They make propaganda. You just happened to notice this one is propaganda. That doesn’t mean it’s “bad.” Just that it isn’t a neutral reflection of reality despite their pretenses.
FWIW I’m defining “propaganda” here as “The stylized presentation of a select amount of information to persuade someone to adopt or consider a position.”
This is distinct from what people call “art” which is “stylized presentation of one’s perception of reality as one sees it.”
The question then is not, “which of there’s is propaganda” so much as “which is NOT propaganda.” Virtually all of the topics they cover involve incredibly contentious topics. While they give pro forma disclaimers to the nuance and offer some sources, ultimately, intentional or not, that’s part of the persuasion.
FWIW I am biased for a few reasons, (1) I used to make propaganda for a major federal agency so I’m prone towards Type2 on this subject, (2) I have a radically different philosophy from them, (3) I’m a lawyer so I tend to recognize the syllogistic structure and unspecified premises more much to the chagrin of anyone around me. 😅
I'm a big fan of Kurzgesagt's videos and other materials as well, but I also thought that video was not up to their usual standards. Thank you for investing the time to point out the flaws!
I think the focus on the emissions aspect of meat is a weird result of a human bias created out of our cultural game of "telephone". It seems plausible to me that very knowledgeable environmentalists looked at factory farmed beef production in the United States and saw how unsustainable it is and how damaging it is to waterways, biodiversity (the corn farmed to feed the cows), takes more land to feed the same number of people with a growing global population, etc. and then added in at the end "They also contribute to climate change" without getting across the nuance that it's a small effect. But because so many "environmentalists" are only capable of thinking in terms of carbon emissions and climate change, to the point where I think that when they hear "sustainability" they hear "net-zero carbon emissions", the last part is repeated and emphasized as the meme spreads. It's what's readily processed by a culture primed to hear the ills of something in terms of its greenhouse gases. That or it's an oil company ploy to distract us and now it has enough momentum that normal environmentalists will discuss it with no more oil profits out funding the misinformation campaign. Of course grass fed beef on the other hand is good for ecosystems adapted for a grazing animal, but we couldn't eat beef at current rates and get it all grass fed. With the restriction of supply, beef would go back to being a luxury product, which I'm personally okay with, as a cheap steak isn't worth the ills of factory farmed meats to me, but those externalities aren't priced in. We could go back to eating way more eggs like we did when every family with a bit of land had a garden and a chicken coop. And eggs taste way better from pasture raised hens than factory. Turn the suburbs into chicken pasture.
This article needed to be written! I also really like their channel, but their attitudes towards animal foods definitely lean towards propaganda. A subtle tell is one line they slipped into one of their videos, I think it was about milk. They said farming animals is "basically torture". I raise various meat animals and personally know conventional and regenerative farmers. In either case, most farmers are deeply concerned for the health, welfare and comfort of their animals on a moral level. If you want to be cynical, a farm is a business and contrary to propaganda, sick, depressed, and abused animals don't produce as well!
Generally speaking, the public has very little understanding about domesticated farm animals, their genetics, their intelligence, and their temperaments. The science that Kurzgesagt's mostly urban audience consumes lacks nuance, and many of those scientists haven't spent a lot of time on farms.
It seems to me that the anti meat crowd are reasoning from a false prior. "animal agriculture is bad/unethical" lets find justification. You've done great work on showing how veganism is not really about better health, its about ethics. People try to sell it on health because your average consumer has become very health conscious.
I think its the same thing with environmental impacts. "Eating animals is obviously bad, how do we show this in an environmental context".
The thing that really drives me nuts is how the impacts of plant based agriculture which is ENTIRLEY reliant on synthetic fertilizers produced from natural gas, is totally ignored. Kurzgesagt talks about the need to get away from fossil fuels all over their channel. Where's that fertilizer coming from? Your only source of fertilizer would be animals!
I could go on, but yes its propaganda that is all to common, and I appreciate you covering it.
In the end, you've taken the freedom of a huge number of animals, forcefully impregnated them, took the babies from their mother (clearly against their will) and unnecessarily end their life once they are of no profit anymore.
There's nothing you can say to make that sound good, it's not.
What do we need those massive amounts of milk for? No one needs that, there are alternatives that are even more nutritious, and even if not, harming an animal like that has no excuses.
I think it's disgusting how dairy farmers forcefully impregnate cows. Pigs aren't handled any better and chicken are the true losers.
And all of them are innocent, what did they do to deserve being born into this torturous life?
Just because you try to treat your animals right any other time, doesn't take away from your actions when those horrible things have to be done.
Wow there are lot of prior assumptions in your arguments that need to unpacked. Just out of curiosity, what do you think happens to bovines, poultry and pigs in nature? Do you think that bulls ask the cows if they're in the mood for some consensual love making. Does a cow agonize over whether or not it's ready to be a good mother? No, in nature she doesn't get artificially inseminated, she gets raped by a 2000 pound bull that may or may not accidentally kill her in the process. You ever see chickens or pigs mate? It's not a pleasant experience for the female.
Life in nature is far more brutal than life on the farm. Parasites, disease and predators mean that prey animals (cows, pigs, chickens) will live painful short lives. In the wild, cows will still have babies every year. Instead of being separated by a farmer, they will be eaten alive in front of her by predators. And guess, what? That cow will walk away and move on once she know the babies are dead. Prey animals have no where near the sophisticated social structures that predators do because most of them will die. If cows got depressed because their babies got eaten, they wouldn't exist as a species.
