Less Meat, Less Heat – A Recipe for Our Planet - Paul McCartney

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       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

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