Ryan Zinke’s Deregulation Quest, and the Future of Meatless Burgers

Summary

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The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: Ryan Zinke’s Deregulation Quest, and the Future of Meatless Burgers

Date: February 6, 2018
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Elizabeth Kolbert, Bruce Friedrich, Shauna Lyon

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Brief Overview

In this episode, host David Remnick explores two critical stories: first, an investigative discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Elizabeth Kolbert about Ryan Zinke, then-Secretary of the Interior, and his aggressive push for environmental deregulation; and second, the rise of meatless burgers, featuring food editor Shauna Lyon and Bruce Friedrich of The Good Food Institute, with a taste test of the Impossible Burger. The episode weaves together policy, environmental impact, culture, and innovation in food, offering insight and humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Ryan Zinke’s Deregulation of Public Lands

Guest: Elizabeth Kolbert ([04:00]–[14:32])

Zinke’s Background and Shift in Policy

• Military/Political Career: Zinke is a former Navy SEAL, Montana state legislator, and one-term U.S. congressman.
• Moderate to Deregulator: Initially seen as a moderate on public lands, he resisted proposals to turn federal land over to states. As Secretary, he shifted to a more aggressive stance, favoring extractive industries over conservation.
  • “He was considered sort of a moderate on public lands issues, opposing some of the more… radical steps… He pushed back… and has now really fallen into line with this program of the Trump administration, which is basically just giving away as much public land as possible.” — Elizabeth Kolbert [04:28]

Specific Deregulation Moves

• Offshore Drilling: Recommendations to increase offshore drilling and open protected lands to mining.
• Reduction of National Monuments: Slashing the size of large monuments like Bears Ears, opening lands for extraction.
• Coal Mining: Overturning moratoriums on new coal leases; actions likely to be challenged in courts but started immediately.
• Plastic Bottles in National Parks: Reversal of an Obama-era effort to ban single-use plastics in parks, a move seen as regressive.
  • “One of the first things that the Trump administration did under pressure from the bottled water industry was to lift that ban.” — Elizabeth Kolbert [05:46]

The Teddy Roosevelt Comparison and Symbolism

• Zinke’s self-presentation as a latter-day Teddy Roosevelt is widely mocked, as his policies contradict Roosevelt’s conservation efforts.
  • “He seems to have gone totally into all exploitation, all the time mode, and many groups… actively make fun of his claims to be a modern day… Teddy Roosevelt.” — Elizabeth Kolbert [08:18]
• Symbolic gestures include installing a “Big Buck Hunter” arcade game in the Department of Interior and raising a flag when present in office, both signaling a cultural shift.
  • “When the Secretary is in the Interior Department’s offices… they raise a flag to indicate that he is there.” — Elizabeth Kolbert [10:02]

Climate Change and Science Suppression

• Removal of climate change mentions from reports and websites, suppression of scientific discussion within the Department of the Interior.
  • “They’ve just eliminated a lot of discussion on their websites and in federal reports… they put out a strategic report for the Interior Department for five years that did not mention climate change.” — Elizabeth Kolbert [10:29]
• Described as “Orwellian” ([10:29]) and tied to fossil fuel industry interests motivated by short-term gains.

Long-term Impact and Checks on Power

• Concern that new fossil fuel infrastructure will be entrenched and difficult to remove.
  • “Once you put a rig in, once you lease that land offshore, you can’t take it back… Because once you put in a pipeline… there’s tremendous inertia… that is exactly, exactly what we don’t want to be doing.” — Elizabeth Kolbert [11:20]
• Hopes placed on legal challenges and court delays, but acknowledges much damage may be irreversible.
  • “A lot of them… will be challenged in the courts and hopefully stayed… But… once you muck up these places, there’s no longer any reason to preserve them.” — Elizabeth Kolbert [13:31], [14:13]

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2. The Future of Meatless Burgers: The Impossible Burger Taste Test

Host: David Remnick with Shauna Lyon and Bruce Friedrich ([15:35]–[22:41])

The Environmental Case for Eating Less Meat

• Shauna Lyon notes only about 3% of Americans are vegetarian, despite the clear environmental downsides of meat: land and water use, antibiotics, pollution ([14:36]).
• The food industry is racing to create plant-based options that rival meat in taste and appeal.

