Less Meat
Less Heat
Paul
McCartney
Less Meat
Less Heat
I've been
vegetarian for
over 40 years
and brought my family up without meat.
I'm very happy to say that we all love the
lifestyle. We feel that we are not only
helping animals that would otherwise be
slaughtered, but we are also contributing
to a healthier lifestyle for ourselves.
Fore
word
It's also important these days because
the production of livestock is a major
factor in the emission of greenhouse
gases (check out ‘One Day a Week'
at meatfreemondays.com), so we are
happy to be contributing to the healthy
environmental future of our planet. It
was for this reason that my daughters
Mary and Stella and I launched the Meat
Free Monday campaign in June 2009,
encouraging people to skip meat for at
least one day a week.
I gave the following speech half a year
later, at the ‘Global Warming and Food
Policy: Less Meat = Less Heat' European
Parliament Public Hearing held on 3
December 2009.
We are delighted that Meat Free
Monday is catching on with so many
people, as well as schools, businesses and
government departments all over the
world, who are joining in and making a
difference to the environment –
for ourselves
today, and
for future
generations.
on behalf of the campaign that we've
started in the UK called Meat Free
Monday.
I first of all got involved with this
campaign after reading a story about
a UN report that was issued in 2006.
It was called Livestock's Long Shadow.
What interested me in this was that it
was not written by vegetarians. I think
if it had been written by vegetarians,
then people would have just said,
I am talking
‘Well you would say that.' And I can
understand that. But to me, the people
in the UN who wrote this were probably
traditional eaters, and probably ate
meat themselves. So that's what
attracted me to it. I then started writing
some letters to heads of governments
saying just that. You're going to think,
‘It's me, a vegetarian, just banging on
about my favourite subject.' In actual
fact, I pointed out that this was not
written by me and that these facts had
been obtained by the UN.
Since then, many more studies and
reports have appeared. The New York
Times and more recently the London
Times, had front pages on this subject,
so I personally think there is an urgent
need to do something about it.
Why is there
a need?
Basically, the livestock industry
produces more greenhouse gases than
all of the transport sector put together –
cars, planes, trains and trucking. They
used to be who we thought were the
villains of the piece, but it would appear
from these figures that the livestock
industry produces more gases.
So this goes
into areas like
deforestation.
They say that an area the size of six
football pitches disappears every minute
in deforestation, for grazing, or for
growing animal feed. To produce one
burger requires the amount of water
used in a four-hour shower.
To produce one
burger requires
the amount of
water used
in a four-hour
shower.
1
4
h
These are very
interesting
facts and I
would be
quite glad if
these weren't