Ezra Klein Wonders If Test Tube Meat Could Save Planet From Hotcoldwetdry

I mentioned the test tube burger yesterday, with a hint about it supposedly being part of the fight against “climate change”. Here’s what it looks like

I’ve seen worse at the supermarket. Usually with a “manager’s sale” sticker on it covering up the “sell by” date. Anyhow, here’s climahysteric Ezra Klein

The most expensive burger ever made was served in London today. It cost more than $300,000 — thanks, Google’s Sergey Brin — and didn’t taste very good. But the texture was right, and it saved a cow. Maybe one day it can save the Earth.

That’s the real play behind the test-tube burgers. The hope, according to Dutch scientist Mark Post, who led the team, is that they can eventually help stop global warming.

The case for moving away from raising and slaughtering animals for food is typically portrayed in terms of animal welfare. But increasingly the argument is about planetary welfare: Meat is simply a huge, huge contributor to climate change, and it’s only going to get bigger as the billions of people in emerging economies begin demanding the meat-heavy diets they associate with wealth.

In this 2009 column, I laid out some of the numbers behind this debate. They’re worth thinking about today. The column is slightly edited from its original version.

Which leads into his 2009 opinion piece (he forgets to tell us what is slightly edited), a big whine about eating meat

According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock accounts for 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. That’s larger than the entire transportation sector. Burgers, in other words, are doing more damage to the planet than SUVs.

Interestingly, despite mentioning cow burps and flatulence, the word “methane” appears nowhere. I wonder why? Anyhow, are we supposed to grow really expensive meat and kill off all the livestock?

Interestingly, our buddies at Grist aren’t that enthused by this development. They note that this “schmeat” will only be available for the 1st world, due to costs, even if it becomes competitive within 10-20 years (unlikely). It’s doused in antibiotics. Most likely has fewer nutrients. It’s virtually fat free, and meat needs a little bit of fat for flavor. Sounds like a winner!

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3 Responses to “Ezra Klein Wonders If Test Tube Meat Could Save Planet From Hotcoldwetdry”

  1. john says:

    Why would a Dutch scientist be concerned about climate change and rising sea levels???

    • The real question is: why would any scientist anywhere think mankind has anything to do at all with macro climate trends? Hint: Doctored IPCC data is not a good reason.

  2. Gail Combs says:

    The IPCC mandate was never about climate and they even state that.

    The IPCC mandate states:

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation.
    http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/

    Humans were tried and found guilty BEFORE the IPCC ever looked at a scientific fact. The IPCC mandate is not to figure out what factors effect the climate but to dig up the facts needed to hang the human race.

    It is no coincidence that IPCC chair Robert Watson was an employee of the World Bank. It has always been about fleecing the sheeple and tightening their control on us.

    World Bank Carbon Finance Report for 2007
    The carbon economy is the fastest growing industry globally with US$84 billion of carbon trading conducted in 2007, doubling to $116 billion in 2008, and expected to reach over $200 billion by 2012 and over $2,000 billion by 2020

    This is a fraud that produces nothing but poverty. It does not produce a single penny of wealth and instead acts as a short circuit across the advancement and wealth of our entire civilization.

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