Personal Experience and Changing Burgers

• Remnick shares past experience with bland veggie burgers, but expresses curiosity about the new generation’s taste.
  • “They were the kind that were out of a box. They were frozen, they were dry and sad and gray… Then I heard about a new kind of veggie burger called the Impossible burger… looks a lot like a meat burger and… tastes a lot like a meat burger. It also bleeds like a meat burger.” — David Remnick [15:35]

How the Impossible Burger Works

• Key ingredient: “heme,” a plant-derived iron compound created via fermentation, giving the burger a meaty, iron flavor ([18:05]).
• Other ingredients: wheat protein, coconut oil, potato protein.

Cultural and Habitual Inertia

• Friedrich, a plant-based meat expert, comments on the challenge of changing eating habits.
  • “The vast majority of people, they’re just too busy leading their lives… you’ve been doing something for 20 or 50 or 70 years and it’s just what you do and suddenly somebody’s saying, no, you should do something different. That’s a pretty big ask.” — Bruce Friedrich [19:18]

Taste Test and Reactions

• Remnick describes the Impossible Burger’s look (“thin, charred on the edges”) and taste (“same consistency and texture as a regular burger,” but “a little bit bland,” lacking some iron flavor) ([20:27]-[20:44]).
  • “It has the same consistency and texture as a regular burger. The flavor is a little bit bland, missing… that deep, like, iron flavor that you get.” — David Remnick [20:27]
• Despite his slight disappointment, he prefers it over turkey burgers: “Turkey burgers are terrible.” — David Remnick [20:49]

The Tipping Point Analogy

• Friedrich compares the current moment to the shift from horses to cars, predicting plant-based and “clean” meats can disrupt animal agriculture and help avert climate catastrophe ([21:02]-[22:12]).
  • “I’m absolutely convinced that’s what plant based meat and clean meat represent. Because industrial animal agriculture, it is going to bring on climate catastrophe.” — Bruce Friedrich [21:10]

Remnick’s Final Reflection

• Skeptical but hopeful — acknowledges veggie burgers alone aren’t a panacea but sees value if they help move choices incrementally.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On deregulation and loss of wild land:
  “But the destruction of the country’s last unspoiled places is a loss that can never be reversed.” — Shauna Lyon [12:55]

• On the environmental urgency:
  “We do not want to be putting any more fossil fuel infrastructure in. We need to be shifting really dramatically in the other direction.” — Elizabeth Kolbert [11:20]

• On plant-based burgers as incremental change:
  “If one person goes vegetarian, that is the same as two people cutting back by half. But it’s probably going to be a lot easier to get two people to cut back by half than to get one person to go completely vegetarian.” — Bruce Friedrich [17:38]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:00] – Zinke’s background and political trajectory
• [05:16] – Deregulatory measures outlined, immediate effects discussed
• [06:40] – Plastic bottle ban reversal
• [08:18] – Teddy Roosevelt comparison and criticism
• [10:29] – Climate change denial within the administration
• [11:20] – Fossil fuel infrastructure and “facts on the ground”
• [13:31] – Legal challenges and irreversible loss
• [15:35] – Environmental rationale for meatless diets
• [16:21] – Impossible Burger introduced and tasted
• [18:05] – Technical explanation of the Impossible Burger (heme)
• [21:02] – Analogy to horses/cars; plant-based disruption
• [22:12] – Remnick’s reflection and episode wrap-up

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Tone & Style

The episode balances incisive reporting and gently humorous, conversational interaction. Elizabeth Kolbert offers sharp criticism with dry wit; Remnick shows curiosity and skepticism; Bruce Friedrich is enthusiastic and persuasive about plant-based innovation.

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Summary

This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour illuminates the urgent battle over the future of America’s wild places under Zinke’s Interior Department, revealing how current deregulatory fervor may lead to losses that cannot be undone. The second half offers a hopeful yet realistic look at the food revolution, taste-testing next-gen veggie burgers and considering the power—and limits—of dietary change. Both segments underscore the high stakes and choices shaping the environment and culture today.

Transcript

[David Remnick]

This is World Trade Entertainment, the One World Observatory.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Observatory straight of the block to West.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Boulevard and make that right.

