McCartney urges 'meat-free days' to tackle climate change
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Paul McCartney denied that he's using the environment to push his vegetarian beliefs
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Chargrilled asparagus and lemon tart – that's the vegetarian menu for a glamorous cast of musicians, actors, writers and artists starting a mass movement today to limit meat eating and combat climate change.
With his daughters, Stella and Mary, Sir Paul McCartney is behind Meat Free Monday, which aims to persuade people to go veggie once a week to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the world's livestock, among the most serious contributors to global warming.
"We should care about climate change because if we don't, we are going to leave our children and their children in a hell of a mess," Sir Paul told The Independent, which has been given exclusive details of the launch.
The McCartneys have attracted support from across the worlds of showbusiness, science, business and the environment. The singer Chris Martin, Hollywood stars Kevin Spacey and Woody Harrelson, actress Joanna Lumley and Sir Richard Branson are advocating meat-free Mondays.
Support has also come from comedians Ricky Gervais, David Walliams and Matt Lucas, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah and Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman.
Another supporter, Sir David King, the Government's former chief scientist, said: "The carbon and water footprints associated with producing beef are about 20 times larger than maize production. Eating less meat will help the environment."
The UN and Britain are concerned about the environmental impact of livestock, although the Government has shied away from urging people to eat less meat. Vast swathes of the Amazon rainforest are being cut down to make way for cattle ranches and to grow soy for feed. Belching from cows emits vast amounts of methane, which has 21 times the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, meat is responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than transport's 13 per cent. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has suggested one vegetarian day a week.
Sir Paul, a life-long vegetarian, said: "Many of us feel helpless in the face of environmental challenges, and it can be hard to know how to sort through the advice about what we can do to make a meaningful contribution to a cleaner, more sustainable, healthier world. Having one designated meat-free day a week is a meaningful change that everyone can make, that goes to the heart of several important political, environmental and ethical issues all at once."
Kelly Osbourne, Laura Bailey, Sharleen Spiteri and Zac Goldsmith, and more than 40 other celebrities will launch the campaign at Inn the Park in St James's Park, central London.
To make vegetarianism a more practical choice, the chefs Oliver Peyton, Giorgio Locatelli, Skye Gyngell and Arthur Potts Dawson are starting meat-free menus beside their usual ones on Mondays. The food writers Nigel Slater and Mark Hix have written recipes for the website, supportmfm.org. Stella McCartney, also a life-long vegetarian, said: "Whether you eat meat or not, you can be part of this decision to limit the meat industry destroying our planet's resources." Her elder sister, Mary, described the change as "an achievable goal."
Sir Paul, who has enlisted the support of George Harrison's widow, Olivia, denied he was using the environment to opportunistically support his vegetarianism. "We didn't start this idea," he said. "It was suggested in a report by the United Nations, who are presumably non-vegetarian. It would be a lot easier to not do this but the link has been established by many scientists and authorities on the subject and it seems wrong to simply ignore it. The issue won't go away."
Carnal knowledge The meat industry
*Meat is a "major stressor" on the world's ecosystems, according to a UN report
*Meat makes 1.4 per cent of global GDP but 18 per cent of greenhouse gases
*Forty calories of fossil fuel energy go into producing a calorie of beef, but 2.2 calories for one calorie of plant protein
*Livestock production uses 8 per cent of the world's fresh water
*One billion people are overweight, mostly in the West, where meat consumption is higher. Vegetarians tend to be slimmer
*The World Cancer Research Fund recommends eating 500g red meat a week
Source: United Nations, Meat Free Monday
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Comments
"The evidence is convincing that red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, is a cause of bowel cancer.
This is why WCRF UK recommends that people eat no more than 500g of it per week."
Read more of their diet tips here:
http://www.wcrf-uk.org/preventing_cance
At the beginning of the 1900s, one person out of 100 died of cancer; today it is one out of three.
A mortality rate of 90 per cent, that is, 1.8 million deaths out of the 2 million cases recorded every year throughout the world. http://www.curenaturalicancro.com/2-can
It seems to me that the WCRF is just a huge money making scam that keeps many people in nice feather-bed jobs and a front for the big pharmaceutical companies to earn fortunes.
Toolan
It kind of occurs naturally. Well that is if you are in a place of the world that was designed for cattle, With abundant rain and enough sun. There is no overgrazing and land is rotated.
The rest of the world uses all methods possible to flatten Forrest, divert rivers, import feed and everything else needed to imitate our land and produce a profit.
Do not class the average land destructive conglomerate's statistics with how real life is meant to be sustained. The figures you are being bombarded with are as truthful as the politicians and bankers that paid for them to be created. The singer is just the delivery boy.
Wouldn't we just be cutting out the middle man/animal?
The silly associations above are what are known as logical fallacies. More meat is eaten in prosperous countries, people in prosperous countries are heavier than people in poor countries, therefore meat eating causes people to be overwerweight. In reality, excessive weight is down to overconsumption of carbohydrates and more sedentary life styles.
The whole methane argument is becoming just as silly as the Carbon dioxide scam. The warmists are getting anxious because the climate ain't doing what the modellers claim it should be doing and they can see the billions of grant money from the public purse disappearing in the face of the economic meltdown.
