Posted on 04/04/2019 5:50:45 AM PDT by SJackson
Wannabe regulators such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have a tendency to get distracted by the small stuff when it comes to combating climate change. The rollout of Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal offered a glimpse into the strange priorities of the environmental Left in Congress. The proposals have been widely mocked, from the suggestion we move away from air travel, to phasing out combustion engines for cars, to the now-deleted language about limiting “cow farts.” Here’s the thing though: Those farts, AKA methane gas from livestock flatulence, are a large and serious contributor to climate change.
But the government doesn’t have to do anything to curb consumer demand for meat. A San Francisco company called Impossible Foods just announced a partnership with Burger King to offer an alternative to animal meat on the burger menu, and besides being delicious, it could be huge for the fight against climate change.
Impossible Foods is essentially making test-tube meat. It looks like ground beef, smells like ground beef, and bleeds like it too. What makes this innovation so unique in a country that produces 50 billion pounds of meat annually is that it doesn’t actively condemn the learned habit of eating meat. Moral condemnation and finger wagging is considered a trademark of our vegetarian and vegan friends, along with rubbery and tasteless alternatives such as tofu and frozen veggie burgers.
It’s an attempt to modify behavior without engaging what content meat eaters have innocently learned to enjoy. You can’t get smokers to quit by giving them candy straws, you have to replicate the experience they crave with something safer. This is no different.
To fend off radicalism such as that of the Green New Deal, there has to be a reckoning with the reality of climate change and a movement toward innovation, not intense regulation, to address it. Young voters in particular are very animated by this issue, and in my personal experience the indifference from Washington to their concerns is having a radicalizing effect. When you have only one political party raising the alarm on climate and the other dismissing it, voters are going to have nowhere to place their concerns about rising temperatures and severe weather events except but with the Ocasio-Cortezes of the world. I recently spoke with a young voter who was so alarmed by climate change that the guardrails of democratic norms seemed somehow unimportant. We’re talking about the supposed end of the world here.
The Impossible Burger has been around for a few years building proof of concept and interest in the media. I first had one in Washington, D.C., at Founding Farmers. Putting aside the extra $2 in price, it was a great experience. Everything you want in a burger is there, with the added benefit of no concern of animal suffering or cruelty. For some, that will be worth the extra money. Burger King's “Impossible Whopper” will be $1 more than the standard burgers, so it will be the product's first larger test of the product to see if semi-guilty meat eaters will put their money where their mouth is. Eventually, the price will probably fall, as with all new technology over time. It could even become less expensive than an animal-based burger.
To unleash this product's potential and the environmental benefits of lab-grown meat, the government will actually need to do less, not more. Regulation of “cell cultured” meat is onerous, and it may only get harder as proponents of the status quo work to push Congress and the FDA to get involved. Despite what the alarmists say, there are reasonable solutions to climate change and reducing the United States’ share of carbon emissions. We have no way of knowing what the future holds or when our brightest minds will invent products that can change the world, but the growing presence of these artificial meats is evidence that innovators are working tirelessly on these problems. We don’t have to accept emergency limitations on personal liberty, massive government expansion, or frivolous crackdowns on planes, trains, and automobiles.
Keep an eye on game-changing companies such as Impossible Foods. If we let them, they could render the radical ideas of Ocasio-Cortez and Democratic Socialists useless. Let's face it, we already knew they were antiquated ideas.
Buffalo farts are much bigger than cow farts. Long ago there were millions of bison in North America, far more bison than we have cows. If the bison farts weren’t a problem for the climate, why should cow farts be a problem?
I will eat a cheeseburger today while the idiots fail to explain that one.
Yeah it’s going to be impossible for me to gulp this down. No thanks. This stupid article presupposes that this fraud of a theory is legitimate. The article is a fallacy by its very premise with or without the plug for fake meat.
The Left doesn’t care about Climate Change.
The Left doesn’t care about Carbon Emissions.
The Left doesn’t care about animal suffering.
The Left wants social change so that they can control the population. Impossible Burgers will not help and will not hinder. The Left will move past Impossible Burgers and seek other levers to move society toward tyranny.
There are no solutions because the Left is only looking for problems.
You know, now that you mention it I did detect some slight flatulence residue on my Whopper yesterday. I thought it was just the smell of grill smoke—but now I’m not so sure. I’ll have another one today to confirm.
I’d say “The Impossible Whopper” makes a pretty good moniker for the Green New Deal.
Good of him to broadcast his stupidity early in the article. Spares some of us from having to read it.
Good one!
Whether that grass is digested by cows or ultimately by bacteria and other microorganisms, gas is released into the atmosphere.
[[To fend off radicalism such as that of the Green New Deal, there has to be a reckoning with the reality of climate change and a movement toward innovation, not intense regulation, to address it.]]
This already concedes the argument to the left.
If the maker of the Impossible Whopper can make a product that is a viable alternative (equivalent taste, consistency, etc.) more power to them. That is the free market at its finest. They may succeed, or fail miserably like McDonald’s foray into the soy-burger realm. The only issue I have is anyone saying that this is a means to combat the fraudulent claims of anthropogenic climate change.
Top Ten Burger King EPIC FAILS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Bhp76epV0
I see #11 in their future.
I haven't eaten meat in years! (Except seafood, which I like)
Beef--pork--poultry--they all creep me out! And lamb--of all things! Veal! The cruelty is a complete turn-off! (Nothing turns me off like cruelty!)
I'm a doctor, and eating flesh is about like eating human flesh to me. Ugh!
My wife and I seek out Burger King on long trips because their Veggie Burgers are good.
I don't like black bean burgers or similar substitutes, but the eggplant burger's not bad.
No turkey for me on Thanksgiving! Christmas either!
But now at last I can help save the world from the fictional threat of "Climate Change"! And without changing a thing!
It's like saving the world from The Blob--or The Lizard that Ate Philadelphia--or something!
I had no idea that the ickiness of flesh eating would one day save the world! (If not from a real threat, at least from a delusion!)
I say 1 month at most and BK then drops it.
Farmers and ranchers are so “old America” we want a new America, therefore cattle need to be eliminated, therefore ranching. Corn production is also on their radar. The left does not want anyone owning personal property, especially in flyover land. Lets create some fictional work, “green climate change”, and force it on the people by declaring we are saving them and enslave the masses.
Cow Manure, the author accepts and promotes a false premise, the elimination of cows will not significantly alter methane on the planet.
It sounds like they need to do a study (financed by us taxpayers, no doubt), that determines the farts-per-pound of consumable meat.
Only then will we know which animals are the greatest offenders.
No thanks. Hell, even if I didn't like meat, I'd keep eating it just because it pisses off all the right people.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
