See, I blame you quite often for your choice to cause the Earth to eat a tasty burger instead of having lettuce (raised organically without GMO’s, of course), beans, and water, or a plant based burger, which is pretty much the same thing, right? Along comes Frank Bruni, who wastes his opinion column with this

Is the Burger Nearing Extinction?
Meat has more competition — and less justification — than ever before.

I liked my patties thin and then I liked them thick. There was the Cheddar period, followed by the Roquefort interregnum. Sesame-seed buns gave way to English muffins as ketchup traded places with special sauce or even, God help me, guacamole, which really was overkill.

But no matter its cradle or condiment, the hamburger was with me for the long haul — I was sure of that.

Until now.

A few days ago I tripped across news that McDonald’s was testing a vegetable-based patty, coming soon to a griddle near you. The McPlant burger, they’re calling it — a McOxymoron if ever I’ve heard one. And McDonald’s is late to the game. Burger King has been selling a meatless Impossible Whopper since 2019. Dunkin’ has been serving a Beyond Sausage Breakfast Sandwich for nearly as long. (snip through other nasty meatless options)

This is the future: not a meatless one — not anytime soon — but one with less meat. I’m now sure of that. It’s the inevitable consequence of alarm over climate change, to which livestock farming contributes significantly. (Gates’s meatless musings were in the context of his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”)

When does the NY Times ban burgers at their giant building which has a massive carbon footprint?

Nature’s Fynd, which has attracted almost $160 million in funding, belongs to the third track: fermentation-derived proteins made from microorganisms, like fungi, that can be coaxed in a meaty, cheesy, creamy or milky direction. This track is arguably the most exciting — in terms of affordability, versatility, environmental gentleness and untapped possibility. There are microbes out there just waiting to feed us.

This opinion piece is actually looking more like an advertisement for Nature’s Fynd, because it spends a lot of time on the company.

Last month, Nature’s Fynd unveiled a direct-order breakfast combo of faux-sausage patties and a mock cream cheese for $14.99 and quickly sold out. It’s restocking and expects to have those products plus others — maybe the yogurt, maybe meatballs — on store shelves later this year. If all goes well, it will expand from there. A burger can’t be too far off.

Wait, what? $14.99? I can get a Big Breakfast (no pancakes) with a chocolate milk at McDonald’s or head to Bonjangle’s for a steak biscuit with egg, fries, and sweet tea, both under $5 before tax. This “eco-friendly” stuff looks expensive.

But given the long love affair that many humans, including this one, have had with animal meat, is there really a chance that these substitutes can make all that much headway in the near future? Thomas Jonas, the chief executive of Nature’s Fynd, said that a conspicuous change in America’s beverage-scape suggests so.

“Ten or 15 years ago, if you were looking at soy milk or almond milk, you were looking at something that was considered to be for health stores and tree-huggers and hippies, right?” he said. Now, both take up considerable space in every supermarket I visit, and there’s nary a coffee shop without one or the other. Nobody, Jonas argued, would have predicted that.

Both soy and almond, especially the latter, use immense amounts of water to produce their product. They’re fads. And, per the tenets of the Cult of Climastrology, bad for climate change. These people are all nuts. They’re aren’t eating or drinking this stuff because they like it but because their cult tells them to.

His big tree ring study leading to the “hockey stick” was a bunch of mule fritters, so, sure, let’s listen to him again as he fear mongers

Humans, not nature, are the cause of changes in Atlantic hurricane cycles, new study finds

It’s well known in science that for more than a century hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean has oscillated between active and inactive periods, each lasting a few decades. For the past couple of decades, meteorologists and climate scientists have believed that this ebb and flow was due to a natural warming and cooling cycle built into the climate system called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, or AMO.

The term was coined in the year 2000 by world-renowned climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University and author of the new book “The New Climate War.” The concept of the AMO has become ubiquitous in explanations and forecasts of active or inactive hurricane seasons.

The image below, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), shows how hurricane activity seems to flow in roughly 60-year waves — active for around 30 years when the Atlantic in its warm phase and inactive for around 30 years when in the cool phase.

