Paul McCartney Supports Meat Free Mondays to Cut Carbon Emissions
Paul McCartney is pushing for Meat Free Monday, a U.K.-based initiative encouraging people to reduce meat consumption to slow climate change, according to The Guardian. The goal is to persuade people that going veggie once a week—they've picked Mondays—will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, among the most serious contributors to global warming.
According to Meat Free Monday's website, "The UK's Food Climate Research Network suggests that farm to fork is responsible for between 20 to 30 percent of global green house gas emissions. Livestock production is responsible for around half of these emissions."
Linda McCartney Foods is showing its support by sharing a meatless recipe every Monday, starting yesterday with a vegetarian bolognese sauce. Other rock stars on board of the campaign: Sheryl Crow and Coldplay's Chris Martin.
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18 Comments:
I don't understand the comment about Linda showing her support. She died in 1998.
dsquare at 10:46AM on 06/16/09
@dsquare: thanks - you got there before I did.
sixsonnets at 11:02AM on 06/16/09
I think the article is supposed to say that Linda McCartney's *company* is showing its support. That threw me for a loop as well.
painterjane at 11:04AM on 06/16/09
I think we would be better off reducing livestock greenhouse gas emissions by eating them.
JoeDeNivo at 11:08AM on 06/16/09
yes, she is going meat free every day now. Maybe the Ghost whisperer is in contact. Couldn't they have used a more recent picture of Paul? or would that not highlight the benefits of vegetarianism?
Meat guy at 11:12AM on 06/16/09
ha ha--i'm with joe on this one.
gastronomeg at 11:13AM on 06/16/09
Lost in translation here ... what's a "vegetarian mince"?! Google searches have only helped me find out what mincing means. That I'm OK with.
robinsparkles at 11:29AM on 06/16/09
What about a simple marinara sauce?! Bolognese is meat sauce - trying to get meat eaters to eat less meat by suggesting they eat meatless meat sauce is STUPID.
joyyy at 11:36AM on 06/16/09
Stupid assertion number 1: The belches and flatulence of cattle contributes to global warming.
The truth: When plants die and begin to decay, they produce CO2, water vapor and methane. It makes no difference whatsoever if the plant material is in a cow, a compost heap or piled up in forest litter or prairie mat. The same amount of "greenhouse" gases is produced.
Stupid Assertion number 2: Forcing everyone to become a vegan will somehow also reduce greenhouse emissions.
Whatever we replace animal products with will also need harvesting, storage, packaging and shipping and the resultant wastes will need to be dealt with. Remember, when plants die, they produce methane, CO2 and water vapor.
No one has proved that we are indeed undergoing human induced global warming. The so-called "greenhouse" effect is basically nonsense, the atmosphere does not work in anyway similar to a greenhouse.
This entire thing is and was nothing more than a political scam perpetrated by Margaret Thatcher. Now it has become politically correct and the darling cause celebre of the political left. It is a tool that the politicians of every political stripe hope to use as a means of controlling your life. Don't be a sucker.
Grumpy Old Man at 11:40AM on 06/16/09
joe +2
bobbob at 11:44AM on 06/16/09
I will wholeheartedly support this, as it means: MORE MEAT FOR ME!
juliebugsmama at 12:00PM on 06/16/09
Or we should start eating each other.
Cassaendra at 1:49PM on 06/16/09
Rollerball party at my house on Sunday. Bring your own soylent green.
Grumpy Old Man at 2:14PM on 06/16/09
idiot...
ronzoni at 2:58PM on 06/16/09
I'm with grumpy. Global warming is a big con game to make people feel guilty and pay more for energy if/when cap and trade is institutes. Cap and trade will double your electric bill and make all forms of energy more expensive
The Federal government will take in billions from cap and trade which is really just an energy tax. You are guilty if you live in America and must pay more
No limits on China and India, they will burn more and more coal which will offset any CO2 reductions America makes
gaffer at 8:28PM on 06/16/09
@Grumpy Old Man
"Stupid Assertion number 2: Forcing everyone to become a vegan will somehow also reduce greenhouse emissions.