You are grossly anthropomorphizing a non human animal. A cow or a chicken lacks the physical hardware to have a consciousness as we would understand it. There may be an argument for pigs, but again, they aren't even close to human levels of intelligence. They are not human, they don't have human thoughts or emotions, and they don't see the world like us. Your entire moral value system is based on fantasy.
In regards to who needs milk or not, who are you to decide what people do and don't need? Who are you to decide what is more compatible and nutritious for an individual persons physiology? Furthermore, why are you arrogant enough to believe our ancestors are idiots? If there are more nutritious options readily available, why did they waste thousands of years domesticating animals?
Surely if livestock was a net loss in calories and nutrition, then our ancestors, who died from famine on a regular basis, wouldn't have wasted their time?
Here's a radical thought. On most of the planet it is impossible to grow a balanced plant based diet year round, especially in northern climates where dairy was the only source of fresh food and protein in the winter.
Well that was then you say, we have healthy processed plant based meat and oat milk now. That doesn't hurt animals! Wrong again.
Think about how many animals and habitats are damaged by those container ships bringing you fresh produce and grain during the winter. What about all the animals killed in the moncorpped fields to make your processed plant based alternatives.
I can tell you've never been involved in agriculture because you don't know how it works. Where does fertilizer come from? You have manure from the meat industry, primarily used in organic production, and you have synthetic fertilizers made from fossil fuels. Without the meat industry, your only option is synthetic fertilizers. How many animals died in the BP oil spill? How many will be harmed when we drill in the arctic? What about the habitat loss from phosphorus mining?
I've got bad news for you. There's as much animal blood and suffering on your vegan hands as anybody else. Life is not a fantasy and involves painful trade offs. Welcome to planet Earth.
Btw I agree that factory farming sucks, but you go to far. Your ignorance and arrogance are sadly all to common, as most people have no concept about why the agricultural system is the way it is and how it works.
The farm animals we have today would not exist in nature. What you're forgetting with all your arguments is that we BREED billions of animals into existence. They shouldn't have existed in the first place.
Also you have a bunch of fallacies in your thinking. Why do we exist even though we get depressed when we lose our children? Did that evolve in the last 10.000 years? Certainly not.
But whatever you need to keep telling yourself to be able to sleep at night
I'm glad you brought up the fact that we created farm animals. In nature, animals suffer more than farm animals. Parasites, predators, disease, lack of food, water; as Thomas Hobbs says life in nature is nasty brutish and short. I already said the worst of factory farms are not ideal, so lets use a grass fed beef operation as an example.
On a well managed ranch, the surrounding habitat stays in tact (unlike in a vegetable growing operation let alone grain). Cows are in the bovine family, and all bovines are prey animals. This means that in the wild or on a farm, bovines will get pregnant every year, and will eventually be eaten. In nature 99.99% of a bovine's calves will die within the first year. On a farm 99.99% will live until maturity, with breeding stock living out almost their entire natural lifespan. Like their wild counterparts, cows will get pregnant every year. Unlike their wild counterparts, they will probably artificially inseminated, not raped, and possibly injured by a bull. They will never have to worry about starvation or lack of water. Never feel the terror of running for their lives from a predator. When like all prey animals, it is their time to die and be eaten, they won't be suffocated over 20 minutes, poisoned, maimed, or eaten alive. They will experience mild stress related to travel and will instantly cease to exist. Not a bad deal, I know which option I'd pick if I was a cow.
The comparison to nature matters because unlike vegan fantasy land, nature or domestication are the only options on the table for animals. It's weird that you use the the term "shouldn't have existed". I was unaware there was some kind of animal loving god that decides what is and isn't part of the great plan. There is no should and shouldn't in nature, there simply is and isn't.
If you are opposed to animal suffering in general, then we should really humanely euthanize all wild animals right? They "shouldn't" have to suffer after all. If its ok for a chimp to hunt and kill, why can't we do it in a more effective and humane way?
The comment about humans is easy. WE AREN'T PREY ANIMALS! There's an obvious reason why it takes a cow two years to reach maturity and a human takes sixteen. Its the same reason why chickens lay lots of eggs. For animals at the top of the food chain the likelihood of them being eaten when young is very low. It makes sense to invest a lot of time and energy into offspring that will probably survive to adulthood. I personally breed chickens and rabbits, and have seen them abandon kill and eat their babies with no problem. This is because evolution has shaped these animals to have a specific strategy. It is better for the adult to survive and just have more babies, than trying to put serious investment into the offspring. Same goes for the large ruminants and pigs.
I would agree with you that it would be unethical to farm and eat tigers, chimps, and dolphins. They have much more complicated social structures. Which is incidentally, why our ancestors domesticated prey animals! They were already breeding quickly and being eaten in nature! They didn't have a complex social structures, because if they did, they wouldn't have worked as farm animals!
I'm troubled by the fact that didn't address my digression about fertilizer. In your ethical framework, why don't you take into the account the blood on your hands for your plant based diet? Or for that mater the animal (and human) suffering that was required to build your house or apartment, generate the electricity used to read this, make the smart phone you own, etc. This is what's so hypocritical about the vegan argument. You declare something you personally find distasteful as a totally unnecessary and a moral abomination, but then conveniently exempt everything you like, use and value.
