I upvoted this, but I am a bit confused as to the key claim.
It seems you are making an argument about “animal agriculture’s contribution to climate is systematically underplayed” but that does not seem super clear from the data.
E.g. 7% media coverage seems about the right ballpark in terms of the significance of the issue (I would wager that there are far more under-represented sectors, such as maritime shipping, steel, or cement), probably there are also many articles on climate change that do not mention sectors at all (e.g. it is not 7% of 100%).
I guess, put differently, what would you see as the right amount of attention on the issue?
All contributing sectors should receive media coverage in some way—at the end of the day we need to be reducing emissions from all contributing sectors. I’d say the main issue is that other than animal ag getting little coverage in climate articles, when it is brought up, there’s generally a lack of information regarding how animal ag contributes to climate change.
We know that animal ag is not only responsible for about 11%-20% of global emissions, but is also a leading cause of deforestation and land degradation. There’s also evidence that the food sector alone is enough to put the world past the 1.5C limit, and a significant aspect of this is the consumption of animal products. Yet these are things that were rarely discussed in articles. As a result, any improvement in terms of providing more context about the relation between our diets and climate change would be a step in the right direction.
There were some articles that didn’t refer to any particular sectors, but even if we excluded those articles from our calculations, the percentage of climate articles mentioning animal ag would still be quite low. Ideally we’d see animal ag receiving at least as much attention in the media as it’s responsible for in emissions.
I upvoted this, but I am a bit confused as to the key claim.
It seems you are making an argument about “animal agriculture’s contribution to climate is systematically underplayed” but that does not seem super clear from the data.
E.g. 7% media coverage seems about the right ballpark in terms of the significance of the issue (I would wager that there are far more under-represented sectors, such as maritime shipping, steel, or cement), probably there are also many articles on climate change that do not mention sectors at all (e.g. it is not 7% of 100%).
I guess, put differently, what would you see as the right amount of attention on the issue?
All contributing sectors should receive media coverage in some way—at the end of the day we need to be reducing emissions from all contributing sectors. I’d say the main issue is that other than animal ag getting little coverage in climate articles, when it is brought up, there’s generally a lack of information regarding how animal ag contributes to climate change.
We know that animal ag is not only responsible for about 11%-20% of global emissions, but is also a leading cause of deforestation and land degradation. There’s also evidence that the food sector alone is enough to put the world past the 1.5C limit, and a significant aspect of this is the consumption of animal products. Yet these are things that were rarely discussed in articles. As a result, any improvement in terms of providing more context about the relation between our diets and climate change would be a step in the right direction.
There were some articles that didn’t refer to any particular sectors, but even if we excluded those articles from our calculations, the percentage of climate articles mentioning animal ag would still be quite low. Ideally we’d see animal ag receiving at least as much attention in the media as it’s responsible for in emissions.