Whatever we replace animal products with will also need harvesting, storage, packaging and shipping and the resultant wastes will need to be dealt with. Remember, when plants die, they produce methane, CO2 and water vapor. "
The key fact that you are not considering is that it takes much more energy to produce 100 calories of meat as it does 100 calories of a vegetable - orders of magnitude more. So even will all else being equal - we can ignor the "emissions" from living or dead cows, we can ignore the difficulty of safely disposing of animal waste, we can ignore the ease of contamination in an industrially produced meat supply, we can ignore the cruelty of factory farms - cows still take much more energy to produce, and require many more greenhouse gas emissions to grow than plants do.
"No one has proved that we are indeed undergoing human induced global warming. The so-called "greenhouse" effect is basically nonsense, the atmosphere does not work in anyway similar to a greenhouse.
This entire thing is and was nothing more than a political scam perpetrated by Margaret Thatcher. Now it has become politically correct and the darling cause celebre of the political left. It is a tool that the politicians of every political stripe hope to use as a means of controlling your life. Don't be a sucker"
You'd better have some hard core facts to back up that bold statement, because the vast majority of both the scientific and political community are now in agreement: the greenhouse effect is real, and it is caused by humans. Either every single one of them is wrong, or I've underestimated cast scope of Margaret Thatcher's nefarious scheme.
Assuming that you are correct - the greenhouse doesn't exist and it's nothing more than a political scam - please explain to me what the motive behind the scam is? What benefit could the government possibly get from people spending less money?
GoodEaterKenji at 9:55AM on 06/17/09
Okay, one piece at a time, but let us be clear about something. I am not the one making wild assertions to support a blatant political agenda having little or nothing to do with the facts. The burden of proof is not on me.
Quote:"The key fact that you are not considering is that it takes much more energy to produce 100 calories of meat as it does 100 calories of a vegetable - orders of magnitude more.
Prove it. Show me the numbers.
So even will all else being equal - we can ignore the "emissions" from living or dead cows, we can ignore the difficulty of safely disposing of animal waste, we can ignore the ease of contamination in an industrially produced meat supply, we can ignore the cruelty of factory farms - cows still take much more energy to produce, and require many more greenhouse gas emissions to grow than plants do.
Cows get by quite nicely using little more than ambient solar energy and have done so for thousands of years. As for the animal cruelty, you are making a religious argument I do not recognize as valid.
What you are doing here is going along Archer-Daniels Midland the founder of which decided long ago that lipids were lipids and there is little significant difference between butter and cottonseed oil. You want to feed humans as though they were cattle with no need to worry about whether or not they like the stuff you choose to feed them.
Quote:"You'd better have some hard core facts to back up that bold statement, because the vast majority of both the scientific and political community are now in agreement: the greenhouse effect is real, and it is caused by humans.
Mostly it is just the political. community who are in agreement. They see it as an opportunity to gain power and make lot's and lot's of money, starting with Albert Gore.
Again. I am not the one who bears the burden of proof. Those making these silly assertions are bearing the burden of proof and HAVE FAILED RATHER MISERABLY TO DELIVER.
Just for the record. The atmosphere is not a greenhouse. Never was and never will be. The concentration of C02 and other alleged "greenhouse gases", even at current levels, is too small to be of any consequence whatsoever.
What is going on here is the use of force without due process and that is all there is to it. The politicians are peddling a big pack of lies and they are doing for the obvious purposes of self-aggrandizement and the ability to tell you and me how we must live. Pay close attention to what they do. Put not your faith in Princes. They produce NOTHING and are therefore obliged to steal for a living.
Grumpy Old Man at 1:13PM on 06/17/09
Our small family does eat meat-free meals frequently, but I'd have to say ol' Pauly there should dismantle his private plane to cut down on HIS carbon emissions. We broke, meat eating plebs hardly make a dent environmentally when compared to a rich, jet-setting, life-long vegetarian with several homes worldwide. Pardon me while I walk around the corner for my weekly burger.
JustNancy at 6:13PM on 06/17/09