New study: we found that small reductions in pasture-based beef production in some areas, especially in temperate, humid regions like the Eastern US & Europe, could lead to large amounts of CO2 removal by regrowing native forests.

Forest conservation & restoration also require lowering overall global demand for land-exhaustive meat & dairy products. Or at least slowing its growth, so that less deforestation is required than all of our best models project

European countries want Brazil to improve forest conservation (it certainly can). But some of the world's best places to spare & restore carbon in native forests—while displacing the least food production—are actually in Europe. Our analysis shows this:

Something that no one can seem to answer: does spacing & orientation in agrivoltaics required to grow crops reduce solar flux enough that it'd be just as (or more) efficient to put denser solar panels on a different property to than crops/fodder?

Can’t beat them? Connect your broker to trade like them.

One author of the study says "just eat culled dairy beef", reflecting naivete in the study. There's a real reason why the US does less beef-from-dairy than Eastern Europe: dairy beef tastes different. Americans love the taste of marbled feedlot stake from dedicated beef herds!

This also drives the news writers to reach a dubious conclusion that producers can readily drive down impacts: if regional variation is so great, just source lower-emissions beef or emulate those methods, right? This is NOT a readily available mitigation measure though.

But this isn't realistic. The reality is that both regions contain both products, hence a mix of embedded GHG emissions. Because the model didn't differentiate beef product categories, it missed this.

Here we go!

The simplified model assumptions cause it to incorrectly flood groceries & restaurants in Chicago with culled dairy beef, while Omaha is full of marbled steaks & other cuts from angus steers, driving stark difference in emissions seen in their figure below, which are fictitious

This may reflect a model-reality gap. Their FoodS3 model uses linear optimization to minimize total impedance (cost/distance) btwn production, processing, & final destinations. It's likely doing this regardless of what final products are *actually* being sold in each region.

Also, while they say they include feedlots, their supply chain example looks at NYC metro area, in which feedlots are completely missing. Realistically, many of these cattle were shipped to the midwest, then back to NYC for steakhouses, and premium beef products at grocers.

But lower-emission cuts from dairy cattle taste different than beef herds! The authors don't seem to recognize this, instead treating diverse beef product categories & preferences as a uniform "beef" commodity that they optimize a simple model to churn out & ship efficiently.

Abacus Global Management $ABL Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results Third Quarter 2025 Highlights: • Total revenue for the third quarter grew 124% to $63.0 million, compared to $28.1 million in the prior-year period. The increase was driven by continued growth in Abacus’ Life

FYI you can either produce beef from dedicated beef-only herds that don't produce dairy (e.g. angus) or from the male calves or exhausted cows from dairy herds (e.g. holstein). beef-from-dairy has fewer emissions because most effort & cost went to producing the milk, not meat.

Authors claim that Milwaukee gets most beef from nearby dairies. But that's immediately suspicious. There are steakhouses in those areas! There are plenty restaurants that pride themselves on serving angus, which like >70% of US beef, must be coming from feedlots.

This results in large *modeled* difference between embodied emissions from beef consumed in different municipalities, like NYC vs. Chicago (> 2x), but the modeled differences are much smaller in reality.

I'm not sure their methods can really identify where grocers & restaurants are sourcing their beef from. I think it uses an optimization model that creates a synthetic or fake beef supply chain that doesn't map onto real world supply & demand very well.

Speed matters. Tera is approaching.

When I see that differences in how consumers and producers affect beef emissions, that gives me pause. This is a system that has optimized its inputs and operates on massive economies of scale at feedlot & slaughter stage.

A new study from U of Michigan finds that the diet footprint of cities varies by 3x, primarily driven by variation in where & how beef is sourced & produced. I'm skeptical though, and think that their methods exaggerated real world variation 🧵 1/N

This is an absolutely minuscule fine for meat companies with managers who knew children were being subjected to dangerous labor, including injuries and burns.

The "ultra-processed" food research & its media coverage are littered with poor definitions & comparisons, w misleading conclusions. This creates an illusion that UPFs provide new insights, but it's all slight-of-hand. @mbolotnikova dives deep

BIG NEWS! For the very first time, we’re adding a new city to Tech Week next year… Boston! 🎉 Boston will kick off a full run of back-to-back Tech Weeks, and will run the week before New York, and then we’re back in SF and LA in October. Boston has one of the most thriving

One of my research side quests: animals are agents and shape their own conservation outcomes. Bringing their preferences into conservation plans can improve their success. Pioneering biologist @MarcBekoff interviewed my coauthor & me for this article.

Great to see @MarcBekoff and @matthewhayek continuing their conversation about the importance of recognizing animal agency in environmental conservation in print form! https://t.co/jcX1S2rE04