Ridiculous?

Another Saturday Blog deadline goes to the wire even as COP26 negotiations are trundling to a less than successful conclusion in Glasgow. The latter is hardly surprising when the two biggest polluters, China and the USA, backed up by India, refuse to sign up to hard and fast targets for reducing fossil fuel usage and Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil producer, similarly skewers attempts to set effective goals for ramping down oil production. 

Okay, China and the USA may have come up with a bilateral agreement to tackle global warming issues together - but don't be fooled, that is mostly a PR exercise. Behind the scenes, the USA actually plans to increase its mining and consumption of coal in the coming years; and who knows what the Chinese intend, as their plans are secret. Even the UK, hosting this latest world symposium, refused to sign up to the fossil fuel phase-out target which the science insists is necessary to reverse our rush towards climate catastrophe. Hugely disappointing all round. COP out, one might say.

I've blogged about various aspects of the climate crisis several times over the last five years, but I'm going to spare us all another blah blah blast this evening. Instead I've been tracking one of the more improbably bizarre but constructive attempts to provide green alternatives to our destructive lifestyle. How would you like to print your own meat? Ridiculous? Read on...

sizzling steak on the grill

It seems to be the case that the world and his dog loves a juicy steak, burger, or roast beef feast, often washed down with a milkshake or followed by a dish of ice-cream.  Even 60% of the menu available to the COP26 delegates was based on animal and dairy products! There's a revealing graphic at the bottom of today's blog that highlights the volume of greenhouse gas emissions from animal and plant based foods - scroll down for a quick check now and you'll note that beef production is by far the largest of all, with cow's milk coming in a close third, making the two cow-based items combined way more significant as sources of emissions than anything else.

I was looking into the progress that's been made to date with bringing vegan, plant-based versions of bacon and sausages to market when I stumbled upon the concept of 'novameat' and a novel way of manufacturing it to resemble as closely as possible the texture and taste of a beef steak.

We are all now familiar with the concept of 3-D printers being able to 'print' quite complicated pieces of kit by using plastic and resin instead of ink in the printer jets, building up workable objects in a layering process driven by computer programs. Some high-tech companies, mainly in the USA and Israel, have taken the idea to another level by developing liquids and spraying algorithms that can be used to replicate edible products - ersatz beef and pork steaks among them. I'll repeat. Ridiculous? Take a look at this...

3-D meat printing in action

Instead of inks, the nozzle jets spray out lines of tasty protein to build up a product that has both the fibrous texture of meat, but also the look, colour and taste before and after cooking. It's still a very expensive option, still niche and still being enhanced, but like all innovations it will become cheaper over time and who knows, one day all restaurant kitchens will feature 3-D printers as part of their standard equipment...and we may even see domestic versions nestling next to the microwave.

Of course, that's going to be of no immediate consolation to the swathes of the world with barely enough food for their families today and no kitchen to prepare it in. Which leads into my latest poem, anticipating the COP after next in 2023 when I'm supposing things will only have got worse. Again, probably not the finished article as it was written as the clock ticked down, but here it is (edit: now with revisions after discussion with my Stanza buddies).

From Printer To Plate at COP28
The kitchen's 3-D printers have been

working overtime so ruthless leaders 

of the world can dine on grilled meat

that never knew a cow, washed down

by a wine of rare vintage from a land

already drowned by rising seas. Still 

a minute off midnight, still too much

hot air, not just inside the dining hall.

And everywhere, secret oil wells and

illicit beef farms for the few; poison,

famine, searing fires and inundations

from swollen oceans for the many. It

is funny how the science can warn us

and technology provides alternatives,

yet unless there is an obvious means

of getting something on the cheap or

making a killing out of it, then a will

to change is sadly lacking. Supposing

tonight I were one of the poor waiters,

refugees from devastated states, I'd be 

longing to hi-jack the damned printers 

and hack two hundred humane hearts,

that we might best transplant empathy

into the cynical, self-satisfied old farts.

Should it be the end of the road for the friendly cow? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for reading, S ;-)