweets
1 Mar
Provenza et al: "Some societies are now in the midst of convincing themselves that plant-based faux meat is better than the real thing and that nature is a feeble-minded nitwit compared to the “time-tested wisdom” of Silicon Valley technologies." frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
No New Age fan (I leave the chakra bit to the authors), but this, 👉 YES! "We can come to love & respect life by transforming our utilitarian views of plants & animals merely as sources of food to a reverence for their wide-ranging ecological, economic & social meanings & values"
"A flock in the hands of an 'ecological doctor' can create healthy soil, plants, animals, & food for people in ways that enhance biodiversity, mitigate fires, & sustain local cultures—benefits not considered in life cycle analyses"
Read 8 tweets

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