If you think third world countries suffering form climate change is unethical, you blame cows, but ignore that fact that chemical fertilizers come from petroleum. You say that a plant based diet is more nutritious and ethical, but ignore the fact that orangutans, and the rain forest are threatened with extinction to grow that diet year round. To supply America with vegetables and almond milk in the winter, California sucks up all the West's water and destroys local ecosystems. Painful trade offs are everywhere and their is no clear moral highroad.
I personally have no problems sleeping at night, because I recognize the world is a complicated place, and these issues have many hidden implications. I have personally raised thousands of animals from birth, and killed hundreds with my own hands. Unlike a lot of the vegan propaganda, I fully understand the implications of what I say and do.
I like Kurzgesagt’s videos and I like your videos that’s why I follow both channels to avoid bias. Overall your article is really great, thanks for doing work for those who don’t go so deep with fact checking!
I totally agree with you. If everyone could just stop fighting about real food and concentrate more on fake food ( think pretty packaging and endless ingredients list), and the way food is produced nowadays, things would advance better. We are being made to feel guilty about taking a bath with recycled water, or for polluting with a T-Bone. Somehow, it became so easy to disregard the pollution generated, and water used by the soda companies, industrial farming, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry, mining, golf courses, private jets, alcohol production, petrol, industrial fishing... The list goes on and on. Let's just stay on food, let's forget vegetables and meat, and think sugar: (sugar cane, corn, beetroot), coffee ( the second most exported commodity in the world), palm oil, coconut oil or tobacco... What should be addressed isn't the eating of the meat or of the vegetable, but what now became the INDUSTRY of raising the beef and growing the vegetables, and the difficulty that real farmers have to do so naturally and to sell their products. The cow doesn't pollute enough to destroy a planet, the industry of cow raising does. We shouldn't stop being omnivores just because a bunch of mindless, crazy, iresponsabile few, decided that farming naturally cannot feed the planet, and a even crazier others, believe that food is evil and destroy Earth.
While I agree with the theme of your statement, I believe the best thing that can widely be done to curb this is boycott the industry. If you are not able to buy from a local grass fed beef farmer directly or a local slaughter house, give up beef. This is what I do now, but through university I was largely vegitarian because I won't touch industrial beef. I'm unsure why WIL seems to defend the industry or deny the impacts so rigorously, when he will regularily say you shouldn't eat grain fed anyway.
That would be the reason for the channel to sneak in propaganda aligned with Gates from time to time when there is a need for a narrative shift.
Remember that Gates can only be seen when there is a need to affect the public mind when he needs to further his agenda. It is not about information, it is about helping him achieve his goals.
The more streams he can push his agenda through, the better for him, and the worse for us, allegedly, of course. :)
That is a well researched article. I think they missed the mark on this one. I wouldn go as far as calling it propaganda, even if it might be it. A analysis with scientific evidence should speak for itself, and the debate can be great on the scientific level. If they see this I'm sure they will be more careful in their next researches and videos.
Saying it is propaganda I think somehow involves politics in the mix, turning it into politics makes people take sides more based on feelings then actual facts.
I suppose the thing that had me choose this more harsh word "propaganda," was that I couldn't imagine they wouldn't be aware of the corners they cut. For example
1) "...methane has caused 23-40% of warming so far" - Obviously we'd want to know how much of that is caused by cows to be relevant.
2) "there's controversy about how bad this is exactly" - IMO it should be their job to sort through that controversy and present the relevant science, otherwise the whole methane section of their video should be scrapped.
If I do end up making a video perhaps I'll use a more tame word, but another thing that made me pause was how at 7:49 in their video they say "While the idea of cows turning useless grass into steak is nice, it is part of a marketing lie." It's simply a fact that cows turn cellulose into food for us - half of a conventional cow's diet is straight up grass. In total, 86% of what cows eat can't be eaten by humans and a lot of that is crop byproducts. Cows not only turn inedible grass into food, but they also turn useless byproducts produced when growing crops for humans into food.
Hello, I have a problem with the "86% of what cows eat can't be eaten by humans" arguement. Inedible does not mean useless afterall, could these inedible byproducts not be used as fertilizer in the form of compost? If it can't or if it is too ineficient could you mention it next time you talk about this topic citing relevant sources.
Also I love your content and this critical stance of yours, which could be considered to be peer review. Best regards
Great post, the one thing that felt off to me was the "it emits 3.3 times the methane of beef per gram of protein" in regards to rice. My immediate thought was "this argument doesn't matter because I don't care about the protein content of rice", so that was the most prominent reason the rice argument wouldnt convince me. The point you're trying to get across as to the incorrect argument though is that it's the "this produces a lot of methane compared to other foods, methane is _obviously_ bad, so this is bad". Your argument as a whole makes sense, just the disconnect in the analogy just made it read less smoothly to me.
Thanks for the feedback! Good point, that would detract from the analogy. There's probably a better analogy out there. About to hit the hay, maybe something will come to me by morning.
Anybody know a link to the ipcc exact page? I’ve been looking for 20 minutes and all the reports are in a different format than the one shown in some of his vids
this makes me think... what other important facts does this channel brush over when discussing a topic. I don't think I will be able to trust them in the future
The emissions from cows is a distraction from the real issues of animal agriculture on the scale we do this in the U.S. is unsustainable for many other reasons.
I think you show an unnecessary bias from your articles start, there is much criticism and work being done in regards to rice culture; Generically modifying rice to create more producive C4 varieties, adding methonegenic bacteria, better controlling patty flooding, adding fish for aquaculture, etc. There is nothing shocking about suggesting this is an issue. There is also a clear difference in that rice is the staple food for half the world, and that half would likely undergo famine otherwise as it is deeply in poverty. No one in the western world is going to die from a beef reduction. And at the same time beef is nearly 3 times as impactful in terms of methane.
