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Matthew Hayek@matthewhayek.bsky.social |
112 followers 95 following 48 posts
NYU Asst. Professor of Environmental Studies. Climate, animals, land use, and food systems. MatthewHayek.com
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The motives seem odd, because the press & comms around this recent National Academies report suggest direct & strong connections between soil & human health that aren't in the main paper. These arrows in the summary figure should not be straight lines nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/274...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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For healthy nutrition, it remains the case that *what* you eat (a diverse diet consisting mainly of whole, unrefined plant foods) matters far more than *how* those foods were raised (e.g. organic or 'regenerative').
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Soil quality & management practices have NO clear influence on food nutrition, according to a new comprehensive review by the National Academies. I wish this was stated far more plainly & clearly in the report nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/2745...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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I'll be convening a wide-spanning session at AGU 24 on livestock production, trade, and its environmental impacts. Submit an abstract at the link below. I'm really looking forward to this one! I hope to see you there. agu.confex.com/agu/agu24/pr...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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I'll be convening a wide-spanning session at AGU 24 on livestock production, trade, and its environmental impacts. Submit an abstract at the link below. I'm really looking forward to this one! I hope to see you there. agu.confex.com/agu/agu24/pr...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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This is a thing of beauty
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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More coverage on how the FAO distorted research from me and to come to incorrect and statistically biased conclusions about dietary change. The real emissions savings from the literature is 6x-40x higher than their erroneous calculations. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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A consortium of investors (FAIRR), who urged the UN FAO create their climate roadmaps, is unhappy w/ what they got: vague on science and not transparent. They're urging the organization to take our scientific concerns seriously. www.fairr.org/news-events/...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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This is of course all sound guidance. But if I can revert to being a blueberry buzzkill for a moment, berries are one of a few things that are air-flown from South America during North American fall-winter-spring. So their emissions can be substantial!
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Absolutely. There are bio-based (non-fossil) material innovations. Some use crop waste byproducts & fungus to produce versatile & creative materials Also, whole industries can face shocks during economic transitions: coal, whaling. Our policies should help producers transition, not stall
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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We sent this open letter to call for an immediate retraction & correction. We documented *several pages* of FAO's errors, all of which serve to shrink the beneficial emissions savings of shifting to plant-rich diets. The real benefits are ~6 to 40x larger! www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/science/e...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The UN Food and Agriculture Organization recently misused my research. I spoke out and published an open letter, demonstrating in several pages how FAO conducted a faulty analysis to distort and downplay the impacts of dietary change on the environment www.theguardian.com/environment/...
3 replies 29 reposts 55 likes
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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More than 200 scientists with expertise in climate and agriculture that we surveyed agreed that livestock emissions should peak in both high- and middle-income countries by the year 2030. Like with fossil fuels, we're still going in the opposite direction.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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We'd love a review thread of the powders you end up purchasing and the drinks you end up preparing with them 🤌
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The differential %age between regular and vegan diet is also smaller than any previous study has calculated, even ignoring the carbon opportunity of the land that would no longer be required for ag production in the vegan scenario, which this study ignored.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Tech is not needed. We have all the technology we need *now* to mitigate >80% of climate change. Including natural restoration solutions on land.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Restoration hasn’t really been done on this scale. But work from countries including Scotland and costa rica are promising. It involves a combination of PES for farmers and establishing protected zones for restoration. Plus reducing meat consumption for higher income countries would help.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Compare that ranch to the nearby forested Grampians National Park. Endless trees, biodiverse habitat, and large stocks of carbon below *and* above ground. This likely has 60-100 metric tons of carbon per hectare *more* than Jigsaw's pastures.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Jigsaw farms has landscape with some intermittent trees, and patches of forest. They seem to be doing pasture landscape management right, as they say! But it's still basically a field of grass, with dots of trees & strips of forest at the perimeter.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The difference between the carbon in the climax ecosystem (e.g. forest) & the carbon currently in farm/pasture, minus an alternative food/protein source to replace the foregone production, is the "carbon opportunity cost". We explain it in our paper here www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The carbon sinks of farms, even ideally managed ones, saturate over time, while animals keep producing emissions (CH4, N2O) annually. But don't all ecosystems saturate in carbon uptake? Yes, but if the area is natively/historically forested, the C saturation point is *much* higher than pastures.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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More recently, ag lobbies & funded researchers take a more sophisticated approach: acknowledge a *small* contribution to climate change, but ask for major subsidies to offset it, while minimizing their contribution enough to avoid any regulations & denigrating proposals to reduce meat & dairy demand
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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This claim has already been debunked by other scientists. Agriculture causes 1/4 of emissions & the wider food system causes 1/3 or more. But misinformation has fueled this rhetoric. For the past several years, industry-funded researchers have made the same baseless claim that Musk did recently here
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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"But grazing land is marginal; we can't do grow anything else but grass on it". Untrue. A fraction of that land *can* produce crops. And 6 million square kilometers would revert to forests if livestock weren't on it, removing several years worth of recent CO2 emissions www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The relative share of global meat production produced by grass-eating ruminants is smaller than ever. Yet they still require 1/3 of the surface of the earth for grazing.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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A common objection to reducing meat is that livestock eat grasses from land that can't produce edible food. And that...isn't really true. Only some of them can: ruminant livestock like cattle, sheep, goats, yet those animals don't produce a majority of our meat ourworldindata.org/meat-product...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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I think it's the visual storytelling. Similar stretches are normally so long and *sprawling* that you can't capture what this one does, especially from the ground. This photographer found a great vantage point to crowd so many bright signs of bland, ubiquitous shops and gas stations into one shot.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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They’re not ultraprocessed!
