Cows can't solve people's problems
Here's why I am deeply skeptical of the moral compass of the climate movement.
First order of business: ban the use of the phrases “saving the planet/good for the planet.”
Consider how the latter is used in this article (all quotes below are from the article):
“Years ago, we observed that people didn’t just want food that’s good for them, they also wanted food that’s good for the planet.”
This by a man who runs a dairy monster – 37000 cows housed in one massive five star hotel – just kidding, 37000 cows housed in god knows what circumstances though I fear the worst since their website has everything else besides the conditions of the cows themselves.
So one might ask: what does the term “good for the planet” mean when it comes with torture and slaughter. We will let that question warm some of the gas that's coming out of some human behinds.
Then comes this major vote of thanks:
“We owe much of it to our 37,000 cows. Three times a day, we collect their manure and deliver it to sealed chambers called anaerobic digesters. They effectively serve as a cow’s fifth stomach, where bacteria continue to digest the organic matter left in the cows’ waste and turn it into methane. The gas is captured and used to power the farm and fuel the trucks that take our milk to market.”
Yeah, but what happens to the cows? They have cleverly recognized that the climate first crowd cares about reducing methane emissions from cattle but don't care much about how. Here's how:
“Through gene mapping, editing and breeding, we can further improve the efficiency with which cows turn feed into milk with fewer emissions. Automation and robotics are generating billions of pieces of data that enable us to improve diets and care based on each cow’s consumption, weight, and other indicators of health and growth. Armed with these innovations, producers can increase yields and resource efficiency, build healthier and more resilient soil, shrink our carbon footprint, and measure and verify that these improvements are happening.”
and
“we produced a billion gallons of milk with 21 percent of the animals, 23 percent of the feed, 35 percent of the water, and only 10 percent of the land, while generating only 24 percent of the manure and 37 percent of the carbon emissions. We achieved these efficiencies before we were even measuring them. Imagine what we can do with measurable targets, financial incentives, and technological innovations.”
The headline says “cows are leading the way.” Do they have any choice in the matter? What kind of leading involves increasing the control over your body? We are just solving a problem of (rich) human making by increasing the suffering of animals you already treat as machines.
That's just intensifying the anthropocene not resisting it.