"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."

"In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published Livestock’s Long Shadow, a report that revealed animal agriculture’s significant role in the climate crisis.

By showing that livestock production makes up a significant proportion of global emissions – around 18%, though it would later revise that number downward slightly – as well as contributing to other environmental issues including land degradation and water pollution, the report generated headlines and started conversations, helping to make the toll of meat-overconsumption front-page news.

It was also a moment that terrified the meat industry. According to Jennifer Jacquet, associate professor in the department of environmental studies at New York University, Livestock’s Long Shadow helped to inspire meat multinationals and their allies to launch a counteroffensive, working overtime to defend the environmental reputation of meat, especially beef."

"[...] two high-profile culinary institutions dropped meat to protest livestock’s outsized role in the climate crisis: food media outlet Epicurious decided to stop featuring new recipes with beef, and Manhattan restaurant Eleven Madison Park took meat off its menu entirely. The news made headlines.

And when NCBA noted the trend in its monitoring tool, it sprang into action. NCBA started by defending beef’s sustainability in a slate of paid ad buys – which ran in outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post – but it didn’t stop there.

In the private video for Masters of Beef Advocacy students, Pooley described how NCBA worked with celebrity chef Lamar Moore to write a piece insisting on a central place for beef on the plate. That story – which ran with the subhead “Why cutting meat from the menu (or magazine) is misguided”, ran in LA Weekly – and was plugged repeatedly on Twitter by NCBA (and other industry accounts) as if it had no connection to the story.

In fact, none of the pieces NCBA privately admits it played a role in – in LA Weekly, Westword and the Denver Post – disclosed the trade group’s participation.

The industry sees these messaging efforts as part of an existential battle for survival. In the training video, NCBA leaders cited data that found 47% of Americans aren’t sure about the sustainability of beef.

That persuadable middle is a top priority for the industry, they said, as whoever reaches them best has the power to sway the balance of public opinion.

The industry must engage in a “defensive strategy”, Pooley told MBA students. Sustainability, she said, “has the potential to become a crisis if we don’t address it early”."