plant

The big idea Consumers are more likely to choose a plant-based meat substitute when the restaurant’s advertising highlights the social benefits of doing so rather than its taste, according to recently published research I conducted with a colleague. We also found that showcasing the social costs of meat consumption also leads to a preference for plant-based “meats.” To reach this conclusion, we conducted two online experiments to examine the advertising of plant-based burgers and meatballs. Participants were recruited via the crowdsourcing website Amazon Mechanical Turk. In the first one, 156 participants were shown one of three commercials for a plant-based burger. They saw either a social appeal (“good for the environment and animal welfare”), a health appeal (“good for your health – n...

Hurricane Laura plowed through the heart of Louisiana’s oil and chemical industries as a powerful Category 4 storm, leaving a chlorine plant on fire and the potential for more hazardous damage in its wake. The burning BioLab facility sent dark smoke and chlorine gas into the air over the small community of Westlake, near Lake Charles, and shut down Interstate 10, officials said. The governor warned residents, already reeling from the hurricane’s damage, to stay in their homes, close their windows and doors, and turn off any air conditioning that might still be operating. While the full health impacts of the fire weren’t immediately known, a storm-driven chlorine gas release in a vulnerable community is the type of worst-case scenario that scientists and engineers like myself have warned ...

Tag: plant

Want To Persuade Americans To Swap Out Beef For Plant-Based Burgers, Taste Alone Won’t Do It

A burning chemical plant may be just the tip of Hurricane Laura’s damage in this area of oil fields and industry