What bird-brained, animal activist came up with the latest Burger King (or should I say Anti-Burger King) commercial? Not to mention their use of children to carry their flawed message?

I can just see those ad executives sitting around a table in a boardroom in a high-rise in New York City. At lunchtime they go out to eat at a fancy steakhouse (after all steaks don’t come from cows, do they?). After exiting the building they are met by the noise of scores of cars, trucks, semis and trains on the streets below. The traffic noise doesn’t bother the execs because they have become accustomed to it over several years. They can smell the pollution that is spewed by many of those vehicles but that’s to be expected in the big city. The traffic sounds are joined by the sounds of jackhammers breaking up pavement and cement to fix roads and sidewalks, or to build new and bigger high-rise buildings, streets and sidewalks.

After lunch the execs meet back in the boardroom to create their new commercial for Burger King. One said he recently saw some information that cow’s burps and farts have a negative impact on climate change. Then they find some obscure research about how feeding cows lemongrass cuts methane emissions from cattle by 33 percent. The jury is still deliberating on that so-called research. See more of that in Rachel Gabel’s article starting on page 6.

All of the sudden the room is energized and the execs, many have never seen a cow or a farm in their life, decide they will focus on climate change and change the name of the Impossible Burger to Whopper with Reduced Methane Emissions Beef. And, that the company will only use beef from cattle fed lemongrass, which sounds so idyllic, doesn’t it?

Another executive, who spends too much time on social media, suggests they use the WalMart Yodeler, Mason Ramsey, to carry the message, which will surely resonate with other young people.

After becoming a viral sensation, Ramsey gushed to Ellen DeGeneres on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, about how he flew on an airplane to the show and got to ride in a big black limousine to the studio. Hmmm, no greenhouse gas emissions released during that trip, not.

Warning Mason, if you want to be a yodeling, environmental superstar, you might want to practice what you preach.

In the meantime, the ad execs are pretty proud of their creation and they take it to the Burger King bigwigs, again many of who have never seen a cow or a farm, and they excitedly put their stamp on the ad and next thing you know the ad shows up on the internet, and here we are once again trying to forge through myths and misinformation about cattle and methane. ❖