But today, in a newly released paper in the journal Science, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation may have been dealt a deadly blow — by the very man who named it. Mann now concludes the AMO is very likely an artifact of climate change, driven by “human forcing” from rising carbon emissions in the modern era and “natural forcing” due to massive volcanic eruptions in pre-industrial times.

It’s just very convenient that Mann, along with the rest of the Cult of Climastrology, can say “see, back then it was all nature but now it’s Your Fault,” eh?

The finding — which is bound to generate significant controversy and pushback from the weather and climate communities due to how broadly accepted the concept of the AMO has become — may very well shake the foundations of understanding of what has been driving historical hurricane cycles.

Simply put, if true, this discovery means that during the 20th century and beyond, humans — not natural variability — have been the main driving force in the up-and-down cycles of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean.

I wonder how many faulty premises and data points will be in this study? Meh, it matters little to the Cult, because this now gives them an excuse to call for more taxes and government Authority.

It’s always great when people who aren’t anywhere close to being experts, or even amateurs, in a field like to tell the experts how to do their jobs

How farmers could fight climate change (and make a profit)

Agriculture has never been a principal focus of efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. But farm emissions — which make up about 10% of the U.S. total — are coming under increasing scrutiny as Democrats take the reins of agricultural policy and farmers themselves awaken to the threats of climate change. One strategy in particular is getting attention this year: encouraging farmers to view emissions reduction and carbon sequestration as potential sources of income.

The idea is fairly straightforward. Farmers would take steps to reduce their carbon output, such as reducing tillage to avoid releasing soil carbon, planting cover crops to hold carbon in the soil, applying manure treatments and “digesters” to limit emissions of methane, and using nitrogen fertilizer more precisely to lower nitrous-oxide emissions. In return, they could sell credits to companies looking to reduce their own climate footprint. Private markets for such credits are already springing up, and Congress took measures to encourage similar exchanges in the 2008 Farm Bill.

So, Democrats are going to use government force to “encourage” farmers to not use their fields to grow food, and to use older, less safe processes like spraying shit instead of modern treatments on the growing food. And the farmers will somehow make money by selling credits on these mythical private markets for credits, which are really backed by and mandated by Government.

But much about this concept has yet to be worked out, notably the basic question of how to measure the climate value of various farming practices. Here the U.S. Department of Agriculture could help. A Senate bill introduced last year would direct the USDA to create standards for measuring the effectiveness of climate-protection measures on farms, certify people to help farmers take such measurements and verify their value, and work with the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor private carbon-credit markets.

More government interference and control of the agriculture sector. Which means cost increases for food. All for a mythical problem.

Such exchanges could go a long way toward encouraging farmers to reduce emissions and sequester carbon. But they won’t work unless regulators can ensure that they’ll actually bring substantial climate benefits. The danger is that a carbon-credit system might instead mainly enable airlines, investment funds, energy firms, agribusinesses and other companies to excuse their own greenhouse-gas emissions by purchasing inexpensive and largely meaningless offsets.

It won’t make a difference in the climate at all. It will make farmers, who are independent spirits, resist like heck.

By setting standards for measurement and verification, and monitoring the private markets, the USDA can maximize the potential of “carbon farming.” It can also extend the benefits beyond the big operations, which can most easily demonstrate emissions reductions, to smaller farms — by helping them participate in collective efforts. If such measurements proved reliable, the Biden administration’s proposal to create a government “carbon bank” — which would buy credits from farmers for a guaranteed price per ton — might act as a powerful incentive for farmers big and small.

Sure sounds less like a private market and more like government dominance, eh?

That said, carbon trading does hold significant promise for limiting emissions on the farm — so long as it’s based on verifiable practices that will allow markets to accurately value the credits. The first step is to get the right data.

I suggest that would start implementing these types of carbon trading schemes on credentialed news outlets, print, TV, and even Internet, let’s see if they’re good with trading schemes when they apply to their own industry. No? They’d be mad? Huh.