Archive study finds U.S. cattle lobby answered early methane science with public relations

One widely circulated industry-sponsored estimate put U.S. beef cattle at 0.5% of global methane emissions ^[7]. The trouble is the denominator. According to Jacquet and Loy, the estimate set U.S. cattle against worldwide methane from human activities and natural sources combined, a comparison that would shrink almost any single national sector. They also found the figure difficult to reproduce ^[7].

The stewardship advertising was cheap per head. The Earth Day newspaper campaign works out to about half a cent per estimated reader ^[17]. That reach is an estimate recorded in the archive, not an audience measurement ^[8].

The study is archival. Jacquet, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School, and Loy, a postdoctoral researcher there, collected 154 internal organizational documents and read them against media coverage and government reports from 1986 to 1996 ^[3][14][1]. That design can establish what the association knew and what it chose to say. "The records show that the trade association understood the issue and knew that options to reduce methane emissions existed," Jacquet said ^[11]. Some reports the association commissioned did mention feeding changes that would cut methane. The authors found no evidence in the association's own materials that it researched or promoted any such practice ^[9].

The authors caution that the archive does not contain all of the association's internal records ^[10]. Their findings also do not establish whether individual ranchers or companies pursued emissions cuts on their own ^[10].

The science was young when all this happened. In the mid-1980s, studies increasingly identified livestock as a methane source, from digestion and from manure management, and the debate over responsibility for warming widened beyond fossil fuels ^[15]. Across the decade that followed, the association questioned global warming itself and challenged campaigns urging people to eat less beef ^[16]. The study documents tactics similar to those found in research on fossil fuel interests, with one distinct focus: opposing voluntary changes in what consumers eat ^[13].

"The trade association's main concern was the possibility that consumers would change what they ate," Jacquet said. "That helps explain why its response centered on public messaging." ^[12]

I think the fossil fuel comparison holds for the tactics: hired experts, a minimising statistic, attacks on the messengers. The target was different. This group was defending a grocery decision. The study as reported does not measure whether the campaigns changed how much beef Americans ate.