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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We need clear guidance & incentives away from animal ag, toward plant-rich food systems, ensuring farmers who do transition have assistance to improve yields & market their harvests. That is the only practical hope for net-negative food systems. doi.org/10.1038/s418...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The report does, softly, guide countries toward healthier dietary recommendations, which would inherently reduce GHG emission. But this is a far cry from the FAO's self-reported aim to turn food systems "net zero" or to a "sink" by 2050.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The report also jumbles contradictory messaging around aquatic animal foods. Fisheries are over-exploited. Many aquaculture species still require more wild-caught fish. Soft governance approaches won't end overfishing if predominantly rich countries keep demanding it!
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Raising chickens requires 3x higher antibiotic use than cattle in OECD countries, and requires 170x more animals! We're trading off climate risks for pandemic risks doi.org/10.1126/scia...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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But the UN FAO largely ignores zoonotic disease, except in brief mentions of antibiotic overuse. They recommend shifting from beef to chicken, which keeps us in a "zoonsis trap": sparing climate emissions from cattle, but raising virus & bacteria risks, which are greater in chickens
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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In a review on zoonotic disease, I call this non-industrial method "semi-intensification". FAO has similar guidance. But it only works when combined with other conservation measures & plant-based diets, the latter of which the FAO report neglects doi.org/10.1126/scia...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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To be clearer: the largest GHG emissions are created by the most marginal & inefficient ruminant production (beef & dairy from cows). Careful improvements that rely on health & husbandry means you can provide more food without confinement, while also reducing disease risks.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The recent full report uses careful & soft language to advance only a subset of livestock intensification: forms that don't rely on factory-style concentration & confinement. www.fao.org/interactive/...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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This fits within a broader pattern of the UN FAO blackballing scientists who feel hesitant to embrace the message of "more meat" while attracting donors and stakeholders who pressure them to play ball with countries' industries.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Here, the FAO's cheif economist (not enviro or nutritional scientist) is quoted saying something plainly false. The *only* micronutrient in meat that's missing in plants is b12. www.ft.com/content/2eb9...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The vague language also allows pro-meat ideologues at the UN FAO to sow confusion around how "essential" meat&dairy are, which we saw in its industry-funded report earlier this year. This leads to irresponsible & backward pressers that undermine the report's own nuance
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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There's a lot of vague language on "diverse and balanced" diets, but that creates weak and confusing guidance as to what those actually consist of. Generally: diverse plants, and few animal sourced foods. www.fao.org/interactive/...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Globally, we need to be producing & consuming a lot more *healthy* plant-based foods: legumes, nuts and seeds, fruit, veg. This key, strong message was missing from a report that was supposed to adddress climate & nutrition. And there's no better way.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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The UNFAO roadmap to 1.5 degrees C is a detailed guide containing a lot of good science. But it’s notable for what it omits. And, their press around it has been troubling and contradictory, even undermining key aims of the full report 🧵
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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This is the basis of our perspective in Nature: the high political stakes of methane metrics come from their unexamined assumptions. They can't be adjudicated using science alone www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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You can't justify GWP*'s assumption to penalize low-methane-emitting and rapidly developing using science. Certainly you can't claim they're "objectively" causing more warming. This is a philosophical assumption, and a poor one. It's not an empirical way to divvy up emissions; it's based on values.
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Methane metrics also need to be useful for comparing the emissions of two parties (countries, firms, etc.). In this way, the GWP* metric fails spectacularly. It deliberately privileges parties with high-but-constant emissions, and penalizes those with low-but-rising emissions, as its core assumption
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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GWP* is a good way of modeling the results of global total emissions on warming, compared to GWP100. But that one application is not inclusive of all the diverse ways that metrics are commonly used. Metrics aren't just simple models of global emissions 4/ iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Everyone wants to claim that methane metrics can be “misused”, but no one articulates what this “misuse” really entails. The perspective helps shed light on this deeply problematic metric, and shows the specific circumstances of its misuse for agricultural emissions reporting. 3/
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Methane is incredibly potent in the atmosphere, and it’s urgent that we abate its sources. The GWP* metric, however, can serve as a free pass to high, ongoing emissions. This perspective helps shed light on how the metric is used to greenwash the entire ag sector, especially livestock 2/
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Matthew Hayek
@matthewhayek.bsky.social
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Are climate neutrality claims from meat producers too good to be true? Yes. A new perspective from shows claims using GWP* mislead policymakers, taking advantage of ambiguity in language. I'd argue the problem goes deeper 1/ iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
1 replies 2 reposts 10 likes