[Shauna Lyon]

They didn't break that, but they have.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Pretty good access to those people who subconsciously mocks that lineage.

[Shauna Lyon]

So that's happening.

[David Remnick]

It seems like an incredible story here on mini front from One World Trade center in Manhattan. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC studios and the New Yorker.

[Shauna Lyon]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And now let's talk a little about bitcoin.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

It's the middle of the lunch rush at Mezza Grill in midtown Manhattan. Cold hard cash is being exchanged.

[Bruce Friedrich]

80 cents a good change.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

But so is a virtual kind of currency called bitcoin.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Dennis, I don't know if you've been reading the papers lately.

[Shauna Lyon]

There's something called bitcoin.

[Bruce Friedrich]

I'm not sure. Bitcoin bull that you speak to says.

[Shauna Lyon]

A lot of people talk about bitcoin as a new kind of. But ignore that bitcoin. Bitcoin's a crap bitcoin.

[Bruce Friedrich]

I just got some bitcoin. Have you heard about bitcoin? It's the currency of the future.

[David Remnick]

I know a guy who invested in Bitcoin five years ago and he made like $100 million.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Bitcoin are kind of like cash, but if cash were on the computer as bitcoin. Hey, roll down your window. Want to buy some bitcoin? You a cop?

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Honey, there's something I need to tell you.

[David Remnick]

I'm a bitcoin. Our farm to bitcoin includes a free.

[Shauna Lyon]

Range bitcoin smoked on a cedar bitcoin.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

And served with an emulsion of bitcoin infused bitcoin on a bed of bitcoin.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Bitcoin.

[Shauna Lyon]

Okay, so can I start anybody off with some wine?

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Daddy? Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency.

[David Remnick]

Unleash your wild side. Eight sexy, sensual ways to please your bitcoin in bed.

[Shauna Lyon]

Heat the olive oil over medium heat. When it begins to shimmer, add the shallots, stirring frequently until they are translucent. Remove and place on a paper towel. To bitcoin.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Funny, she doesn't look bitcoin. Isn't it rich?

[David Remnick]

Are we a bitcoin? Me here at last on the ground you in midair. Send in the clouds.

[Shauna Lyon]

What conversations about bitcoin sound like to me by Ethan Cooperberg. Kuperberg is a longtime contributor to the New Yorker's Shouts and Murmurs and a writer on Transparent. Next week on the show, we're going to go on a trip with Ian Fraser to visit three guys in Colorado. They're friends, they're roommates and top competitors. And in the wonderful world of professional drone racing, it's really a thing. And I can't think of anybody better than Ian Fraser to tell us about it. I hope you'll join us for that. For 20 years now, Elizabeth Colbert has been writing about science and the environment for the New Yorker, and her book the Sixth Extinction won the Pulitzer Prize. Recently, Colbert wrote about the Interior Department under Ryan Zinke, the cabinet secretary in charge of federal lands throughout the United States. Zinke is one of the keys to Donald Trump's goal of deregulating the environment. Case in point, the recent decision to shrink Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, a decision which opened much of that land to uranium mining. Here's Elizabeth Colbert now.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Zinke is a former congressman from Montana. He was a Navy seal, which is important part of his background, because he seems to want to run things in a sort of military style fashion. He then became a state lawmaker for Montana, and then he was a one term congressman from Montana.

[Shauna Lyon]

He was a one term congressman from Montana. But what kind of legislator was he? What was the emphasis of his brief work in Washington as a congressman?

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Well, it's actually kind of an interesting tenure in the House of Representatives. He was considered sort of a moderate on public lands issues, opposing some of the more kind of, I'm going to call them, radical steps that some congressmen like Bishop from Utah were recommending of just basically handing over these enormous tracts of federal lands to the states, which is what a lot of people on the far right, I guess, are advocating. He pushed back. He's from Montana, which is a big state for tourism and sportsmen, and got, I think, chastised for that and has now really fallen into line with this program of the Trump administration, which is basically just giving away as much public land as possible.

[Shauna Lyon]

If you add up his recommendations, they're extremely alarming. He proposed increasing offshore drilling. He recommended opening up millions of protected acres for mines. He recommended slashing several national monuments. And obviously by monuments, we mean enormous tracts of land in some of the most beautiful parts of the country. And he overturned a moratorium on new leases for coal mines. Which of these changes are being implemented right away and which are still policy proposals under review and debate?

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Well, none of them in effect, or very few of them can go into effect immediately because in most of these cases I think that they're going to get stalled in court. But they started very early. One of the things I will just mention that this has taken effect. I believe one of the first things Zinke did, the Obama administration had put in place this program to try to eliminate plastic water bottles from national parks because they produce a lot of trash. They're just not environmentally sound. And there was a report produced largely under the Obama administration that had been very successful. It saved a lot of trash, saved a lot of energy, that sort of. And one of the first things that the Trump administration did under pressure from the bottled water industry was to lift that ban.

[Shauna Lyon]

That seems almost perverse, almost gratuitous to reallow plastic bottles to be all over the place in national parks. I mean, really, even in the most cynical sense, how does the administration does Donald Trump benefit from that?

[Elizabeth Colbert]

You know, I think someone who's very cynical would say, you know, look at where, you know, Dannon or Poland Springs or whatever is giving their money. And I wouldn't be surprised if you find, you know, transfer, you know, campaign contributions. But is that really, you know, enough money to sway an administration, you know, awash in, you know, Koch brother money and Mercer family money? I don't know. But there's really no other reason except, as you say, either either perversity or you're in the pocket of the soft drink industry.

[Shauna Lyon]

Let me read you something from Secretary Zinke's biography on the Department of Interior website. It says Zinke is widely praised for his voting record supporting the Teddy Roosevelt philosophy of managing public lands, which calls for multiple use to include economic, recreation and conservation, unquote. Now, we think of Teddy Roosevelt as somebody who started establishing national parks throughout the country. We think of him, despite his killing of all kinds of wildlife in his time, as somebody deeply interested in nature and its preservation. Again, very much a man of his time. What does Secretary Zinke mean by the Teddy Roosevelt philosophy? What does that philosophy look like in practice?

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Well, he's always invoked Teddy Roosevelt and he continues to invoke Teddy Roosevelt. And as I mentioned, early on in his career, he had some perhaps always debatable claim to be trying to walk that line between preserving public lands for sportsmen and for wildlife and using them for commercial interests. Now, though, he seems to have gone totally into all exploitation, all the time mode, and many groups have started to make, actively make fun of his claims to be a modern day, latter day Teddy Roosevelt. And he's very folksy and sort of outdoorsy. Claims to be, although I recently read another piece by someone who had been fishing with him and noticed that his tackle was Real was upside down. And Zinke didn't seem to notice that. So how much of a real outdoorsman he is, I guess, is questionable.

[Shauna Lyon]

Well, the cultural shift is also noticeable in other ways. You write that Secretary Zinke had the arcade game Big Buck Hunter installed in the cafeteria of the Department of Interior. Tell me about that.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

I mean, it's a kind of ridiculous looking game. He tweeted this photo of himself standing next to it, which it was sort of, many people thought sort of comical. But this is part of this weird, some would say rather bizarre, lame symbolism. For example, he is well known in D.C. when the Secretary is in the Interior Department's offices on C Street, they raise a flag to indicate that he is there.

[Shauna Lyon]

Like the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Yes, apparently it is some sort of military tradition. I guess maybe if the commander's on the post, you raise a flag. I'm not a military person, so I don't know. But it has military roots. But it's been looked at as kind of ridiculous.

[Shauna Lyon]

There's another big change going on, and that's got to do with the idea of climate change and the way it's addressed by the Department of the Interior and also the epa. How does this compare with what we've seen in the past?

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Well, yes, that's a huge. And alarming, it couldn't be more alarming change. And it really gets to the Orwellian nature of this administration. They've just eliminated a lot of discussion on their websites and in federal reports. For example, they put out a strategic report for the Interior Department for five years that did not mention climate change. People are being actively discouraged from discussing climate change.

[Shauna Lyon]

Is that merely for short term business interests? Is that what's ruling the day here? This kind of cognitive sense that we don't believe what science and scientists are telling us? Is it all for money, campaign contributions?

