Conservatives, always content with mocking environmentalism and liberals while the planet burns, have capitalized on a misunderstanding of how animal agriculture contributes to climate change.
By all appearances, they are extremely angry at the fact that meat may be the next target for climate change activists. As the more progressive, younger crowd starts to take over positions of power, we are finally seeing animal agriculture’s damage to the environment being brought to public attention. And the Republicans couldn’t be more upset.
Millennials get it. We’ve tried the Beyond Burger, we’ve stopped drinking milk, and we’ve seen Cowspiracy. The damage being done to the environment as a result of livestock farming is absolutely undeniable.
So what are the conservatives left with? Just jokes, I guess.
This isn’t really all that new. If you’ve been browsing MAGA Twitter, as I have been for some time now, you’ve seen memes — typically featuring unflattering images of prominent Democrats — used in the most denigrating possible manner to push their agenda. They hate liberals, often violently, and they aren’t afraid to show it. But when they’re not calling for civil war against their fellow Americans and government, they make pathetic attempts at persuasion via humor. It works to convince no one, but bolsters their self-certainty.
One “argument” against the existence of climate change in general, and the contribution of animal agriculture to it in particular, is that it comes from cow farts. That’s right, this is middle-school-level humor being deployed against science, so that we can continue to destroy the planet without giving Meatless Monday a try.
Always content with getting it wrong, MAGA Twitter isn’t even correct that it’s cow farts. Cows actually don’t even fart; they burp. A lot. And yeah, it smells awful.
But the fact that they want it to be cow farts just shows how idiotic these folks are willing to be. They’re willing to bend the truth to make a joke that’s only funny to them and teenagers because the fact that it appeals to their pathetic sense of humor discounts science.
Unfortunately, this is the type of person we’re contending with when we are trying to raise awareness about climate change and animal agriculture. Thankfully, these people tend to be bumbling fools, so perhaps we can continue to engage in productive work unimpeded.
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