People in Western societies eat a lot of meat out of habit, out of fear - they think it's essential to health and dangerous not to eat it -- due to commercial and social pressures and because it's cheap as much as because they enjoy it.
Everybody needs to learn to enjoy other forms of protein for the sake of the planet.
Especially selfish blinkered fools like georgesign
There is nothing worse than zealots who believe they alone are right and everyone should follow their idea of the "truth". They are people with narrow minds who have been brain-washed into believing that people are "bad" because they eat meat. They always like to tag their silly ideals onto what they think is their trump card called "save the planet"
I'm having bacon sarnies for lunch and bangers and mash for tea.
Eating the same amount of calories in meat form requires many times the land area as eating the same amount of calories in vegetable form. Of course in places like the Amazon this has a huge impact on the rainforest. In fact if you think about it in this way- eating less meat is one of the solutions to deforestation, climate destruction, and future wars for rescources.
I am not trying to be "holier than thou"- and tell people what to do with their lives- but if we can't be vegetarian I would ask people to think about reducing their meat intake- maybe meat should be a treat on certain days instead of being seen as a staple food???
This is not "politically correct nonsense" but a serious solution to a very serious problem that faces us all- and we all have to tackle together.
The carbon-footprint associated with your average celebrity with their over-sized mansion house, collection of large cars, their jet-set lifestyle and their extravagant spending is 20-times higher than that of the average citizen.
That is why I'm am urging that the UK adopts celebrity-free Monday where they refuse to listen to the radio, watch TV, buy glossy magazines or listen to over-hyped CDs in order not to provide even more money to fuel this carbon-unfriendly lifestyle that celebrities like to lead whilst preaching to those less well-known.
If you're so concerned about the planet, Mr McCartney, then live in a proper-sized house and stop flying to NY.
He could hardly do that!
He'd have to scale down his overblown self-importance accordingly.
You can't piously hold forth from the front room of a two up, two down terrace or pontificate on the upper deck of a bus.
Well, you can I suppose but you won't get much of an audience & that wouldn't suit 'Saint' Paul.
Tues - Dump the car day
Weds - Give everyone a hug day
Thurs - Do something for nothing day
Fri - No fish day
Sat - No shopping day
Sun - Do nothing day
After about a week on the land ALL the CO2 in Urea is released. That means just under half that weight of CO2 per year. This is approximately half the CO2 produced by all land volcanoes per year.
Now that figure is not included the energy to make the Urea in the first place.
If we are into methane production just look at the oil (unatural gas) industry venting and flaring.
I do not hold with the political tool called "Global Warming" but yes we are destroying the world. The destruction is mainly associated with land and river misuse by irrigation and evaporation from veggie production. It is the evaporation and theft of the Mississippi water that makes the Gulf warmer and the storms more severe. Farming is not sustainable.
They are all grown, through agriculture.
I'm not a vegetarian but I don't eat meat every day, not on purpose, I just don't really notice. There are so many other good forms of protein - eggs, fish and seafood, cheese, nuts, beans, lentils etc.
We blatantly can't stop eating completely, but with a growing world population and the fact that we're runnign out of good land to grow crops, plus added competition for cropland to grow plants to make biofuels, we've got to find a way to change something. Eating a bit less meat in the week is such an easy thing to do. It's also cheaper. And apparently healthier. If you find it difficult to think of meals without any meat at all, at least substitute red meat (beef, pork, lamb) for chicken, which is healthier and less energy intensive to produce.
I say...why not "eight days a week?"
Increased global demand for meat is indeed a potent driver of GHG emissions, but Sir Paul and his brood could make a much bigger contribution to the clean up by adopting a less jetset lifestyle.
We have not eaten yesterday, today, he raised his eyes, saw the police officer in front of the doorbell, and continued, and we damn well don?t care what we eat tomorrow.
Then the man who had managed after a long struggle gets some plain rice. He found that there was a shed on the doorstep f the house some shed and aroma coming from the food being prepared. He had the nose full of the curry and fragrances with the plain rice, thanked Allah and tried to sleep. The landlord saw the man and asked what he was doing. Sir, I just had the mal of rice with the spice aroma from the house. That was delicious. The landlord said, ?No wonder my food tested awful, tasteless?. You must pay for the taste you stole. Off they went to the court. The beggar's friend brought some coins, banged these on the desk of the judge, and asked the landlord what that was. He said sound of coins. Fine. This man took the taste you were paid by the sound. Case closed.
Is that what we want? Why we want to warn all the animals about these and scare the carrots and cabbages, mangoes, the car owners, tax officers, the Eskimos, Al Gore, Brown who is desperately trying to have green ( What a colour?) , Valentines? celebration if they fall on Monday, do we re-print the days?
Sir Paul McCartney is behind Meat Free Monday, which aims to persuade people to go veggie once a week to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the world's livestock, among the most serious contributors to global warming.
Sir, after the hard day?s night and yesterday, Hey Jude has just written Dear John letter from Russia with Love in the Slow boats to Chain and in the Hawaiian sunset. With the young ones. You meet them you like them they beautiful kittens.
How is your fever?
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla