August 12, 2019 - The United Nations is gravely worried about your hamburger.

Yesterday, the Journal Nature carried a story with the provocative title “Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change in human diet.”

As expected, the report created quite a buzz in both the mainstream and social media world. Marc Morano, CFACT’s director of communications and editor of Climate Depot, was called onto Fox and Friends to comment. You can watch his appearance on the program posted below.

The long and short of the argument put forward by UN nanny-state officials is that “efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of global warming will fall significantly short without drastic changes in global land use, agriculture and human diets.” Hence, they conclude, there is a need to radically cut back on ranching and farming, and especially those dastardly cows that burp and blow gas out their backsides.

It would be one thing if they were just “urging” people to follow their advice. After all, there are many legitimate reasons people pursue vegetarian or vegan diets voluntarily. But alas, such is not the modus operandi of those in the liberal ruling class. They want to “incentivize” you to get with the program.

This was alluded to by Hans-Otto Pörtner, an ecologist who co-chairs the IPCC’s working group on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, who stated this in the report: “it would indeed be beneficial, for both climate and human health, if people in many rich countries consumed less meat, and if politics would create appropriate incentives to that effect.”

What sort of “incentives” is Hans talking about? Well, if Germany is any indication, it could be something like a stiff tax on meat -- much like cigarettes. Or perhaps it might be something like removing miles of farmland through “wetlands” and “endangered species” laws. Maybe it’s even imposing something like “Meatless Mondays” as Mayor de Blasio is currently serving up to school children in the Big Apple. Some are even advocating pressuring restaurants to provide “meat patches” and “eating insects” as featured menu items. The possibilities are endless.

I know, I know. Such Brave New World techniques to engineer societal conformance may seem a bit far-fetched at the moment. But we caution that it may not be far off if met with no opposition, for as philosopher William James once said “There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.”

CFACT will make every effort to make sure the “absurd continues to remain absurd.”