Food and climate change? As always, “Follow the money”

Cabot Phillips, senior editor at The Daily Wire, has published a series of tweets outlining why Bill Gates is so heavily promoting “synthetic meat”.  Here’s part of the Threadreader digest of the discussion.

Bill Gates has quietly become the largest farmland owner in America. At the same time, he’s become a leading voice in the push for “synthetic meat.”

Here’s the story of how Bill Gates is waging a war on meat to make millions – and hiding behind “climate change” to do it. 

Gates now owns over a quarter million acres of U.S. farmland across 19 states. One of his potato farms is so large it can be seen from space.

He’s purchased much of the land through a variety of shell companies to hide that he was the buyer.

. . .

Gates is no stranger to agriculture – in the past, his foundation invested tens of millions into GMO technology, including 23 million in Monsanto in 2010.

But his transition from investing in farming technology, to becoming the leading owner of farmland itself is important.

At the same time Gates began investing in agriculture, he also emerged as one of the world’s leading voices for synthetic meat and other plant based alternatives.

Gates says meat must be abandoned to save the planet.

In the words of Bill Gates, “All rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef.” It’s so important, he says, that government coercion could be necessary to change attitudes.

“You can sort of change the behavior of people or use regulation to totally shift demand.”

If it were up to Bill Gates the world would abandon meat for synthetic and plant-based alternatives.

It just so happens that all the crops used for plant-based meat are grown on farmland now owned by Gates. Oh, and he’s also invested tens of millions in synthetic meat companies.

So how do you get people to leave meat behind? You convince them it’s crucial for fighting climate change.

There’s more at the link, including details of how Gates is funding “studies” that all support the use of synthetic meat while decrying the consumption of “natural” meat.

I’d very much like to know how many of those who’ve invested large sums in “alternative” or “ecological” agriculture are also active in the climate change discussion.  I’d also like to know how many of the same people/institutions have their fingers in the various and sundry pies affecting the current food production crisis in various ways.  Could there be a link?  Looking at the sums involved, frankly, I’ll be surprised if there isn’t.

Looks like the old rule of “follow the money” works for climate change, too.  Who’s promoting it?  Who benefits?  All too often, the names uncovered by each question are the same.

Peter

10 comments

  1. Cui bono has always applied to climate change. You don't think people altruistically build wind farms and solar farms?

    It's rentseeking turtles all the way down

  2. Yes, let's all become totally dependent on highly-processed pseudo-food that comes from centralized, energy-hungry factories.
    It's all so efficient, right up until the whole system collapses. (Hint to Bill the Gates: a time when we're seeing the collapse of highly-optimized industrial systems is not a good time to be pushing for more dependence on similar systems.)
    I've got my little patch of land, a junior tractor that isn't dependent on Arbitrarily Blue-Colored Diesel Exhaust Fluid, and even room to run a few head of cattle should I be so inspired, and I cheerfully salute Mr. Gates in digital fashion.
    (What's going on in the ag world right now makes the fictional antics of United Food and Dressing back in 1963 look downright prescient, albeit understated.)

  3. Grow what I can myself, barter my skills in reloading in exchange for periodic deliveries of processed wild game, and try to patronize restaurants who espouse a farm to table locavore philosophy.
    Funny, not in a good way, how the Powers That Be always underestimate the creativity and innovation that their stupid rules bring out in folks. Americans in particular, but common to most of we downtrodden masses.

  4. So Gates owns a quarter of a million acres of farmland. So what? A quick check with your search engine shows there are 900 million acres of farmland in the country. Gates owns 0.3%. It’s a big farm but absolutely not a significant impact on the country

    I can stack up Ph.D. ruminant scientists with infinitely more qualifications than Gates all day who will show how full of sh*t he is.

    Gates is the traveling snake oil salesman of our day.

  5. Hey Peter;

    It is the "Us vs Them" They will have the real meat and we the "dirt people" will have the Soy meat, They will cloak it on all kinds of "climate warning or what other bells and whistles they want to, but that is the end results. They are trying to bring in a new feudal class and they will be our new "Lords" with different foods and the fake foods will not be as good as the real food that they will eat.

  6. Cows turn grass into meat and thus they are solar powered. Meat is green energy. Seriously, we can eat just about any animal, but less than 0.1% of plants on earth. Real vegans suffer dietary deficiencies all the time. A study was done where 6 people (if memory serves) at only meat for 1 year. Perfectly healthy, no dietary deficiencies. Sugar and Carbohydrates (complex sugars) are what lead to diabetes and Heart Disease – i.e. the digestible parts of plants. 50% of greenspace in the US is grass like lawns, highway medians, etc. If TPTB were worried about food shortages, quit exporting meat (check the figures at the US Meat Institute) and start using those animals to have more animals (Yes- many are culls and we should eat them first). Would an HOA have a cow if they were to play host to a cow or 2, certainly. But there are sheep, goats, poultry, rabbits, Guinea pigs, Kune Kune pigs, Bees, etc. If you look up Joel Salatin you can find out a lot about how various animals can work together to maximize productivity on limited land (I'm learning as I go).

    Bottom line, if you think Uncle Bill has your best interests at heart, I've got a bridge you simply must have. I do need to insist on cash, there's a prince over in Africa I'm helping through some family issues.

  7. saw ascientist who said earth cannot raise enough vegetation to feed all people said meat is produced by animals who can digest the vegetation and is more economical in every way to have most people eat at least some meat

  8. Let Gates eat insects. You know what he'll be eating along with the Davous crowd. Fuck Brandon and all his pals.

  9. I'm with Eric above.

    Bad time to start an industrial lark. Then again, the guy has tons of money.

    Way back in the day when I lived in the DC area, there was an operation called "Murray's Steaks". The sold real meat. But their claim to fame was that old Murray learned from an old black butcher how to take a combination of crappy, sinewy cuts, run them through a grinding (or whatever) process and form them into steaks and meat patties.

    Needless to say, they were cheap. And from time to time my mom would by them to feed our large family. (BTW you could tell when money was tight, we had ham and eggs for dinner).

    Also needless to say, they were fairly gross. With such a thing, you pretty much have to go well done, otherwise, what ends up is even more disgusting.

    That said, I'd take any Murrays product over any fake vegan meat I've ever tried. They are impossible to cook, and taste disgusting. Since throat cancer, I don't taste as well as I used to, but I can taste meat. When I can't taste, all I get is texture. And let me tell you – if you ever have the misfortune to taste fake meat, contemplate the texture while you eat it.

    Riddle me this; How's he going to farm all that acreage with no diesel? Climate change doncha know.

  10. "How's he going to farm all that acreage with no diesel?"
    Soybean oil?
    I'm pretty sure running a modern tractor on biodiesel voids the warranty, but it probably works OK.
    Whether the overall process yields enough excess soybean oil to do anything useful is another matter. (See also: photovoltaic cells manufactured using coal power.)

Leave a Reply to Uncle Lar Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *