Lucia

de Vernai

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September 8, 2008

America’s Beef With the Latest Planet-Saving Plan

It seems that transportation transformation cannot come quickly enough. Car companies, city councils and individuals are trying to find new ways to cut emissions while keeping down prices, not raising taxes and keeping lifestyle changes minimal. Still, our carbon footprint doesn’t seem to be shrinking, nor our willingness to alter our lifestyles growing.

Luckily, now there is another path of self-denial to protect the planet – cutting back beef consumption.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – organization that shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore – is now calling for less meat in our diets as a way to curb greenhouse emissions. UN research that shows meat production – from clearing forests for grazing to transporting the product – is responsible for 18 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gasses, significantly more than its transportation.

Don’t panic – no one is going to take every American’s fundamental right to a steak or juicy burger. Not yet at least. Rather, beef production may undergo the biggest changes, employing new diets for the animals and encouraging people to consume meat produced locally. It has also been proposed that governments get involved, setting consumption reduction goals. This may not go over well in the U.S., where the only government involvement we look for in our beef is the Grade AA sticker on the packaging.

The proposed change in consumption balance is not likely to gain many fans either. It would mean more beef for areas of the world that consume little beef, and less for bacon cheeseburger lovers in the West. Of course, this may lead to significant side effects, like lower heart disease rates and blood pressure among Americans. The question that will decide the impact of the discovery, however, is not health or social benefits, but money.

States like Texas and countries like Argentina rely on beef production for their economic foundation. A reduction in consumption and changes in business operations can have a profound impact on the economies, not just diets, of beef-producing areas. Which once again raises the question, “How much are we willing to give up for the planet?”

Driving less and in smaller cars made sense because of gas prices, but are the health benefits of eating less beef convincing enough? As “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner” ads show, bigger and badder applies to our gas tanks as much as it does to what’s on our plates. And when in doubt, appeal to the American values of freedom and independence. No self-respecting man would have the government tell him what to grill.

That’s the kind of defiance proud Hummer owners showed a few years ago, since nothing says independence like relying on foreign oil. As for the beef, nothing says “I’m proud to be an American” like relying on Lipitor in a country with unaffordable health care. If we are unwilling to make the change for the sake of our health, it makes no difference how many different ways of saving the environment scientists come up with. The odds of American cooperation remains lean. 

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