In addition to a good invention, the internet, Al Gore also gave us an evil one — global warming. Luckily Paul McCartney has come to the rescue, using one to defeat the other. He’s asking fans to go meatless on Mondays for now on, in sort of a modified old-school Lent, in order to slow global warming by reducing emissions of farm animals.
The Kansas City Star on the matter:
Cows, pigs and sheep bred for human consumption discharge millions of tons of methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Livestock accounts for about 18 percent of greenhouse gases, more than all the world’s cars, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has said.
Supported in his cause by celebrity chefs and Hollywood actors, McCartney said in a statement Monday that skipping meat a day a week is a “meaningful” change everyone can make to their lifestyles to help the environment. Less consumption may lead to fewer animals reared, and so emissions would fall.
McCartney is working under the assumption that less demand for meat will lead to fewer farm animals, overlooking the inconvenient truth that if we don’t keep eating meat seven days a week, the populations of flatulent farm animals will surely explode unchecked and thus hasten the destruction of the environment.
But the man did rock us senseless with Wings (which will heretofore be remembered on Mondays as “Celery Sticks”) so who are we to question his wisdom?
The Consumer Memo, 6/15: Paul McCartney backs meatless Mondays [Kansas City Star]
(Photo: u2acro)
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Mocking the sentiment is about as low as it gets. Sure, having a celebrity tell you is totally hypocritical. But when you have Australia actively trying to replace its cow herds with less flatulent animals, you should see that there may in fact be legitimate concerns.
@Mecharine: The cows aren’t the problem.
Maybe if we humans didn’t breed like fucking rabbits we wouldn’t need to cover the Earth in livestock to feed 6 BILLION fucking people.
But of course that would be insensitive. People feel they have the RIGHT to keep fucking and breeding no matter what.
@BZMedia: Even a population like ours could be sustained if responsible living were more common. Since fewer members of our species means less variation and fewer contributors to human knowledge, six billion humans is fine with me if they can live within their means. Do you have a better solution that won’t cause someone to accuse you of supporting eugenics?
As one of the world’s biggest Beatle’s fans and a former vegetarian, I am going to give this a try. I have been thinking of how to work back into eating less meat and this is a good start.
some people say they’ve had enough of silly scientific mumbo-jumbo, but I look around and see it isn’t so…
whats the point of removing the virus out of the vaccine .that would make the vaccine totally pointless
Actually, all you need is love.
This is no different than drinking Gatorade because Michael Jordan says he does. McCartney is pushing a product. It happens to be a product that involves action instead of purchase, but it’s no less a product. I have no problem with celebrities pushing whatever they want to push. Whether I choose to accept their expertise is a very different matter.
Which Pope declared meatless Fridays?
Cow farts aren’t the big issue when contributing to global warming. The problem is deforestation which is carried out to both provide pasture for cattle and crops to feed cattle. Deforestation contributes to global warming rather significantly. If you read the book, “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”, you get a pretty good explanation of such things.
The higher up you eat on the food chain, the more energy it takes to produce the food you’re eating. This is undeniable. Finding the resources to raise cattle is more costly than eating fish or chicken or a vegetarian diet, for instance. These things are pretty logical, yet people deny them anyway.
Doing the opposite of what a celebrity tells you to is little different from doing what they tell you today. In both cases, someone else’s actions are controlling yours. People know eating meat is bad for the planet, but they’ll do whatever they can to justify it, including claiming to do the opposite to show how “rebellious” they are or denying the undeniable logic by stating there’s no “proof”.
Back before the planet was ruined (before all the evil white men came to America), life and the planet was in perfect balance.
The earth’s temperature was not raising at the alarming rate that it is now.
It was a convenient truth that all native peoples lived in harmony with all other living things. When they killed a buffalo, they used every single part, not wasting one bit.
Which left the other 15 billion buffalo to fart as much as they wanted.
@diasdiem: Please tell me that was sarcasm.
Jenny McCarthy is an uninformed idiot who spouts false and scientifically proven false beliefs to profit off her kid who probably isn’t even autistic.
But why? I’m TRYING to help the environment! Hell, I love mother earth so much that I’m willing to EAT those bastards that fart up the atmosphere! I propose Mondays to be “Double Meat Mondays.” Save our planet, eat the polluters!
LOL.. How about No.
[www.babelgum.com] coming to the party late but here’s a good reason not to eat our fish.
Since I drive a hybrid and am helping the environment, does that mean i can eat twice as much meat then? Ha.
Pal has a “beef” with anyone who eats meat, including me. I have a “beef” with him for ruining popular music for the last 40+ years. So we’re even.
@Elizabeth Anderson: Er, I mean “Paul”. Whatever.