Imagine if Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies suddenly dropped his evil plans of world domination to start an orphanage for wayward kittens. It’s an absurd plotline, but not far off from one of the Earth’s super-carbon-emission emitters himself deciding he will tell you what to eat from now on to save the environment.
Well, if billionaire and delusional nanny-stater Bill Gates has his way, you may be forced to eat ‘synthetic meat’ on a bun instead of a wonderfully tasty and juicy, Grade-A burger. He will still be clogging the air with his personal jet travel, however.
In a recent interview with Technology Review, the increasingly bizarre Microsoft founder declared that Earth’s wealthy nations should force their populaces to eat synthetic meat. Yes, really.
The magazine asked Gates if “plant-based and lab-grown meats could be the full solution to the protein problem globally, even in poor nations?” His answer boggles the mind of any red-blooded American meat-eater.
For Africa and other poor countries, we’ll have to use animal genetics to dramatically raise the amount of beef per emissions for them. Weirdly, the US livestock, because they’re so productive, the emissions per pound of beef are dramatically less than emissions per pound in Africa. And as part of the [Bill and Melinda Gates] Foundation’s work, we’re taking the benefit of the African livestock, which means they can survive in heat, and crossing in the monstrous productivity both on the meat side and the milk side of the elite US beef lines.
So no, I don’t think the poorest 80 countries will be eating synthetic meat. I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time.
For those still living in a sane world, the “protein problem” refers to the eating and farting of cows, which leads to fertilizers poisoning the land and methane emissions stinking up the air.
Gates spoke to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes this month about his plans to stop the Earth’s six-billion-year-old climate from changing. I’m sure it comes as no surprise to find out that Gates will make a lot more money if he forces all wealthy countries to only use artificial meat.
Because cows account for around 4% of all greenhouse gases, Gates has invested in two companies making plant based meat substitutes, Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. But farming the vegetables used to make many meat alternatives emits gases as well, so Gates is also backing a company that’s created an entirely new food source.
Bill Gates: “This company, Nature’s Fynd, is using fungis. And then they turn them into sausage and yogurt. Pretty amazing.”
Anderson Cooper: “When you say fungi, do you mean like mushroom or a microbe?”
Bill Gates: “It’s a microbe.”
The microbe was discovered in the ground in a geyser in Yellowstone National Park. Without soil or fertilizer it can be grown to produce this nutritional protein — that can then be turned into a variety of foods with a small carbon footprint.
Even the left-wing publication The Nation is a bit skeptical of Gates’s intentions of helping stop climate change.
Given Gates’s track record of success inserting himself into other policy debates—everything from US education to global health—it seems likely he will continue to take up oxygen in the climate discourse going forward.
If so, he proceeds from a precarious position, not just because of his thin credentials, untested solutions, and stunning financial conflicts of interest, but because his undemocratic assertion of power—no one appointed or elected him as the world’s new climate czar—comes at precisely the time when democratic institutions have become essential to solving climate change.
You may ask why Bill Gates has vaulted ahead of Al Gore as the soothsayer of climate doom. Well, twenty years ago, he found out that it is hot in Africa while jet-setting on behalf of the Gates Foundation.
Gates never planned to focus on climate change, but while working in Africa with the foundation he started with his wife, Melinda, in 2000, he came to see just how vulnerable those in developing countries are to the effects of rising temperatures.
So 15 years ago Gates started educating himself on climate change, bringing scientists and engineers to his office in Seattle for what he calls “learning sessions.” He also reads voraciously, books and binders full of scientific research.
When all is said and done, Bill Gates’ view of a proper steak dinner is udderly insane.
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