6 days ago
Lab-Grown Meat Is the Fake Climate Food Fix That Just Won't Die
Back in the early aughts, biofuels such as ethanol were looking like a powerful answer to our then-emerging understanding of the climate crisis and our reliance on foreign oil: Using renewable fuels made from plants like corn, experts said, could significantly reduce energy emissions when compared with gasoline. Even better was the future promise of 'advanced biofuels,' which would one day use inedible biomass instead of food.
To environmental lawyer Timothy Searchinger, however, something about diverting land from food into energy just didn't add up. Use one field to grow corn for fuel, he pointed out, and other land will invariably have to be cleared to grow food, house livestock and grow feed for livestock. When those trees are cut down, carbon is released and climate change gets worse.
