Bill Gates under fire for urging wealthy countries to give up beef and switch to synthetic meat

Credit: Daily Mail
Credit: Daily Mail

The Microsoft founder-turned-global health philanthropist [Bill Gates] discusses ways to tackle climate change in his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need,” which hit shelves on [February 16]. And among his calls to action: switching to synthetic beef to reduce methane emissions, aka the gases that cattle and sheep release when they belch or pass gas.

Many readers on Twitter aren’t ready to completely give up their burgers and steaks just yet. So this led to Gates’ trending on Twitter on [February 16] as critics chewed him out.

Even Gates recognized that this idea is hard to swallow. “Saying to people, ‘You can’t have cows anymore’ — talk about a politically unpopular approach to things,” he also told Technology Review.

Some other critics also questioned why Gates should dictate what countries should do to address climate change when a new report in the Nation named Gates as one of the world’s top carbon emitters. 

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Despite the backlash against his synthetic-meat plan, however, the global hunger for plant-based foods continues to grow. Morningstar forecasts that the plant-based-meat market will reach $74 billion by 2029, up from $12 billion in 2019. 

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