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Well, I think that you can't be too cynical here, unfortunately. And my sense, my belief is that this is, and this gets to the idea that once you put a rig in, once you lease that land offshore, you can't take it back. Is that they're trying to. And the oil and gas industry and coal industry is trying to sort of like, let's stake out as much as we possibly can during this administration because we know this party is over. We know that fossil fuels are not the fuels of the future. But let's try to grab as much as we can right now. Let's try to put as much infrastructure in as we can right now. And that's a really scary thing because once you put in a pipeline, once you put in a coal fired power plant, there's tremendous inertia in the system to amortize that investment. And that is exactly, exactly what we don't want to be doing. We do not want to be putting any more fossil fuel infrastructure in. We need to be shifting really dramatically in the other direction. And so this is this huge play, I think, last play of this long fossil fuel binge. And it's going to really set us back in 10, 20, 30 years from now, not very long from now, we're going to look back on this as a really, really crucial decade that we're los and cannot, cannot afford to lose.

[Shauna Lyon]

So what's happening here is, as they say in the Middle east, they're creating facts on the ground.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Exactly.

[Shauna Lyon]

Finally, Betsy, you write in your really eviscerating piece on Ryan Zinke and the present Department of the Interior, in the decades to come, one can hope that many of the Trump administration's mistakes on tax policy, say, or trade will be rectified. But the destruction of the country's last unspoiled places is a loss that can never be reversed. What checks are there on Zinke's authority? What hope is there of reversing any of these measures either in the courts or through advocacy or through future political action?

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Well, I think that, you know, a lot of them, the majority of them will be challenged in the courts and hopefully stayed in the courts. But that, you know, that gets us into a whole other conversation about, you know, what they're doing to the courts. But let us hope for the moment that some of these district courts will, these cases will actually drag on. That is really the best that we can hope for at this point because I do think that the plan is and their hope is to get as much in the ground as possible. As you said, facts on the ground. And that piece that I wrote quoted someone who had been in the Interior Department in the Obama administration who said they know exactly what they're doing and they know that once you muck up these places, there's no longer any reason to preserve them. So that is the really frightening part of it.

[Shauna Lyon]

Elizabeth Colbert, thank you.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

Thanks, David.

[Shauna Lyon]

Elizabeth Colbert, staff writer at the New Yorker. You can find her reporting on the Department of the Interior and much [e-mail] now, along with the treatment of animals, the environment is a chief reason why some of us become vegetarian. About 3% of Americans at this point. And the environmental statistics are Pretty damning. There's the consumption of food crops by animals, the drain on water supplies, the overuse of antibiotics, pollution, and the list goes on. In the food business, there's competition to create vegetarian substitutes that taste a little bit better than, well, you know, seitan and all that stuff. And that could maybe one day become viable alternatives to meat. Shawna Lyon, who edits the New Yorker's Food and Drink page, has been exploring the options.

[David Remnick]

I used to be a vegetarian. I was a vegetarian for 15 years. At that time, I ate a lot of veggie burgers. They were the kind that were out of a box. They were frozen, they were dry and sad and gray and you could dress them up, but they never tasted good. So I'm not a vegetarian anymore and I do eat burgers. But then I heard about a new kind of veggie burger called the Impossible burger, which is a veggie burger that looks a lot like a meat burger and they said tastes a lot like a meat burger. It also bleeds like a meat burger. And I just, I was really curious. I really wanted to try it. So we went to an umami burger, which is a burger chain.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Pretty good. I'm Melvin.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

I'll be taking care of you guys today.

[David Remnick]

Thank you.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Hey, Melvin.

[David Remnick]

They are known for having beef burgers that are hyper powered with some kind of umami, which is like a savory flavor. And so it was interesting that they were carrying the impossible burger. That was a seal of approval. Like, this really tastes like meat.

[Bruce Friedrich]

You're in for a treat. Have you had them?

[David Remnick]

I haven't yet.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Oh yeah, I've had many.

[David Remnick]

You have?

[Bruce Friedrich]

Okay.

[David Remnick]

So I brought along this expert on plant based meat. Bruce Friedrich. Founded and runs the Good Food Institute.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Veggie burgers were pretty bad up until maybe 15 years ago.

[David Remnick]

Morning, Morning star.

[Bruce Friedrich]

All of them are getting better and better. I mean, they're all up their game and it's a very exciting thing to see. People in plant based say, like, why limit yourself to animal cells? With plant based meat, we can replicate what people like and we can do even better.

