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People can “still have a steak” amid rapidly rising global temperatures, according to Elon Musk. The billionaire CEO of X (formerly Twitter) and Tesla made the comment during his live-streamed conversation on August 12 with US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Over the course of two hours, Musk and Trump shared their views on the climate crisis among other issues.
Read more: What Has Kamala Harris Said About Meat, Animals, And The Environment?
“It’s not like the house is on fire immediately,” said Musk, giving a timeframe of 50 to 100 years for human society to become “mostly sustainable” as “probably okay.”
He said that “on balance” it might be better to decarbonize faster rather than slower, but “without vilifying the oil and gas industry” or vilifying people for eating cows.
Climate science says otherwise.
Repeating falsehoods
Musk’s defence of red meat echoes comments made previously by US political figures. Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vislack, a Democrat, told the Guardian in 2021: “I do not think we have to reduce the amount of meat or livestock produced in the US. And a significant percentage is exported. It’s not a question of eating more or less or producing more or less. The question is making production more sustainable.”
His remarks came in the wake of Republicans having pushed the falsehood that Joe Biden was going to take away Americans’ burgers.
Trump has been peddling the same lie recently about Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris. At his rallies, Trump has claimed several times that Harris will ban red meat if she wins the election in November. In fact, Harris has said that she supports creating incentives for people to eat more healthily and sustainably.
Meat’s climate footprint
According to a study by a team of international scientists, emissions from the global food system will push us well past 1.5°C of warming even if we stopped burning fossil fuels immediately.
Raising animals, particularly cows, for meat has the biggest impact on the climate and the environment of all foods. Animal agriculture contributes at least 16.5 percent of total global emissions. The reason that ruminant animals like cows are so bad for the climate is that they produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas with up to 80 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere. In addition, the vast amount of land used to graze animals or grow food to feed them — 80 percent of all agricultural land — could otherwise be absorbing carbon if it were returned to nature.
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“I could not disagree more with Elon Musk,” Dr Shireen Kassam, founder of Plant Based Health Professionals, told Plant Based News. “The most impactful action we can all take to reduce our impact on the planet is to shift to a plant-based diet with elimination of red meat consumption being crucial.”
Several studies have shown that a widespread shift to plant-based diets is essential for reducing emissions. Without this dietary shift, global meat-eating trends would lead to an estimated 80 percent rise in food emissions and land clearing.
“Real and present threat”
Contrary to Musk’s claim that “the house” is not “on fire immediately,” the world has already begun to breach key climate limits. For the first time, global temperatures were above the 1.5°C limit for an entire year from February 2023.
Meanwhile, scientists have said that the climate crisis made extreme heat in the US and Mexico earlier this year around 35 times more likely. The heat claimed more than 100 lives in Mexico. In Europe, there were an estimated 50,000 heat-related deaths in 2023, which was the second warmest year on record for the continent.
“The climate crisis is a real and present threat,” said Dr Kassam. “In fact, the WHO has stated that the climate crisis is a fundamental threat to human health, and is already negatively impacting the health of many populations around the world.”
Read more: London At ‘Clear Risk’ Of Wildfires Caused By The Climate Crisis
