Livestock industry co-opts academics to downplay its climate impact, study says

On campuses across the nation, students and faculty have passionately debated whether their universities should stop accepting fossil fuel money for research. But until recently, funding from the meat and dairy industries, which also contribute to climate change, had scarcely received any attention.

That may be beginning to change. A study published in the journal Climatic Change late last month cast a critical eye on two agricultural research centers that focus on the livestock industry’s carbon emissions and, as recently as last year, got much of their funding from industry donations. Housed at the University of California at Davis and Colorado State University, the centers study new technology to shrink the climate footprint of the livestock industry while regularly messaging that Americans don’t need to eat less meat and milk, contrary to what some environmentalists say.