“The future of our planet, and the wellbeing of today’s populations, depend on shifting our diets in a healthy plant-centric direction. In this deeply-researched book, Nusa Urbancic describes the coordinated efforts of the meat and dairy industries to sow misinformation using the playbooks of the oil and tobacco industries. Understanding this attack and the science-based evidence is important; every reader will benefit from this book, personally and by being a more effective change-maker.”

“Because ruminants produce more greenhouse gases than any other food source, the meat and dairy industries have a huge accountability problem. Urbancic’s investigations thoroughly expose how these industries use the tobacco industry’s global strategies to head off attention to their effects on global warming and to actions to reduce those effects.”

“This is a forensic and deeply troubling investigation into the food industry’s deceptions. It reveals how the industry seeks to define reality and capture regulators, corrupting government and sacrificing future generations to protect today’s profits.”

“Just as the oil and tobacco industries engaged in decades-long strategies of distraction, delay, and denial to grow their profits as their products damaged the environment and public health, so too does the animal agriculture industry seek to cast doubt on the many harms it causes. The New Merchants of Doubt is a deeply researched and accessible analysis of how the large meat corporations engage in disinformation, corruption of science, and regulatory capture to keep the public in the dark about the damage their diet is doing. A crucial book.”

“A much-needed spotlight on a sector and some of the largest companies that have gone under the radar as major polluters for far too long. Urbancic provides a detailed state-of-play about how animal agriculture impacts climate change and its role in why we have failed to address it, including why the animal agriculture industry supports GWP* as a way to measure climate change and the net-zero promises animal agriculture companies have been made without the capital investments. The New Merchants of Doubt is a clear-eyed counterweight to the smoke and mirrors of the National Cattlemen’s Digital Command Center and pulls back the curtain to show what is evidence and what is public relations.”

“Meat production is among the largest drivers of species extinction, water pollution, and climate change. The New Merchants of Doubt does an excellent, thorough, and ultimately devastating job detailing the industry’s deceptions about these harms, which not only fooled consumers, but harmed all of us and our future. This book shows how the industry intentionally downplayed these environmental harms to increase sales. Sadly, this campaign of to distract, delay, and derail change has largely worked; we can hope the book will empower consumers to take the action that policymakers appear too compromised to take.”