Geoengineering super low carbon cows: food and the corporate carbon economy in a low carbon world

Abstract

The tangible progress to address climatic change remains painfully slow. As a result, practices to deliberately manipulate the Earth’s carbon and energy cycles to counteract climate change have gained traction and they are increasingly incorporated into mainstream debate. This paper examines one of the less documented examples of climate geoengineering, namely the creation of ‘super low carbon cows’. Driven by the public’s desire for a low carbon pint of milk or beef burger, I show how a combination of bioengineering, technological fixes and management practices have resulted in, and are informing, everyday changes to the way in which animals are bred, cared for and eaten—and in turn, how it affects the food that we consume. Thus, the role of the cow within the Anthropocene now extends from meat machine and sentient being to climate change saviour. I seek to show that super low carbon cows represent part of a wider climate ‘responsibilisation’ in which business interests and corporate storytelling are governing and enacting everyday mundane practices of climate engineering as part of the corporate carbon economy. Yet, as with other climate ‘fixes’, this paper shows that the super low carbon cow provides, at best, an imperfect correction. Critical gaps in the evidence of the efficiency of the solutions being advanced remain whilst manipulating an animal to be more climate friendly evokes unease when considering the wider sustainability and ethical impacts. Perhaps most critically, reliance on climate engineering to provide cheap and easy ways to control our climate fails to question, far less address, the ever-increasing demand, production and wastage of food. It also potentially undermines the already weak political will for other essential and more radical responses to climate change. In doing so, I contrast the extensive efforts to change the everyday behaviours of a cow with the limited attempts to meaningfully challenge the everyday practices, consumption lifestyles and dietary choices of the general public.

Low-carbon cows: From microbial metabolism to the symbiotic planet

“…Methane emissions from ruminants, especially cattle, have become an important and rapidly emerging problem space for climate mitigation ( Ormond, 2020 ). About 14.5% of global greenhouse gases (GHG) stem from livestock farming.…”

“…The modification of the microbial metabolism in the rumen likewise seeks to mitigate climate change and counter a rift in the planetary ‘carbon metabolism’ ( Clark and York, 2005 ). It therefore represents a mundane or ‘everyday practice of geoengineering’ ( Ormond, 2020 : 136). Symbiotic engineering thus claims to target the microbial root of planetary troubles.…”

The Biopolitics of Cattle Methane Emissions Reduction: Governing Life in a Time of Climate Change

“…This win-win framing, common to ecological modernisation discourses, means research and development institutions are racing to develop mitigation technologies for a global market, as illustrated in our introduction. Global initiatives include the Global Roundtable on Sustainable Beef, funded by groups such as Cargill and McDonald's, and the FAO-led Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock are researching ways of engineering "climate friendly" cattle bodies (Ormond 2020).…”

Evaluation of Feed Strategies and Changes of Stocking Rate to Decrease the Carbon Footprint in a Traditional Cow-Calf System: A Simulation Model

“…At the same time, it is one of the main routes to increase the efficiency of the livestock production systems ( 6 – 10 ). Then, feeding systems, pastoral resource management ( 11 , 12 ), and a comprehensive perspective ( 13 ) are research areas that have been studied to reduce GHG emissions. Within nutritional management, various research studies have addressed the inclusion of additives to the diet.…”