President Joe Biden's critics have a cow over a false story that his administration is making plans to limit Americans' consumption of red meat.
The beef on manufactured meat mandates began last week after The Daily Mail – a British tabloid known for its unreliability – published an article misleading Biden's target to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, according to a university study of Michigan studying how to reduce red meat consumption could lower dietary emissions.
Biden's team plans to work with agencies across the federal government to tackle the emissions. A climate task force is expected to publish sector-by-sector recommendations this year. Biden's latest $ 2 trillion employment plan sees billions of dollars investing in green infrastructure, renewable energy, sustainability in homes and buildings, and increased electrification of municipal fleets, just as automakers are increasing production of carbon-free vehicles.
The Daily Mail article suggested that Biden's emissions reduction plan – which hasn't even been made public – might dictate what Americans drive or grill, or how they heat their homes. In fact, no one in the Biden administration has called for red meat consumption to be limited or forcing every American to buy an electric car or an electric heat pump.
But in a short period of time, false claims and misleading memes suggesting that Biden wanted to limit Americans to a single Big Mac per month began to spread like a bonfire among far-right outlets, Biden critics, Fox News experts, and even lawmakers on the Capitol Hill.
Fox News recently showed a graphic of a double cheeseburger incorrectly describing “Biden's Climate Needs” as a maximum of 4 pounds of beef per year; one burger per month; and cut 90% of the red meat out of your own diet. Fox News incorrectly cited the Department of Agriculture and the University of Michigan study, but the real source was the misleading story from The Daily Mail, according to several fact checkers.
Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former president, posted the Fox News graphic for his millions of followers on social media. “I'm pretty sure I ate 4 pounds of red meat yesterday,” he said. “That will be a tough NO from me,” he added, referring to the imaginary requirements.
“Martin Heller, one of the authors of the Not-About-Biden study that misuses all this nonsense, told me today,” I admit I have no idea what Biden's plan has to say about our diet, “said CNN. Dame Daniel Dale wrote on Sunday.
Dale remarked, “This stuff is completely imaginary. Biden has not proposed any limit on American meat consumption. “
While agricultural reforms may be part of some of the climate team's recommendations, at no point has the White House Biden called for consumption restrictions on red meat – or on meat or food.
The president's climate goals, as well as Senator Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal, which was reinstated last week, have often been weighed down with claims that are in fact baseless.
In February, when the cold Texas weather froze equipment and caused outages with a number of power sources, Governor Greg Abbott and talk show hosts like Tucker Carlson chose renewable energy and The Green New Deal – which was nowhere implemented – as the main culprit for blackouts . According to the state grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, outages with natural gas, coal, and nuclear generators were almost twice as common as outages with frozen solar panels and wind turbines.
Social media users responded with ridicule, blaming the Green New Deal for everything from “gout” to “Jar Jar Binks in the [Star Wars] Prequels. “
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