‘Soil Carbon Cowboys’ Documentary; Communication Strategies; Muslims In ‘Jack Ryan’ Amazon Series

On this encore edition of The 21st: How can all the cows we raise for meat help, rather than hurt, our environment? Plus, we revisit our conversation with Gary Riley Mills about how to use communication for success. Also, we talk with Loyola Chicago's Omer Mozaffar about his consulting on the Amazon Prime series Jack Ryan.

We all have heard about how much cattle is a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Maybe you’ve stopped eating beef, or at least cut back, because of its environmental impact. Because that’s affected the bottom line of companies like McDonald’s, they’re investing in new research to find out better ways of raising cattle.

A short film called "Soil Carbon Cowboys" explores these topics. It features a few cattle farmers across the U.S. and Canada who have changed the way their cattle graze.

It was shown at McDonald’s headquarters in November right here in Illinois. It showcases some of the initial findings of millions of dollars of research McDonald’s has put into it and looks at how changing the way cattle graze could not just cut carbon emissions but reduce the use of pesticides.

A team of 16 scientists and farmers from more than half a dozen universities, including the University of Illinois, are working on understanding how changing the way cattle graze can create healthier beef. We had a chance to speak with two of the men involved in this $4.7 million research project.

Peter Byck is the filmmaker for Soil Carbon Cowboys. He also teaches journalism at Arizona State University. 

Jonathan Lundgren also joined us. He's from the Ecdysis Foundation. 

And --

Gary Mills is the co-founder of Pinnacle Performance Company, a global communication skills firm based in Chicago. Mills spoke to us about his book "THE BULLSEYE PRINCIPLE: Mastering Intention-Based Communication to Collaborate, Execute, and Succeed" from our studios at Northwestern University in Evanston.

Also --

The Amazon Prime Video series Jack Ryan debuted a couple of months ago.

It’s the most recent adaptation of the Tom Clancy character. It’s true to the original novels in its intensity and blockbuster action sequences. But in this modern adaptation, all the characters including James Greer, Jack Ryan’s soon to be wife Cathy and the new character, the terrorist Suliman, are different than what we normally see on TV.

Loyola University Chicago professor and chaplain Omer Mozaffar consulted on the series. He’s also a longtime contributor to RogerEbert.com and he joined us to talk about how Muslims are depicted in this TV series.