ABC Wants You to Fight Global Warming One Cheeseburger at a Time

Business & Media Institute
By Jeff Poor
May 14, 2008

It’s not enough for the media to try to brainwash the public the Earth is in peril due to global warming. Now they’re telling you what to eat.

This is something you might expect to hear at a PETA rally, but instead it was ABC’s May 13 “World News with Charles Gibson” telling you to curb your beef consumption to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

“You are staring into the face of one thing scientists say you can do to fight climate change,” ABC correspondent Dan Harris said as the face of a cow filled the screen. “Leave this cow alone and eat less beef. According to the United Nations, 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from sending beef and dairy products to your kitchen table.”

The beef industry is a huge part of U.S. agriculture. According to Dan Otto and John D. Lawrence, two professors at Iowa State University, the beef industry represents $188.4 billion of direct and indirect economic activity throughout the U.S. economy. However, Harris rationalized that all this economic activity is a threat to the environment.

“Here’s why – cows are fed corn and soy, which are grown using fertilizers made from fossil fuels,” Harris said. “The food then has to be transported to the cows, which requires loads of fuel. And those cows, um, pass a lot of gas, which may sound funny, but the methane they release is 23 times more harmful than carbon dioxide. And, then there’s even more fossil fuel burned while slaughtering the cows, which involves heavy machinery and getting the food to the supermarket and then to you.”

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