Is the mental crisis on societal level caused by Dysrationalia or Dunning-Kruger-effect?

Recently, a bunch of famous Swedish athletes became image-people for the WWF-campaign about vegetarian food - Vego i världsklass'. Soon after, The Nordic Council of Ministers pushed the idea of going green. This followed after a girl showed up and pushed the idea that children should skip school 20% of the school time. These actions will lead to malnutrition and have no impact on the climate. Therefore they are explained by Dysrationalia or the Dunning-Kruger-effect. By applying the opposite, disjunctive thinking, you'd will Understand the importance of providing your kids, and yourself, with the kind of food that contains the more than 30 micronutrients humans need to sustain mental and physical health. 4 pages.

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Recently a bunch of Swedish famous athletes became image-people for the WWF campaign on vegetarian food. The campaign is called 'Vego i världsklass' which, according to my Swenglish, translates into Vegetarian or vegan at the top of the ranks. Aiming high makes sense because the purpose of being an athlete is to reach the top of the ranks.

On November 9, 2020, the Nordic Council of Ministers and The Nordic Council had an event - Climate crisis engages young readers in the Nordic Region. Here's the abstract:

"Can literature create understanding of a changing world and help children to deal with climate anxiety? What trends can we see in the Nordic countries? Climate threats, relationships with nature, and endangered animals are just some of the topics that are occupying space on young people’s bookshelves. A Nordic seminar on children and young people’s literature found that the need to talk about the environment and climate is largely reflected in the books that are popular among and being written by young readers in the Nordic Region".

On November 17, 2020, the Nordic Council of Ministers and The Nordic Council invited people to join Choosing Green. This is like the abstract:

"Although the COVID-19 pandemic has stalled climate negotiations, work hasn’t stopped. At the CHOOSING GREEN debate on 17 November 2020, Nordic political co-operation will join forces to brainstorm ideas for next year’s climate negotiations. We’ll talk about climate action, competitiveness, education, and socially sustainable change with some of the most talented people in the Nordic Region. What’s more, you can join us as we broadcast live throughout the day". Here's a link to event.

This followed after a summary report published in The Lancet that urged us to submit to getting out of the Anthropocene by applying close to a vegan diet (Willet et al. 2019).

And before that, a schoolgirl in Sweden became the image-person for 'School strike for climate', an orchestrated movement that urged children to be absent from school 20 % of the school-time (Österberg, 2019).

Note the following: the claims about the benefits of vegetarianism, school absence, and climate anxiety mentioned above, have no scientific basis. In fact, as usual, it's a little different:

"Going Vegan Makes You 43 Percent More Likely To Break A Bone, Study Reveals" (Housman, 2020).

People who opt for a vegetarian diet also are significantly more worried about the future, report anxiety and depression, as well as issues with social relations (Forestell & Nezlek, 2018; Nezlek, Forestell and Newman, 2018; Plante et al. 2019).

Recent research summaries emphasize the importance of animal source food for children's physical and mental development (Adesogan et al. 2019; Balehegn et al. 2019). That is true also for adults (Itkonen et al. 2020; Tong et al. 2020; Ylilauri et al. 2019).

But this wasn't news at all:

"Kids who were fed meat also outperformed their peers in tests of intelligence, problem-solving, and arithmetic. "The group that received the meat supplements were more active in the playground, more talkative and playful, and showed more leadership skills," Allen said" (popular in Nature by Hopkins, 2003).

The study was conducted by Allen (2003).

Why do humans need animal source food?

We humans exist because our ancestors put animal source food, and especially bone marrow, on their plates about 3.5 million years ago (Mann, 2018; McPherron et al. 2010; Pontzer et al. 2016; Thompson et al. 2019).

This new nutrient dense diet started a reduction of their intestinal system and an expansion of their brains (Aiello & Wheeler, 1995).

Still, people regularly need to eat more than 30 micronutrients to sustain their physical and mental health, Leroy and Cofnas (2019) list many of them.

Then what about the climate?

Climate is a complex phenomenon where trace gasses move in a cyclic fashion between the five spheres: atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere (IPCC, 2013; Riebeek, 2011). Central för this Process is the carbon cycle.

According to the International Chronostratigraphic Chart (2020), we are in the  Phanerozoic Eon, more specifically the Cenozoic Era, and even more specifically the Quaternary system, and the Holocene Epoch. At the starting point for Phanerozoic Eon, the Cambrian explosion, CO2-levels exceeded 5000 ppm, the oxygen level was 4 -10% (Fox, 2016), and it was 50 % warmer compared to today. Since then 95 % of the CO2 has moved from the atmosphere to the bedrock, the forests, and the ocean, and it's only getting colder.

Food Production has its own carbon cycle - The Biogenic Carbon Cycle. Methane from burping cows is transformed into CO2 thru a process called hydroxyl oxidation.

(White & Hall, 2017) show that if all Americans switched to a vegan diet, emissions of greenhouse gasses will be limited to 2.6%. The main sources (~80%) of climate emissions constitute transportation, energy production, and industrial activities (Hristov et al. 2014; Mottet & Steinfeld, 2018).

That makes the claims about Anthropocene a proposition or even science fiction.

Why do people follow nutrition science?

Why do people believe in proposals about going green and Anthropocene?

(Stanovich, 1993) suggest Dysrationalia - the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence.

Dunning and Kruger proposed the Dunning-Kruger-effect - a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability (Kruger & Dunning, 1999). 

By applying the opposite of dysrationalia, disjunctive thinking (Stanovich, 2015), the conclusion is that the proposed actions have no efficacy on physical and mental health or the climate. Abstaining from animal source food will lead to malnutrition. So, remember to provide your kids, and yourself, with the kind of food that contains the more than 30 micronutrients humans need to sustain mental and physical health.

The post was originally posted on the University of Helsingfors blog for myresearch project (2018-2021).

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