After Astroturfing: What should come after the inevitable industry response to EAT-Lancet 2.0?

Who's excited for EAT-Lancet 2.0 next week!?! 🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️

Perhaps you saw the news. In an impressively well-timed launch, the Changing Markets Foundation has published their new report on how the meat industry coordinated a influencer-led media response to disparage and discredit the last EAT-Lancet report in 2019. Not great! And does not bode well for what we can expect after Stockholm next week.

A big part of the emotional heft of the report hinges on how the campaign was capital-c Coordinated. That carnivore bros are not the result of some emergent and democratic movement or fair-play scientific findings, but were seeded by paid influencers. That a PR agency was hired, that industry bodies collaborated, that funding was allocated makes it all feel so...on purpose.

While the report doesn't use this term, political scientists refer to this as 'astroturfing' - faking a grassroots movement so that canned-and-planned messages look like the will of “the people.” When I worked in advertising, we just referred to it as an 'influencer campaign.' We saw nothing nefarious in what we did. We simply harnessed the grassroots power of the internet to hock terrible whiskey or augmented-reality Happy Meals. 'Public discourse' happens on Joe Schmoe's Twitter now. Smart (albeit compromised) people know this and use it to their advantage.

Whilst it is in no way cool for people to spread bad science and circulate misinformation, because this is such run-of-the-mill behaviour, we need to be careful not to fall into what I'm gonna call the 'pearl clutching trap' - gasping louder than church ladies over Taylor Swift's boyfriend and being shocked - SHOCKED! - that astroturfing is happening in here.

These reports are absolutely essential for disabusing anyone of the delusion that industry reps are not political actors and that 'exogenous' pressure could spontaneously materialize that would drive an 'organic' transition in food systems. However, to fall into the pearl clutching trap risks focusing on the symptom instead of the problem, the misinformation itself instead of what motivates it. It also risks looking a bit naïve about businesses doing exactly what businesses do which is going after market opportunities and protecting their ability - their 'entitlement' - to do so. Lobbyists be lobbying! Money makers be shaking their money makers!

We should see reports like this not (only) as evidence of the moral turpitude of industry advocates, but of evidence that we have indeed touched a very big and sensitive nerve and those nerve-guardians are responding accordingly. The question that should come after is not, "How could they?" but "What should we do in response?"

1. Keep science-ing.

Jess Fanzo talks about this and I so appreciate it. In response to lobbyists lobbying, scientists need to keep science-ing. Astroturfing turns everything topsy-turvy, refracts truth through a prism of chaos. We - I! - need papers and papers to keep telling us, in a million different ways and through a million different methods, that we know this to be true that current rates and trajectories of meat and dairy consumption are not compatible with environmental limits and are not the only way to nourish ourselves. Within this discussion, of course there will be nuance - there should be! But as someone who consults for an ag chemical company once told me, when you're trying to do change management, say something 1,000 times and you're maybe about 5% of the way there. "When at last the work is done, it's time to dig another one."

We gotta be careful though. Those of us on the environment/health side have a tendency to say, "...because science!" - as if that's sufficient to silence any further discussion on the subject. We then get angry when industry advocates use the same "...because science!" argument against us - yes, with bad science, but the average Twitter bro or busy working mom doesn't know how to parse the difference. It's not their job to know.

Rachael Bedard said in a great article about MAHA and RFK Jr. that "Battling over truth, facts, and evidence doesn’t work in a post-expertise world." This is also what was so helpful about Koen Deconick's facts/interests/values framework. We present facts, but people respond out of interests and values. This does not make them bad people, it just makes them human. "...because science!" is not sufficient when what you're proposing is an existential threat to millions of people's livelihoods and joy-source. That's not to say the change doesn't need to happen! It just means we can't hand-wave away the implications of what that science shows.

