Inside Big Beef's Climate Messaging Machine - Confuse, Defend And Downplay

8th May 2023

A Masters of Beef Advocacy program teaches ‘scientific sounding' arguments on cattle's sustainability in an all-out public relations war - by Joe Fassler.

This article in the Guardian newspaper exposes the way the beef industry is gearing up to fight against any anti-beef lobbies.

The US beef industry is creating an army of influencers and citizen activists to help amplify a message that will be key to its future success: that you shouldn't be too worried about the growing attention around the environmental impacts of its production.

In particular, it would like you not to be especially concerned about how meat consumption needs to be reduced if we are to avoid the most violently disruptive forms of planetary heating (even if all fossil fuel use ended tomorrow).

It definitely does not want you to read scientific papers showing wealthy nations must reduce meat consumption to keep below the average global temperature rise of 2C, a threshold to stop systems collapse, mass extinctions, fatal heat waves, drought and famine, water shortages and flooded cities.

I know about these industry priorities as I am one of more than 21,000 graduates of a free, by-admission-only, online training course created by the US beef industry called the Masters of Beef Advocacy (MBA) program.

If we're serious about avoiding the worst of the climate crisis, we need to consume fewer animal products.

The course is the creation of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA), the beef industry’s main lobby group, and on completing it I can tell you that you don’t actually get a master’s degree, despite its name.

Read the full article HERE