I Can’t Believe This Even Needs To Be Said but No, Biden Isn’t Taking Away Anyone’s Burgers

The White House hosted a two-day virtual summit with 40 world leaders last week, dedicated to discussing the climate crisis. Some of the biggest news out of the summit were the pledges made by a number of countries promising to take steps to cut their carbon emissions.

Ahead of the summit, President Joe Biden promised the U.S. would cut its emissions in half by the end of the decade, and to zero by 2050. It’s an incredibly ambitious pledge, though not the most ambitious promise made during the event, and for now, it’s also just a goal—a promise with no legislation in place yet to back it up.

Still, that didn’t stop a whole bunch of Republicans and conservative media personalities from freaking out and making the bizarre and totally baseless claim that Biden’s plan meant they were going to be banned from eating meat.

Ultra rightwing writer Matt Couch wrote on Twitter that “Biden says we can have four pounds of red meat per year,” despite the fact that Biden absolutely said nothing of the sort, and posted a picture of a gigantic steak as some kind of gotcha response.

The replies to that tweet are just a hilarious gallery of poorly cooked heart attacks.

Because Biden didn’t say anything about taking away our steaks, this “four pounds” claim seems to come from a Daily Mail article—never the best source if you’re looking for actual facts, which clearly these people are not.

“How Biden’s climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH, cost $3.5K a year per person in taxes, force you to spend $55K on an electric car and ‘crush’ American jobs,” the article reads. Sure, I suppose it “could” do all of those things but the idea that it will or even might consider it is credited to “a study by Michigan University’s Center for Sustainable Systems.”

There was no date or link or actual quote from that study included in the article but they’re likely looking at a 2020 study that makes no reference of Biden, was written before he was elected, and, like Biden himself, in no way suggests Americans need to adopt a mandatory policy of cutting red meat out of their diets.

Instead, the study concludes that a 90% reduction in meat consumption and a 50% reduction in other animal products would drastically reduce the country’s carbon emissions.

Biden’s statements, though, made no mention whatsoever of individual Americans’ behaviors. He focused on changes in larger industries. But that didn’t stop Fox News and plenty of its viewers from pushing the lie of Biden’s “requirements” for food consumption.

Those are two United States governors, by the way, just hanging out on Twitter, spreading nonsense.

Nonexistent beef restrictions weren’t the only weird misinterpretation of Biden’s climate plan. On Fox Business, Larry Kudlow said that Americans will have to spend this Fourth of July eating “grilled brussels sprouts” (sounds delicious) and drinking “plant-based beer.”

Which begs the question, what does Larry Kudlow think beer is made from now?

(image: NBC)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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