2. Take away their reason to do it.

"Ok, so shift consumer demand." Sure - but we need to be clear what we mean by this because I am super skeptical about our ability to manufacture an organic shift in consumer preferences to the extent we need on meat/dairy. We're fighting industry at this game at which they are much better experienced, financed and resourced. It's like trying to plant grass on top of their astroturf.

Clarifying and circulating the facts about meat/dairy, raising awareness about animal welfare and the environment, re-shaping food environments and making information available on these issues is critical. However, this alone does not equate to an industry phasing down when populations and demand are growing. And, as this report shows, we're not doing this in a vacuum. Industry will be circulating it's own 'facts' and raise 'awareness' about whatever 'billionaire vegans' conspiracy they think will galvanize the most people.

We can't just target consumers. Phase downs require proactive supply-side policies. We need to simultaneously take away the entitlement (the opportunity, the social license) to produce as much meat and dairy as is currently produced. As long as there is an opportunity to make money off of something, people will do it. When an opportunity exists, and then that opportunity is taken away, that's a stranded asset and - as this report proves - industry no likey!

There are any number of ways to do take away the entitlement. I have outlined a few. But it's true that this is very hard to do politically. How do we actually take away their reasons for astroturfing when industry will just astroturf any policy efforts to do? This is the heart of the issue and - perhaps unsurprisingly - I think it comes down to dealing with the 'who pays' question.

They're powerful - but it's not only about power.

A completely natural emotional response to this report is to crave some kind of policy that would 'curb industry power' so they can't do this or, if they do, it doesn't work as well. I have longed for such a policy myself - although what this policy would actually be beyond putting #ad on YouTube and funding disclosures in journals (which already exist), I'm not exactly clear.

Yes, industry power is a challenge and a problem. Power and concentration in the industry shapes our diets, nutritional outcomes, livelihoods, food prices and the right to food. However, the solution to industry lobbying is not necessarily to do away with lobbying, like, as a category. In democracies, policymakers respond to their constituencies. Money/donations shape who they respond to, certainly. But in Europe, there are many more restrictions on money into campaigns than the USA and it's not like policy isn't influenced by lobbying there!

We, as well, lobby. We, as well, coordinate. We're coordinating right now! Stockholm will be us coordinating! They're gonna talk about Stockholm like we talk about Denver and Dublin. Yes, our motives and scientific foundations are better - but it doesn't change the nature of what we're doing and what we want to be able to keep doing, which is have access to our policymakers to tell them what we want them to do.

Policymakers don't (only) listen to farmer lobbies or corporates because they're powerful. They (also) listen because what they offer is concrete and financial. We are at a disadvantage not because we don't have power, but because what we're offering is difficult and costly. Putting in restrictions on lobbying doesn't really change that reality. And it won't help to 'package' what we're asking, put a bow on it and pretend we're not talking about the phasing down of entire industries. They definitely know that's what we're asking for so it makes no difference to attempt a "These are not the droids you're looking for" strategy. Instead, we have to face head on - and come up with pathways through - the immensely difficult economic and financial change we're saying has to take place.

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Accepting that astroturfing is just something industry is doing and will keep doing does not mean becoming cynical about human nature or downplaying the desire and expectation for fair play in discussions on issues related to public and environmental health. We should expect more from our scientists and journalists! They are breaking a very sacred code and that creates tremendous harm for our collective well-being.

However, the power of this report is not in making us appalled. I don't even think it's in calling out dishonest actors. In fact, this might even be counterproductive. David Keen's excellent book on Shame: The Politics and Power of an Emotion argues this may actually be counterproductive. He says that, while the work of journalists and NGO's is to denounce destructive (and shameless) activities, certain kinds of condemnation can become part of the problem if (1) it chokes off understanding of (and so effective responses to) how people legitimize and even become self-righteous about their own activities, (2) it can actually fuel the activity further and lead people to further entrench and (3) it can cloud our judgement.

No, the power of this report is in clarifying for us what we're dealing with and the task at hand.