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Cyber Monday Madness
November 26, 2015
Weekly Roundup: From Cloned Cows to T. Rex Sales
November 28, 2015From FT.com:
- “Cloned cows create a new beef over climate change”
- “Factory to turn out 1m cows a year as China raises steaks in cloning research”
- “UN estimates global meat industry belches out 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions”
In a joint venture with a Chinese biotech company, the Korean firm that cloned Snuppy plans to produce 1 million cows.
This is Snuppy (Seoul National University puppy) and his father. The cell that created Snuppy came from his father’s ear:
From: The Telegraph
Where are we going? To the conflict between cloned cows and the Paris climate talks.
The Cloning Plan
At Sooam Biotech, a dog, usually from a grieving owner, is recreated from live skin cells. You just need $100,000 and then, according to Tech Insider, “cloning dogs is surprisingly easy…”
But the key information for us is that Sooam works with cows. With a cow clone that they produced last year, they took the first step in restoring a Korean cow population that had been devastated by foot and mouth disease. Now China’s official news agency, Xinhua, has announced that Sooam Biotech has a deal with China’s BoyaLife. Starting with 100,000 embryos, the plan is to produce one million calves a year to satisfy growing meat demand in China.
The Spending Ladder
Along the road to affluence, an emerging market nation hits a succession of spending sweet spots. At each of those points, consumers have enough money to become increasingly aspirational. As you can see below from a ladder that Goldman Sachs created in 2012, China just moved beyond the meat rung. The planned cloning project corresponds to their growing hunger for meat.
From: BusinessInsider
Our Bottom Line: The Paris Talks
As we noted in a recent post, bovine burps, feed production and processing and decomposing manure are a large source of greenhouse gases. With 138 heads of state gathering at the UN Paris climate talks starting next Monday, we should keep an eye on how they deal with a more affluent developing world in which more people are eating beef.
