Climate Change Is Real

I don't know how some can deny climate change. Oceans are warming, glaciers are melting, the earth is heating up, not to mention to the deepening scale of typhoons, hurricanes and earthquakes. Animals have gone extinct. Perhaps it's how evolution is, but it's undeniable that humans have killed off many of them. The soil of the lands is polluted, making agriculture risky and inconsistent.

Urbanization and how we shape living in cities have effectively cut off arable land in many countries. All we can do is to create parks and green spaces. The earth is hardy, but not that hardy. It hasn't had time to recover since we industrialized in the 18th century.

You could argue that it happens every millennia or it's simply part of evolution and the way of the universe. The problem is, with our science, we can't even figure out if this is the way in the past. Human existence is way short. Take religion out of the picture, and you're left with pure science. The earth should continue to exist after we die. Changes are afoot; it's affecting us and the next foreseeable three generations.

Cows are easy to love. Their eyes are a liquid brown, their noses inquisitive, their udders homely; small children thrill to their moo. 

Most people like them even better dead. Americans eat three hamburgers a week, so serving beef at your cookout is as patriotic as buying a gun. When progressive Democrats proposed a Green New Deal, earlier this year, leading Republicans labelled it a plot to “take away your hamburgers.” The former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka characterized this plunder as “what Stalin dreamt about,” and Trump himself accused the Green New Deal of proposing to “permanently eliminate” cows. In fact, of course, its authors were merely advocating a sensible reduction in meat eating. Who would want to take away your hamburgers and eliminate cows?

Tad Friend profiles Pat Brown, the 65-year-old founder and CEO of Impossible Foods in the September 30 issue of The New Yorker, 'Can A Burger Help Solve Climate Change?'. We all know Impossible Burger by now. Well, at least Singaporeans and residents here all know the connection. The article opens with the author, presumably introducing readers to Pat Brown's vision, "By developing plant-based beef, chicken, pork, lamb, dairy, and fish, he intends to wipe out all animal agriculture and deep-sea fishing by 2035."

Humans still have choices now. We're only seeing climate change, and if we're dramatic, how the earth is dying or renewing itself. All disasters are now 'worst in a century or worst in fifty years', the ilk. We haven't reached apocalypse. I hope never to see it in my lifetime.

I don't think many will willingly go vegetarian just to 'save the earth' or because 'it's better for the environment'. Mostly people love food, and people love their meats. There're many who avoid genetically modified products and health advocates who believe that eating REAL meat is less carcinogenic than a synthetic processed Impossible patty. As much as I like my beef to come from a cow, chances are, given the choice of an Impossible on the menu, I've been picking Impossible. I don't particularly care about the finesse of the meat as long as it's done well.

I like to think that if everyone does our bit for earth and the environment, these minuscule efforts might help. It's despairing to think that many simply consume with nary a care given, and they shave off all the good that others have done. Governments must do more. If societies are governed as such, then we cannot ignore the fact that resources are finite. Isn't it obvious that we need renewable sources of energy and food? If that cycle is irretrievably broken, it's woe to humans.

Searchinger said, “Our baseline estimate is that by 2050, to produce the beef to meet demand, we’ll see a hundred and fifty-eight million hectares more pastureland in Africa alone. And the even bigger threat is from China.” 

Brown made a face. “To head that off, we have to be seen as successful in the U.S. and developed countries first,” he said. “If we’re seen as a cheap substitute, we won’t get any traction in Africa.” 

Searchinger looked wistful. “If you could just reforest all the grazing land, 1.2 billion hectares!” he said. “Giving up all beef would be the most effective thing we could do for the planet.” He has calculated that if you reduced beef consumption by three-fourths (allowing for some pastoral nomadism and dairy cows later used for beef) and reforested accordingly it would reduce global G.H.G. emissions by about twenty per cent.