Eat the rich and save the planet
Is it time we put down the plant-based burgers and snacked on something better for the planet: the 1% who are creating most of the carbon emissions?
COP26 still has a few days to run, but it’s hard to see what the final week will achieve given the lack of any significant progress when the world’s leaders were actually there. And when I say ‘there’ I mean many were there in mind, if not in body: the President of the country that emits the most carbon in the world, China, didn’t even show up.
The leader of the second-biggest emitter, the USA, was there in person, but he wouldn’t commit to reducing coal use. Number three was also there and made an unexpected and welcome announcement that India would be net-zero by 2070. By which time Kolkata and Mumbai will probably be underwater.
The host nation’s Prime Minister, meanwhile, hot-footed it from the meeting in Glasgow on a private jet so he could make it in time for dinner in London with a climate change denying newspaper columnist.
What, then, has the meeting achieved beyond introducing delegates from around the world to the elixir of life that is Stewart’s Cream of the Barley and the delights of a bag of pakora dunked in a lurid pink sauce at midnight on Sauchiehall Street? Pretty much nothing. It appears that the measures agreed at the meeting won't keep warming below the crucial 1.5 degrees centigrade required by mid-century — even if they are implemented, which seems as likely as a world leader taking the train.
One of the few achievements at COP26 so far was the pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, so reducing emissions of the substance famously created by cows will have a more immediate impact on climate change than targeting carbon dioxide alone. The average beef cow produces 55kg of methane a year and short of fitting backpacks to capture this methane (This has been done already), reducing these emissions is going to come down to eating less meat. By way of an example, a Big Mac has a carbon footprint of 4kg CO2-equivalent gases, of which 2.6kg comes from the burps and farts of the cow. Delivering those burgers by electric vehicle isn’t going to be enough to address climate change. Eating less beef will help, though.
You’d think most of us would give up burgers for the sake of the sad-faced polar bears, but you’d be wrong. Nearly half (46%) of people recently surveyed feel there is no need to change their personal habits to address climate change. As climatic disaster edges ever closer we whinge about the cost of heat pumps, or pledge that it would take a million pounds to eat insects instead of beef, and refuse to forego that annual long haul holiday.
It was recently revealed that the top 1% on planet earth by income — a paltry 77 million individuals out of 7.7 billion — are responsible for 16% of carbon emissions. Indeed, they create more than the entire 50% of the world that sits at the bottom of the pile. These precious few create more emissions than those 3.8 billion people combined.
Those in the top 1% each create an average of 110 tonnes of CO2 a year, while those in the bottom 50% are each responsible for a miserly 1.6 tonnes. The top 0.1% create 467 tonnes, while the top 0.01% — a mere 771,100 people — are responsible for a staggering 2,530 tonnes per person per annum. What’s more, the rate of emissions growth is higher amongst the richest: the same top 1% was responsible for 21% of the growth in carbon emissions between 1990 and 2019, compared to 16% created by the entire bottom 50% of planet earth.
They may be criticised for their jute shopping bags, recycling bins and bamboo toothbrushes, but it’s not the middle class who are driving the growth in emissions. According to the same report, emissions “notably declined” among groups above the bottom 80% and below the top 5%. These groups “mainly correspond to lower and middle-income groups in rich countries.” No, it’s the super-rich who are to blame.
This leads me to suggest that the solution to our methane challenge is not eating pricey plant-based burgers. Desperate times require desperate measures.
Put simply, why don’t we eat the rich instead?
Much like the cockroaches and locusts we are encouraged to consider as alternatives to our current meat-based diet, the rich provide a readily available source of protein. Eating the rich would not only answer the needs of a planet that must fill growing numbers of bellies; given the top 1%’s fecund relationship with carbon, eating them would actually lower emissions and help save the planet from certain doom.
There’s more to this plan. One of the problems faced in the battle against climate change is how best to nudge consumers towards changing their behaviour. Persuading them to take the train instead of the car, to turn down the thermostat and send less to landfill. Eating the rich neatly circumvents this problem, in that the top 1% hold a similar place in most people’s hearts as the aforementioned cockroaches and locusts. So unlike most climate measures, this one will be popular. We kill and eat 50 billion chickens every year and we don't claim to dislike them. On that basis, I’m sure we have the stomach to eat a few billionaires.
Promoting the super-rich as food should be as easy as pushing against an open (larder) door. As simple as plucking their low-hanging fruit, if you can bear that mental image. Hell, the only nudge I imagine being needed will be the one that rearranges sizzling 28-day dry-aged rump steaks on a flaming grill, the meat tenderized by all those trips in the cosseting seats of a private jet.
I know you have questions. Like, isn’t cannibalism a bad thing? How does slaughtering and eating our fellow human beings sit with the command to love thy neighbour? Even the agnostic may struggle with the ethics of Homo Sapiens Osso Bucco.
Throughout history, cannibalism has been viewed as a last-ditch effort to stay alive in the face of severe challenges, whether a winter so bad it forced travellers to seek refuge in a cave for months or a plane crash that left passengers stranded in the Andes. Yet climate change represents precisely such a challenge — perhaps the greatest challenge the planet has ever faced. If not now, then precisely when will cannibalism be acceptable?
Wait, I hear you say. In devouring the rich, will we not simply exhaust yet another precious resource, just as we have done with water, trees and other examples of nature’s bounty? Not this time. As a global pandemic recently taught us, someone will always find a way to profit from calamity, and as the climate grows ever more changeable, plenty more super-rich will rise to the top, fattened and ready for slaughter. The super-wealthy are nothing if not a renewable source of protein.
The proof of the pudding is in the tasting, however, and faced with eating the rich, I appreciate that the squeamish might question the provenance of the food before them. Reminded of the UK’s horsemeat scandal of a few years ago, they may look down at the juicy chop on their plate and ask, where has it been?
That’s simple. In the vast majority of cases, it will have spent years being pampered in Swiss pastures: Verbier, perhaps, or Gstaad. Maybe the Hollywood hills. Monaco, Miami or Hong Kong.
The animal will have grazed on blackened cod in Nobu and foie gras in the Jules Verne. Endless spa treatments, peloton sessions and access to the best healthcare will mean the meat on your plate will be in the best possible condition. Good schools and the best university education will ensure traceability throughout the food chain.
Put any qualms aside, then, as you sit down to eat. Think of the lump of meat before you as a regular Chateaubriand, but Chateau-bred. Or as a Cote de Beouf, but from the Cote d’Azur. Even as you enjoy a humble burger, think of its whopper of a bank account. But don’t forget you’re also saving the planet as you chew.
