Thunberg focuses on food production while Chinese state media fat-shames her

AP Photo/Jason DeCrow

Greta Thunberg is promoting a new film. The 18-year-old environmental activist is taking on food production and teams up with an animal rights group in a 5-minute short film. Her opening lines include, “Let’s face it. If we don’ change, we are f****ed.” Subtlety is not her forte.

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The young woman has perfected the art of scolding. Having been programmed at such a young age to support a radically extreme environmental agenda, it is not surprising that she is branching out from trying to destroy the fossil fuel industry and moving into farming. Her solution to ending the connection between food production and the destruction of Planet Earth is to move to plant-based diets. The short film is called For Nature. Thunberg attempts to connect the dots to support her belief that “human exploitation of animals and the planet have led to health crises such as COVID-19 and environmental catastrophes.”

“The climate crisis, the ecological crisis, the health crises, they are all interlinked.” She truly sounds as though industrialized countries should promote pre-Industrial Revolution lifestyles.

In For Nature, Thunberg points out that while fossil fuels are seen as the “villains” of the climate crisis, animal agriculture—which contributes to one-fourth of total greenhouse gas emissions—is often ignored. Approximately 30 percent of the world’s ice-less land mass is used for animal agriculture and 33 percent of all cropland is used to grow food for those animals. Thunberg explains that if everyone were to adopt a plant-based diet, we would save up to 8 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually and use 76 percent less land.

“The climate crisis is just one symptom of the sustainability crisis we face: We have industrialized life on Earth and broken our relationship with nature,” she said. “More frequent and devastating pandemics, biodiversity loss, and the climate crisis are all connected to this root cause. This is why we need to rethink how we value and treat nature in order to safeguard future and present living conditions for life on Earth. We all, of course, have different opportunities and responsibilities, but most of us can at least do something—no matter how small.”

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Sorry, farmers. Plant soybeans and vegetables or learn to code. Perhaps farmers and displaced food production workers can join energy sector workers and learn to make solar panels.

Today is International Day for Biological Diversity, thus the choice of the release date for the film. Mercy For Animals released a statement to address its partnership with Thunberg.

“Mercy For Animals is proud to partner with Greta to raise awareness of the interconnectedness of all beings on our planet,” John Seber, Senior Vice President of Advocacy at MFA, said. “Every single one of us can be part of transforming our food system and repairing our relationship with nature. For those of us with food choices, we can eat like our world depends on it. We can stop subsidizing unhealthy and environmentally destructive animal products and help farmers transition to a plant-based farming model that is better for their livelihoods, local communities, the environment, and the animals. We are all part of nature and can be part of nature protecting itself.”

Thunberg connects the dots between carbon emissions, disease outbreaks, and animal suffering as only she can. She relies heavily on hyperbole and the video used as a background as she narrates the film provides photos of animals used as food sources. She links health problems, including the pandemic, to the animal world. Thunberg references findings by her friends at the World Health Organization as she lectures the audience.

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Thunberg said the spillover of diseases from animals to humans was caused by farming methods, adding that a move to a plant-based diet could save up to 8 billion tonnes of CO2 each year.

The World Health Organization has said the coronavirus was probably transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, while scientists say 60% of the infectious human diseases that emerged from 1990 to 2004 came from animals.

Targeting farming and food production are not new, animal rights activists and vegans have done so for years. Environmental alarmists point to animals like cows for releasing methane into the atmosphere. The use of such large parcels of land to raise farm animals is under attack, too. Two years ago Greta said that livestock production is one of the greatest drivers of climate change. She convinced her family to give up animal products for the good of the earth and the next generation. Her parents initially resisted her demands but then she went about convincing them. Of course, they succumbed to the girl’s wishes – she’s clearly the one running their home, not the parents. Though, to be honest, it is her parents who nurtured her early activist actions on climate change. She told her parents that they can’t stand up for human rights and support animal agriculture.

Barclays estimates the alternative meat market could be worth $140 billion by 2029. More than two dozen companies are testing lab-grown fish, beef, and chicken.

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Thunberg’s friends at For Nature suggest three actions that can be taken. Supporters can call on large restaurant chains like McDonald’s, Dominos, and Subway to expand their global plant-based options. Also, people can take the plant-based pledge and go vegan. They can also urge the U.N. to “prioritize a sustainable food system and animal protection.”

Greta is 18 years old now and no longer a precocious child on a mission to destroy the use of fossil fuels. She is given a platform by the adults in her life in order to propagandize the next generation with environmental alarmism and socialist solutions. The Chinese government has reacted to her latest tirade against China’s carbon emissions. China is one of the world’s largest polluters and should be called out for it but I’m not sure that Greta is the right messenger. They are fat-shaming her in state-owned media in retaliation.

In a scathing article published last week on China Daily, an outlet owned by the ruling Communist Party, Thunberg was mocked for her weight and labelled an “environmental princess” after she urged China to do more to address climate change.

“Although she claims to be vegetarian, judging from the results of her growth, her carbon emissions are actually not low,” said the writer, Tang Ge, who originally posted the article on the social media and messaging app WeChat.

Chinese social media users followed their government’s lead and criticized Thunberg for criticizing China and not other countries. Clearly, they have not seen her rants against countries around the world, including the United States which has exceeded its carbon reduction goals significantly ahead of schedule.

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