But to some core points, Yes NG infrastructure presents a massive liability (perhaps do a video on that and don't just use the fallacious argument A is worse so B is not bad), and yes historical emissions don't guide future actions (outside of international settlements of some sort).
Certainly Methane is a flow gas with a relatively short life span. Its affect overtime is particularly difficult to track. It should be mentioned that methane is prone to causing localized warming as well. But in context of the short term implications of global warming, glacial melt, sea ice loss, and permafrost methane release, the higher pushing effect may be more significant than the GWP-100 suggests.
But regardless, I find it troubling that you continue to focus on only methane emissions, and almost soley USA measures, in this discussion. The US itself is a net beef importer, so even on that scale ignoring global impacts is irresponsible. But higher demand internationally is driving mass deforestation in the Amazon and globally. The carbon emissions for this, subsequent soil carbon release, and the effects of a loss a carbon sink go far beyond methane. They go far beyond green house gases.
But you ignore this biodiversity loss. You ignore that 3 of the top 8 largest water pollution sources in the USA are cattle slaughter houses. You ignore manure runoff into streams and the anoxic conditions created in lake erie or the gulf of mexico. You ignore that an area roughly the size of Iowa is planted with cattle corn, using industrial fertilizers (with associated emissions), specifically to feed cattle (and subsequently biodiversity and carbon sequestration potential for reforestion in the midwest, which was once entirely forest).
Overall your omissions show a clear bias in your discussion, as does your interview with a beef industry insider as the main defense.
To a minor line you're point about Bison heards means the upper estimate is nearly half the current cattle heard, so I don't feel it's particularly strong, and certainly doesn't acknowledge the differences in diet as most cattle are not grass fed though thier entire life.
I watch your channel and follow you because I think you correctly critize dietary consensus in a world of obesity. You bring forward previous research that is/was under appreciated, and point out the extreme liberality that has been taken with simple correlations from relatively small groups. You bring forward well cited research (if going overboard on Angus as an example), and a variety of research. But I believe you're bias toward that healthy life style, and the feedback you receive from fans, has put you out of your depth in this discussion. I'm sure you can see the difference in the number of sources you used in your "debunking video" vs the number in your fasting videos. I have to believe this, or else your genuine dishonesty would sadden me. Please addrss this, call out the industry for its nearly unparalleled destruction (though biofuel and industrial fishing try), and make some videos on what extensive ranging could do in desert or
tundra regions to the actual good of the world.
Signed- A grass fed local beef lover, who understands we can't feed nine billion people like this.
-Read about the methane science and read the new IPCC report's section on methane.
-This comment is an excellent example of what so often happens when people are trying to defend the "eating less meat is good for the planet" narrative. It's such a huge topic that to address the entire picture, any post on this would have to be quite huge, so critics inevitably will be able to bring up some other issue. If the critic doesn't have a counterpoint for what is actually said, they'll bring up some other way meat is "destroying" the planet. If they don't know how to talk the methane science, they'll bring up the amazon rainforest. If you point out that the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is first and foremost driven by government policy, they'll talk about how cows eat all our cereals. With that in mind, if you're saying "OK fine, the methane from cows isn't warming the planet nearly as much as we thought, they don't take all our water, what they eat is mostly inedible by humans and they in fact they are providing the magical service of taking things we can't eat and turn it into much needed protein and nutrients... HOWEVER, that manure runoff though." Then, I'd like to see the source for your claims and see if they still hold up today. Manure runoff is an issue but it's one that can be fixed with proper management. This is why it's odd that the narrative is so often "there are some problems, so go vegan" instead of "farmers need to fix those problems!" Conventional cattle rearing practices aren't perfect - there's room to improve. Farmers are actually reducing methane emissions drastically in California through innovative practices, but no one celebrates that. Considering animal foods provide 48% of our protein but only 24% of our calories is more nutritious than any plant food, I'd say the answer is to push to have that problem fixed, not pour out milk on the street and go vegan. (Btw I don't support factory farmed pork or chicken. In fact I only eat pork or chicken if it's given to me)
-This is another interesting tactic used by people who are against cattle. To understand this topic, you need to talk to someone who knows the industry. However, the moment you work in, with, or alongside the livestock industry, you're biased. Frank Mitloehner is an expert on livestock's impact on the environment. So, I interviewed him about livestock's impact on the environment. Also, ever thing he said in that video of mine is supported by research that is not his own.
-Read the 50 page PDF linked in this post responding to the vegan critics
-Nine billion people can't be fed, much less nourished, without animal agriculture
I also like Kurzgesagt's videos in general, but there have been a couple where I felt they were either oversimplified and/or flawed...this video in particular being one of them. I'm glad you have a platform and can speak up about this!
Have you tried talking with them? Maybe via a comment in youtube or trying to contact them? I get the feeling that they would make another, better video if they're contacted
They make propaganda. You just happened to notice this one is propaganda. That doesn’t mean it’s “bad.” Just that it isn’t a neutral reflection of reality despite their pretenses.
Interesting. Were there other videos you felt were driven mainly by an agenda?
FWIW I’m defining “propaganda” here as “The stylized presentation of a select amount of information to persuade someone to adopt or consider a position.”
This is distinct from what people call “art” which is “stylized presentation of one’s perception of reality as one sees it.”