[David Remnick]

When you say you can do even better, you mean you can make it taste better.

[Bruce Friedrich]

Yeah. And animal based burgers are not going to get better, but plant based burger as well.

[David Remnick]

So maybe the Impossible Burger won't make you swear off meat forever, but maybe it'll make you eat a little less meat. And Bruce thinks that would be great.

[Bruce Friedrich]

One of the sort of obvious but under appreciated facts is that if one person goes vegetarian, that is the same as two people cutting back by half. But it's probably going to be a lot easier to get two people to cut back by half than to get one person to go completely vegetarian. Hey, I have two Impossible Burgers for you guys. Thank you very much.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

You're welcome, guys.

[Shauna Lyon]

Enjoy.

[David Remnick]

So we got our Impossible Burger. It's pretty big. Two patties smothered in cheese. They look a lot like me. The Impossible Burger looks like. It doesn't look like those fat, juicy burgers. It looks like a couple of smashed patties, like very thin, but also charred on the edges, which, you know, that makes a good burger, too. And you know, there's a flag stuck right in the middle that says impossible burger. The Impossible Burger is not really that different from a lot of other veggie burgers. It's made of wheat protein and coconut oil and potato protein. But the thing that makes it different from other veggie burgers is heme. It's an iron containing compound found in blood, which is what gives meat that iron flavor. And Impossible burger found a way to take heme from plants and make more of it using fermentation. Heme is one of the things that makes beef burgers really satisfying. Why do you think it's so hard for people to imagine giving up meat?

[Bruce Friedrich]

I've spent like 30 years pondering that question. I adopted a vegan diet in 1987, and the arguments were just so clear to me, and I thought they would be clear to everybody else. And I thought, nobody loves meat more than I do. Nobody eats more meat than I do. If I can do this, anybody can do this. And I've certainly convinced a fair number of people to cut back or cut out. But the vast majority of people, they're just too busy leading their lives. The cacophony of life makes it really hard to make. Like you've been doing something for 20 or 50 or 70 years and it's just like what you do and suddenly somebody saying, no, you should do something different. That's a pretty big ask.

[David Remnick]

I wonder if the Impossible Burger does taste like a real burger.

[Bruce Friedrich]

I'm looking forward to hearing what you think.

[David Remnick]

Okay, here we go. Okay.

[Elizabeth Colbert]

So.

[David Remnick]

It has the same consistency and texture as a regular burger. The flavor is a little bit bland, missing a little bit of the. That deep, like, iron flavor that you get. Like the.

[Bruce Friedrich]

That's the heme. Actually.

[David Remnick]

It needs some more heme.

[Bruce Friedrich]

I don't know.

[David Remnick]

I totally feel like I'm eating a burger burger, and I think I can enjoy it more than a Beef burger. Definitely more than a turkey burger. Turkey burgers are terrible.

[Bruce Friedrich]

I mean, so a historical flashback. The year is 1898.

[David Remnick]

Okay?

[Bruce Friedrich]

There are 175,000 horses out here on the streets of New York City. They are laying down 50,000 tons of manure every single month. There are horse carcasses everywhere. And the world's first urban planning conference was convened here in New York City. And it was supposed to last a couple weeks. And after a couple of days they decided there just is no solution. Everybody just went home. And ten years later, 1908, Henry Ford introduces the model table. And by 1912, there are more cars than horses on the streets of New York City. I'm absolutely convinced that that's what plant based meat and clean meat represent. Because industrial animal agriculture, it is going to bring on climate catastrophe. It could be the end of working. Antibiotics like these are really big problems. And plant based meat and clean meat can replicate animal based meat completely displace it because it's a better product.

[David Remnick]

I'm not so sure about Bruce's analogy. Carts did not save the environment. In fact, they caused a lot of other problems. I'm also not sure eating plant based meat will fix all the problems that Bruce was talking about. But if eating veggie burgers that taste like meat can help. And they're delicious, why.

[Shauna Lyon]

Shauna Lyon edits goings on about Town in the New Yorker and our food and drink page. I'm David Remnick and that's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope you'll join us next time. Till then, follow us on Twitter New yorkerradio.

[David Remnick]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.