09 Jan End Times for the Scientific Cowspiracy

There are three types of Scientists:
1) Vegans,
2) Those who haven’t read the data on Global Animal Agriculture (GAAg), and
3) Those who have read the data and are pretending not to understand it. 

There is an enormous amount of data on the impact of GAAg at the FAOStat web site of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN). The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that our farmed animals consume almost FIVE times as much food as all humans put together. The above figure captures this data for three time instants in human history and it easily conveys the idea that going Vegan is the single most effective action that anyone can do to address our environmental problems. Indeed, even as long ago as 2009, Dr. James Hansen, the world’s most preeminent climate scientist asked people to go Vegan to solve climate change:

Yet, a Cowspiracy seems to be widespread among the mainstream scientific establishment. Scientific conferences such as the AGU Fall Meeting still serve steak and other rich animal foods as the main course at their Annual Banquet dinners. If the largest gathering of climate scientists in the world cannot heed Dr. Hansen’s simple advice, then how can these scientists expect the public to take their alarming pronouncements on climate change seriously?

Ecologists and environmental scientists are engaged in this Cowspiracy as well. In a recent paper published in the Bioscience magazine entitled, “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: Second Notice,” with eight authors and 15,364 signatories from 184 countries, the only chart showing the impact of GAAg is the one below:

This chart does not accurately convey the data on the environmental impact of GAAg. Why did the authors deliberately choose one of the few data items on the FAOStat web site that trend lower than human population? In contrast, here’s a more representative chart of the same FAOStat data from the Terrastendo web site:

The scientists could have picked any number of other data items (e.g., meat tonnage or total number of animals slaughtered) that would have accurately conveyed the reality of the impact of GAAg. Therefore, I have to conclude that they are engaging in a Cowspiracy to hide the real impact of GAAg. Since 15,364 scientists signed on to this paper, I have to conclude that this Cowspiracy is widespread in the scientific establishment. Indeed, I have seen similarly corrupt data handling and outright misinformation on the GAAg issue in websites such as Skeptical Science. The trouble with such corrupt data handling is that it casts a pall on the integrity of all other data analyses in these scientific resources.

Let’s hold our scientists’ feet to the fire and demand a high level of integrity in their public discourse. At the very least, all scientific organizations must embrace a public Vegan policy so that it sends the right message to the public as well as the participants.

Let’s bring on the end times for the Scientific Cowspiracy.