The question then is not, “which of there’s is propaganda” so much as “which is NOT propaganda.” Virtually all of the topics they cover involve incredibly contentious topics. While they give pro forma disclaimers to the nuance and offer some sources, ultimately, intentional or not, that’s part of the persuasion.
FWIW I am biased for a few reasons, (1) I used to make propaganda for a major federal agency so I’m prone towards Type2 on this subject, (2) I have a radically different philosophy from them, (3) I’m a lawyer so I tend to recognize the syllogistic structure and unspecified premises more much to the chagrin of anyone around me. 😅
Well this video regarding flatten the curve nonsense is another propaganda piece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtN-goy9VOY
I'm just patiently waiting until Joseph stumbles upon the Pasteur vs Bechamp topic. It will be good...
Yes.
I'm a big fan of Kurzgesagt's videos and other materials as well, but I also thought that video was not up to their usual standards. Thank you for investing the time to point out the flaws!
I think the focus on the emissions aspect of meat is a weird result of a human bias created out of our cultural game of "telephone". It seems plausible to me that very knowledgeable environmentalists looked at factory farmed beef production in the United States and saw how unsustainable it is and how damaging it is to waterways, biodiversity (the corn farmed to feed the cows), takes more land to feed the same number of people with a growing global population, etc. and then added in at the end "They also contribute to climate change" without getting across the nuance that it's a small effect. But because so many "environmentalists" are only capable of thinking in terms of carbon emissions and climate change, to the point where I think that when they hear "sustainability" they hear "net-zero carbon emissions", the last part is repeated and emphasized as the meme spreads. It's what's readily processed by a culture primed to hear the ills of something in terms of its greenhouse gases. That or it's an oil company ploy to distract us and now it has enough momentum that normal environmentalists will discuss it with no more oil profits out funding the misinformation campaign. Of course grass fed beef on the other hand is good for ecosystems adapted for a grazing animal, but we couldn't eat beef at current rates and get it all grass fed. With the restriction of supply, beef would go back to being a luxury product, which I'm personally okay with, as a cheap steak isn't worth the ills of factory farmed meats to me, but those externalities aren't priced in. We could go back to eating way more eggs like we did when every family with a bit of land had a garden and a chicken coop. And eggs taste way better from pasture raised hens than factory. Turn the suburbs into chicken pasture.
This article needed to be written! I also really like their channel, but their attitudes towards animal foods definitely lean towards propaganda. A subtle tell is one line they slipped into one of their videos, I think it was about milk. They said farming animals is "basically torture". I raise various meat animals and personally know conventional and regenerative farmers. In either case, most farmers are deeply concerned for the health, welfare and comfort of their animals on a moral level. If you want to be cynical, a farm is a business and contrary to propaganda, sick, depressed, and abused animals don't produce as well!
Generally speaking, the public has very little understanding about domesticated farm animals, their genetics, their intelligence, and their temperaments. The science that Kurzgesagt's mostly urban audience consumes lacks nuance, and many of those scientists haven't spent a lot of time on farms.
It seems to me that the anti meat crowd are reasoning from a false prior. "animal agriculture is bad/unethical" lets find justification. You've done great work on showing how veganism is not really about better health, its about ethics. People try to sell it on health because your average consumer has become very health conscious.
I think its the same thing with environmental impacts. "Eating animals is obviously bad, how do we show this in an environmental context".
The thing that really drives me nuts is how the impacts of plant based agriculture which is ENTIRLEY reliant on synthetic fertilizers produced from natural gas, is totally ignored. Kurzgesagt talks about the need to get away from fossil fuels all over their channel. Where's that fertilizer coming from? Your only source of fertilizer would be animals!
I could go on, but yes its propaganda that is all to common, and I appreciate you covering it.
In the end, you've taken the freedom of a huge number of animals, forcefully impregnated them, took the babies from their mother (clearly against their will) and unnecessarily end their life once they are of no profit anymore.
There's nothing you can say to make that sound good, it's not.
What do we need those massive amounts of milk for? No one needs that, there are alternatives that are even more nutritious, and even if not, harming an animal like that has no excuses.
I think it's disgusting how dairy farmers forcefully impregnate cows. Pigs aren't handled any better and chicken are the true losers.
And all of them are innocent, what did they do to deserve being born into this torturous life?
Just because you try to treat your animals right any other time, doesn't take away from your actions when those horrible things have to be done.
Wow there are lot of prior assumptions in your arguments that need to unpacked. Just out of curiosity, what do you think happens to bovines, poultry and pigs in nature? Do you think that bulls ask the cows if they're in the mood for some consensual love making. Does a cow agonize over whether or not it's ready to be a good mother? No, in nature she doesn't get artificially inseminated, she gets raped by a 2000 pound bull that may or may not accidentally kill her in the process. You ever see chickens or pigs mate? It's not a pleasant experience for the female.
Life in nature is far more brutal than life on the farm. Parasites, disease and predators mean that prey animals (cows, pigs, chickens) will live painful short lives. In the wild, cows will still have babies every year. Instead of being separated by a farmer, they will be eaten alive in front of her by predators. And guess, what? That cow will walk away and move on once she know the babies are dead. Prey animals have no where near the sophisticated social structures that predators do because most of them will die. If cows got depressed because their babies got eaten, they wouldn't exist as a species.
