Beyond Social Engineering

Beyond Social Engineering

 by John Schroeder

Julie Kelly and Jeff Stier have an op-ed this morning in WSJ discussing the recent “determination” by the World Health Organization that processed and red meat is a carcinogen on the same level as cigarettes and plutonium. They first establish, and effectively I might add, how very specious is the evidence supporting that conclusion. But then they ask why would the WHO make such a finding on such thin data and arrive at a startling conclusion – climate change. Here is the “meat” (pun intended) of their argument:

Now we get to the connection between climate alarmism and the meat-is-bad movement. In advance of the Paris climate talks, the World Health Organization released a lengthy report about climate pollutants and global health risks. The section on agriculture discusses the need to direct consumers away from foods whose production emits high levels of greenhouse gases: “A key action with large potential climate and health benefits is to facilitate a shift away from high-GHG foods—many of which are of animal origin—and towards healthy, low-GHG (often plant-based) alternatives.”

I do not know whether to laugh or cry. The tears are easy to understand. This is social engineering on a massive level. The arrogance of wanting to mess with our diets is stunning. They go on to talk about taxation and other methods of altering public behavior, presumably because they think we are too stupid to respond to actual facts. It is odd, most meat consumption happens in highly developed and highly educated countries. You would think these are the countries best prepared to respond to reasoned discussion rather than social manipulation. But the laughter response comes from a very different place.
(There is a slight vulgarity warning from this point forward in this post.) Let’s be honest about what they mean when they say, “foods whose production emits high levels of greenhouse gases.” They are talking about beef and pigs and chickens and turkeys. These are animals that ingest grain, break it down into its constituent parts and then use some of the parts for nutrition. The unusable parts are then pushed out of their bodily systems as waste. The waste includes all three common states of matter – liquid, solid, and gas. It is that third one that the WHO is concerned about when they say, “emits high levels of greenhouse gases.”
What they want to control here is barking spiders…cheek squeaks…panty burps…the ‘ol sphincter siren. That’s right, they want us consuming less meat so we will raise less livestock so there will be fewer animals around to step on a duck…hold orchestra practice…test the Levi wind tunnel…cut the cheese. But far more worrying than that is what will happen when they get their way? Once the livestock booty belches are under control how long will it be before they come for our bull snorts…our really, really nasty cough…our roar from the rear…our thunder from down under?
Well WHO, go ahead, make my day – pull my finger.

http://www.hughhewitt.com/beyond-social-engineering/#more-29322