'The Weak Are Meat the Strong Do Eat'

While we have listened for years to the climate elites bloviate that their time is so valuable that they must fly private jets to and from Davos or Dubai, we’ve not really looked at the tradeoffs their demands require. Bill Gates, for example, globetrots in a Gulfstream G650, the business jet of choice amongst the elites doing their best to ensure we eat bugs and stay within our 15-minute feed lots.

Derek Zimmerman, president of Customer Support at Gulfstream, tells us that “Fleet flying hours are at all-time highs." Why? Because our ruling elites are stripping wealth from the middle class and transferring it to themselves. The Covid pandemic was the biggest wealth transfer in history, though "climate change" is giving Covid a run for its money. As Elizabeth Nickson writes, "Climate Change is a complex financial mechanism which under the guise of 'saving the planet,' is meant to save the predator class."

Because “private jets can incur more than ten times the emissions per passenger compared to commercial jets," it turns out that “one percent of the world's population is causing 50 percent of aviation emissions." As aviation contributes two percent to global energy-related CO2 emissions, the few elites with private jets contribute one percent of all global energy-related CO2 emissions.

How much? “In just one hour, a private jet can emit two [metric] tons (2,000 kg) of CO2.” Flying Bill from Seattle to Dubai for COP28 this year covered about 7,400 miles in about fifteen hours, emitting 30 tons of CO2, 60 tons for the round trip.

Can we make a comparison between jets and cows? A mature, ready-for-market steer produces about four tons of CO2 per year. How many meals can each cow provide? Up to 2,500. The number of cows sacrificed to the climate gods will depend on the type and weight of the cow, and flight hours. In 2022, more than 4.6 million private jet flights took off in America, alone, emitting, per flight hour a total of 9.2 million tons of CO2, or the annual output of about 2.3 million cows that could have provided as many as 5.75 billion 3-oz meals.

Not only does this not make any sense whatsoever, it’s pointless. In fact, a 2017 study authored by Robyn White of Virginia Tech found that if all livestock – cows, sheep, hogs – were eliminated, the net effect on American greenhouse gas emissions would be a statistically insignificant reduction of 2.6 percent. “The base expectation is that if we got rid of them, you would basically automatically recoup that greenhouse gas emissions expense, and what we find is that's not really supported by the simulation that we did,” said White.

The study also showed that Americans would be very unhealthy.

Compared with systems with animals, diets formulated for the U.S. population in the plants-only systems had greater excess of dietary energy and resulted in a greater number of deficiencies in essential nutrients…. This assessment suggests that removing animals from U.S. agriculture would reduce agricultural GHG emissions, but would also create a food supply incapable of supporting the U.S. population’s nutritional requirements.

If killing the livestock to reduce GHG doesn’t meaningfully reduce emissions or "save the planet," and cannot meet our nutritional needs, then maybe – stay with me here – we shouldn't do it. So why are some insisting on it? To ask is to have your question answered.