You are grossly anthropomorphizing a non human animal. A cow or a chicken lacks the physical hardware to have a consciousness as we would understand it. There may be an argument for pigs, but again, they aren't even close to human levels of intelligence. They are not human, they don't have human thoughts or emotions, and they don't see the world like us. Your entire moral value system is based on fantasy.
In regards to who needs milk or not, who are you to decide what people do and don't need? Who are you to decide what is more compatible and nutritious for an individual persons physiology? Furthermore, why are you arrogant enough to believe our ancestors are idiots? If there are more nutritious options readily available, why did they waste thousands of years domesticating animals?
Surely if livestock was a net loss in calories and nutrition, then our ancestors, who died from famine on a regular basis, wouldn't have wasted their time?
Here's a radical thought. On most of the planet it is impossible to grow a balanced plant based diet year round, especially in northern climates where dairy was the only source of fresh food and protein in the winter.
Well that was then you say, we have healthy processed plant based meat and oat milk now. That doesn't hurt animals! Wrong again.
Think about how many animals and habitats are damaged by those container ships bringing you fresh produce and grain during the winter. What about all the animals killed in the moncorpped fields to make your processed plant based alternatives.
I can tell you've never been involved in agriculture because you don't know how it works. Where does fertilizer come from? You have manure from the meat industry, primarily used in organic production, and you have synthetic fertilizers made from fossil fuels. Without the meat industry, your only option is synthetic fertilizers. How many animals died in the BP oil spill? How many will be harmed when we drill in the arctic? What about the habitat loss from phosphorus mining?
I've got bad news for you. There's as much animal blood and suffering on your vegan hands as anybody else. Life is not a fantasy and involves painful trade offs. Welcome to planet Earth.
Btw I agree that factory farming sucks, but you go to far. Your ignorance and arrogance are sadly all to common, as most people have no concept about why the agricultural system is the way it is and how it works.
The farm animals we have today would not exist in nature. What you're forgetting with all your arguments is that we BREED billions of animals into existence. They shouldn't have existed in the first place.
Also you have a bunch of fallacies in your thinking. Why do we exist even though we get depressed when we lose our children? Did that evolve in the last 10.000 years? Certainly not.
But whatever you need to keep telling yourself to be able to sleep at night
I'm glad you brought up the fact that we created farm animals. In nature, animals suffer more than farm animals. Parasites, predators, disease, lack of food, water; as Thomas Hobbs says life in nature is nasty brutish and short. I already said the worst of factory farms are not ideal, so lets use a grass fed beef operation as an example.
On a well managed ranch, the surrounding habitat stays in tact (unlike in a vegetable growing operation let alone grain). Cows are in the bovine family, and all bovines are prey animals. This means that in the wild or on a farm, bovines will get pregnant every year, and will eventually be eaten. In nature 99.99% of a bovine's calves will die within the first year. On a farm 99.99% will live until maturity, with breeding stock living out almost their entire natural lifespan. Like their wild counterparts, cows will get pregnant every year. Unlike their wild counterparts, they will probably artificially inseminated, not raped, and possibly injured by a bull. They will never have to worry about starvation or lack of water. Never feel the terror of running for their lives from a predator. When like all prey animals, it is their time to die and be eaten, they won't be suffocated over 20 minutes, poisoned, maimed, or eaten alive. They will experience mild stress related to travel and will instantly cease to exist. Not a bad deal, I know which option I'd pick if I was a cow.
The comparison to nature matters because unlike vegan fantasy land, nature or domestication are the only options on the table for animals. It's weird that you use the the term "shouldn't have existed". I was unaware there was some kind of animal loving god that decides what is and isn't part of the great plan. There is no should and shouldn't in nature, there simply is and isn't.
If you are opposed to animal suffering in general, then we should really humanely euthanize all wild animals right? They "shouldn't" have to suffer after all. If its ok for a chimp to hunt and kill, why can't we do it in a more effective and humane way?
The comment about humans is easy. WE AREN'T PREY ANIMALS! There's an obvious reason why it takes a cow two years to reach maturity and a human takes sixteen. Its the same reason why chickens lay lots of eggs. For animals at the top of the food chain the likelihood of them being eaten when young is very low. It makes sense to invest a lot of time and energy into offspring that will probably survive to adulthood. I personally breed chickens and rabbits, and have seen them abandon kill and eat their babies with no problem. This is because evolution has shaped these animals to have a specific strategy. It is better for the adult to survive and just have more babies, than trying to put serious investment into the offspring. Same goes for the large ruminants and pigs.
I would agree with you that it would be unethical to farm and eat tigers, chimps, and dolphins. They have much more complicated social structures. Which is incidentally, why our ancestors domesticated prey animals! They were already breeding quickly and being eaten in nature! They didn't have a complex social structures, because if they did, they wouldn't have worked as farm animals!
I'm troubled by the fact that didn't address my digression about fertilizer. In your ethical framework, why don't you take into the account the blood on your hands for your plant based diet? Or for that mater the animal (and human) suffering that was required to build your house or apartment, generate the electricity used to read this, make the smart phone you own, etc. This is what's so hypocritical about the vegan argument. You declare something you personally find distasteful as a totally unnecessary and a moral abomination, but then conveniently exempt everything you like, use and value.
If you think third world countries suffering form climate change is unethical, you blame cows, but ignore that fact that chemical fertilizers come from petroleum. You say that a plant based diet is more nutritious and ethical, but ignore the fact that orangutans, and the rain forest are threatened with extinction to grow that diet year round. To supply America with vegetables and almond milk in the winter, California sucks up all the West's water and destroys local ecosystems. Painful trade offs are everywhere and their is no clear moral highroad.
