Global warming and the National Cattlemen’s Association 1986–1996

In the mid-1980s, scientific studies first highlighted the role of anthropogenic methane in global warming and emissions from cows as an important source. This knowledge expanded views of responsibility for global warming beyond the fossil fuel sector. Using scientific studies, archival documents, media interviews, and various government reports, we analyzed how the National Cattlemen’s Association (NCA), a trade association for the U.S beef industry, reacted to news about its products’ impacts on global warming between 1986 and 1996. While previous studies have emphasized the role of trade associations in political lobbying, here we show that NCA responded mainly with strategic communications, including information gathering on civil society activities, commissioning academic experts to produce and share statistics that reframed scientific findings, and discursive tactics to influence politicians and the public. Despite scientific recommendations about opportunities to reduce methane emissions, we found no evidence that NCA researched or promoted any of these suggested changes to beef production. Instead, NCA treated global warming as a public relations concern that could affect consumer demand, rather than as a potentially serious consequence of beef production.