I personally have no problems sleeping at night, because I recognize the world is a complicated place, and these issues have many hidden implications. I have personally raised thousands of animals from birth, and killed hundreds with my own hands. Unlike a lot of the vegan propaganda, I fully understand the implications of what I say and do.
I like Kurzgesagt’s videos and I like your videos that’s why I follow both channels to avoid bias. Overall your article is really great, thanks for doing work for those who don’t go so deep with fact checking!
I totally agree with you. If everyone could just stop fighting about real food and concentrate more on fake food ( think pretty packaging and endless ingredients list), and the way food is produced nowadays, things would advance better. We are being made to feel guilty about taking a bath with recycled water, or for polluting with a T-Bone. Somehow, it became so easy to disregard the pollution generated, and water used by the soda companies, industrial farming, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry, mining, golf courses, private jets, alcohol production, petrol, industrial fishing... The list goes on and on. Let's just stay on food, let's forget vegetables and meat, and think sugar: (sugar cane, corn, beetroot), coffee ( the second most exported commodity in the world), palm oil, coconut oil or tobacco... What should be addressed isn't the eating of the meat or of the vegetable, but what now became the INDUSTRY of raising the beef and growing the vegetables, and the difficulty that real farmers have to do so naturally and to sell their products. The cow doesn't pollute enough to destroy a planet, the industry of cow raising does. We shouldn't stop being omnivores just because a bunch of mindless, crazy, iresponsabile few, decided that farming naturally cannot feed the planet, and a even crazier others, believe that food is evil and destroy Earth.
While I agree with the theme of your statement, I believe the best thing that can widely be done to curb this is boycott the industry. If you are not able to buy from a local grass fed beef farmer directly or a local slaughter house, give up beef. This is what I do now, but through university I was largely vegitarian because I won't touch industrial beef. I'm unsure why WIL seems to defend the industry or deny the impacts so rigorously, when he will regularily say you shouldn't eat grain fed anyway.
I would like to bring to your attention that the channel is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
See:
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants/2015/11/opp1139276
That would be the reason for the channel to sneak in propaganda aligned with Gates from time to time when there is a need for a narrative shift.
Remember that Gates can only be seen when there is a need to affect the public mind when he needs to further his agenda. It is not about information, it is about helping him achieve his goals.
The more streams he can push his agenda through, the better for him, and the worse for us, allegedly, of course. :)
That is a well researched article. I think they missed the mark on this one. I wouldn go as far as calling it propaganda, even if it might be it. A analysis with scientific evidence should speak for itself, and the debate can be great on the scientific level. If they see this I'm sure they will be more careful in their next researches and videos.
Saying it is propaganda I think somehow involves politics in the mix, turning it into politics makes people take sides more based on feelings then actual facts.
I suppose the thing that had me choose this more harsh word "propaganda," was that I couldn't imagine they wouldn't be aware of the corners they cut. For example
1) "...methane has caused 23-40% of warming so far" - Obviously we'd want to know how much of that is caused by cows to be relevant.
2) "there's controversy about how bad this is exactly" - IMO it should be their job to sort through that controversy and present the relevant science, otherwise the whole methane section of their video should be scrapped.
If I do end up making a video perhaps I'll use a more tame word, but another thing that made me pause was how at 7:49 in their video they say "While the idea of cows turning useless grass into steak is nice, it is part of a marketing lie." It's simply a fact that cows turn cellulose into food for us - half of a conventional cow's diet is straight up grass. In total, 86% of what cows eat can't be eaten by humans and a lot of that is crop byproducts. Cows not only turn inedible grass into food, but they also turn useless byproducts produced when growing crops for humans into food.
Hello, I have a problem with the "86% of what cows eat can't be eaten by humans" arguement. Inedible does not mean useless afterall, could these inedible byproducts not be used as fertilizer in the form of compost? If it can't or if it is too ineficient could you mention it next time you talk about this topic citing relevant sources.
Also I love your content and this critical stance of yours, which could be considered to be peer review. Best regards
Great post, the one thing that felt off to me was the "it emits 3.3 times the methane of beef per gram of protein" in regards to rice. My immediate thought was "this argument doesn't matter because I don't care about the protein content of rice", so that was the most prominent reason the rice argument wouldnt convince me. The point you're trying to get across as to the incorrect argument though is that it's the "this produces a lot of methane compared to other foods, methane is _obviously_ bad, so this is bad". Your argument as a whole makes sense, just the disconnect in the analogy just made it read less smoothly to me.
Thanks for the feedback! Good point, that would detract from the analogy. There's probably a better analogy out there. About to hit the hay, maybe something will come to me by morning.
Anybody know a link to the ipcc exact page? I’ve been looking for 20 minutes and all the reports are in a different format than the one shown in some of his vids
this makes me think... what other important facts does this channel brush over when discussing a topic. I don't think I will be able to trust them in the future
The emissions from cows is a distraction from the real issues of animal agriculture on the scale we do this in the U.S. is unsustainable for many other reasons.
I think you show an unnecessary bias from your articles start, there is much criticism and work being done in regards to rice culture; Generically modifying rice to create more producive C4 varieties, adding methonegenic bacteria, better controlling patty flooding, adding fish for aquaculture, etc. There is nothing shocking about suggesting this is an issue. There is also a clear difference in that rice is the staple food for half the world, and that half would likely undergo famine otherwise as it is deeply in poverty. No one in the western world is going to die from a beef reduction. And at the same time beef is nearly 3 times as impactful in terms of methane.
But to some core points, Yes NG infrastructure presents a massive liability (perhaps do a video on that and don't just use the fallacious argument A is worse so B is not bad), and yes historical emissions don't guide future actions (outside of international settlements of some sort).
Certainly Methane is a flow gas with a relatively short life span. Its affect overtime is particularly difficult to track. It should be mentioned that methane is prone to causing localized warming as well. But in context of the short term implications of global warming, glacial melt, sea ice loss, and permafrost methane release, the higher pushing effect may be more significant than the GWP-100 suggests.
But regardless, I find it troubling that you continue to focus on only methane emissions, and almost soley USA measures, in this discussion. The US itself is a net beef importer, so even on that scale ignoring global impacts is irresponsible. But higher demand internationally is driving mass deforestation in the Amazon and globally. The carbon emissions for this, subsequent soil carbon release, and the effects of a loss a carbon sink go far beyond methane. They go far beyond green house gases.
But you ignore this biodiversity loss. You ignore that 3 of the top 8 largest water pollution sources in the USA are cattle slaughter houses. You ignore manure runoff into streams and the anoxic conditions created in lake erie or the gulf of mexico. You ignore that an area roughly the size of Iowa is planted with cattle corn, using industrial fertilizers (with associated emissions), specifically to feed cattle (and subsequently biodiversity and carbon sequestration potential for reforestion in the midwest, which was once entirely forest).
Overall your omissions show a clear bias in your discussion, as does your interview with a beef industry insider as the main defense.
To a minor line you're point about Bison heards means the upper estimate is nearly half the current cattle heard, so I don't feel it's particularly strong, and certainly doesn't acknowledge the differences in diet as most cattle are not grass fed though thier entire life.
I watch your channel and follow you because I think you correctly critize dietary consensus in a world of obesity. You bring forward previous research that is/was under appreciated, and point out the extreme liberality that has been taken with simple correlations from relatively small groups. You bring forward well cited research (if going overboard on Angus as an example), and a variety of research. But I believe you're bias toward that healthy life style, and the feedback you receive from fans, has put you out of your depth in this discussion. I'm sure you can see the difference in the number of sources you used in your "debunking video" vs the number in your fasting videos. I have to believe this, or else your genuine dishonesty would sadden me. Please addrss this, call out the industry for its nearly unparalleled destruction (though biofuel and industrial fishing try), and make some videos on what extensive ranging could do in desert or
tundra regions to the actual good of the world.
Signed- A grass fed local beef lover, who understands we can't feed nine billion people like this.
-As written, the rice bit was just an analogy.
-Read about the methane science and read the new IPCC report's section on methane.
-This comment is an excellent example of what so often happens when people are trying to defend the "eating less meat is good for the planet" narrative. It's such a huge topic that to address the entire picture, any post on this would have to be quite huge, so critics inevitably will be able to bring up some other issue. If the critic doesn't have a counterpoint for what is actually said, they'll bring up some other way meat is "destroying" the planet. If they don't know how to talk the methane science, they'll bring up the amazon rainforest. If you point out that the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is first and foremost driven by government policy, they'll talk about how cows eat all our cereals. With that in mind, if you're saying "OK fine, the methane from cows isn't warming the planet nearly as much as we thought, they don't take all our water, what they eat is mostly inedible by humans and they in fact they are providing the magical service of taking things we can't eat and turn it into much needed protein and nutrients... HOWEVER, that manure runoff though." Then, I'd like to see the source for your claims and see if they still hold up today. Manure runoff is an issue but it's one that can be fixed with proper management. This is why it's odd that the narrative is so often "there are some problems, so go vegan" instead of "farmers need to fix those problems!" Conventional cattle rearing practices aren't perfect - there's room to improve. Farmers are actually reducing methane emissions drastically in California through innovative practices, but no one celebrates that. Considering animal foods provide 48% of our protein but only 24% of our calories is more nutritious than any plant food, I'd say the answer is to push to have that problem fixed, not pour out milk on the street and go vegan. (Btw I don't support factory farmed pork or chicken. In fact I only eat pork or chicken if it's given to me)
-Re: Cattle eating corn. This is a good thing. Cattle are taking something that is NOT very nutritious for humans and turning it into something very nutritious. See this post: https://josepheverettwil.substack.com/p/kurzgesagt-says-cow-biology-is-a
-This is another interesting tactic used by people who are against cattle. To understand this topic, you need to talk to someone who knows the industry. However, the moment you work in, with, or alongside the livestock industry, you're biased. Frank Mitloehner is an expert on livestock's impact on the environment. So, I interviewed him about livestock's impact on the environment. Also, ever thing he said in that video of mine is supported by research that is not his own.
-Read the 50 page PDF linked in this post responding to the vegan critics
-Nine billion people can't be fed, much less nourished, without animal agriculture
I also like Kurzgesagt's videos in general, but there have been a couple where I felt they were either oversimplified and/or flawed...this video in particular being one of them. I'm glad you have a platform and can speak up about this!
Have you tried talking with them? Maybe via a comment in youtube or trying to contact them? I get the feeling that they would make another, better video if they're contacted
Just a thought
I emailed them, wasn't fruitful
What did they say? Just curiosity, if you don't want to share it's not a problem
Hmm... at this point I feel like it's in poor taste to share. Maybe in the future
Can you link me to the IPCC report you mentioned?