Al Gore vs. PETA – The Fight For Global Warming
Filed under: campaigns, politics — paige @ 2:53 pm
August 30th 2007
No one can accuse the PETA people of not being a passionate group willing to go to great extremes to advocate their mission. In an effort to raise their cause to an entirely new level they are going after Al Gore, the “meat eating environmentalist,” according to Matt Prescott, manager of vegan campaigns for PETA. The group plans to send trucks displaying the message “Too Chicken To Go Vegetarian” to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver where Gore is scheduled to appear on Oct. 2. In addition, they are planning an earlier event in to grab the attention of environmental groups. According to the New York Times:
PETA is outfitting a Hummer with a driver in a chicken suit and a vinyl banner proclaiming meat as the top cause of global warming. It will send the vehicle to the start of the climate forum the White House is sponsoring in Washington on Sept. 27, “and to headquarters of environmental groups, if they don’t start shaping up,” Mr. Prescott warned. “Al Gore calls global warming an existential risk to humanity, yet it hasn’t prompted him to change his diet or even mention vegetarianism,” he complained. “And I guess the environmentalists recognize that it’s a lot easier to ask people to put in a fluorescent light bulb than to learn to cook with tofu.”
Environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense both agree that while eating less meat is certainly important to the overall issue of global warming, they choose to focus their time more on influencing public policy versus lecturing people on consumption choices. Evidently Mr. Gore’s deputy press secretary clarified that a suggestion to “modify your diet to include less meat” appears on Page 317 of the book version of “An Inconvenient Truth.” Check out the full article here.
How can the environmental groups are going to ignore what the U.N. calls the number one cause of global warming?
And Al Gore–he says he cares so much about global warming (and he does seem genuine), so how can he ignore the science from the U.N., the Univ. of Chicago, and every other report that’s been done?
The U.N. report also says that eating meat is among the top three causes of every environmental problem, from the smallest to the largest, as detailed at http://www.GoVeg.com/eco.
Al and his pals could do a ton of good by encouraging people to adopt a vegetarian diet; it’s hard to understand why he ignores this issue.
Vegge advocates have a point, but they need to read the UN report more closely. It doesn’t call for curbing meat eating. It calls for a massive rethinking of meat production. There is a huge difference. For all of our sakes, please do not shape the larger issue to fit your pet cause. People will continue to eat meat, and food economies will continue to have meat as a key component. The question is, can we do it sustainably?
Oh boy, PETA strikes again … this is the same group that once tried to get the town of Fishkill, NY to change its name (Um, newsflash: New York was settled by the Dutch, and “kill” in Dutch, means “stream.”) Over the last couple of years alone, Al Gore has done a better job of rallying huge numbers of people to support environmentalism than PETA has done in its entire fundamentalist existence. I’m vegetarian, but I have no delusions about the country turning veg en masse, so why not encourage and applaud carnivores for joining the rest of us in a greener lifestyle. Why not take a more Morgan Spurlock approach and instead, encourage meat eaters to opt for free-range meat instead of factory-farmed. And if the best someone can do is switch to an eco-friendly lightbulb and recycled paper towels, that’s better than where we were 10, even 5, years ago.
Clever to a fault, and entirely counterproductive. No question that what we put on our plate has a huge implications for environmental footprints. But attacking a what should be a natural ally is a silly way to go about it. There are better ways to skin this carrot.
For a fuller POV from a somebody who’s been doing PR for enviros for more than a dozen years (me), see:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jcoifman/go_pluck_yourself.html
“PETA is outfitting a Hummer with a driver in a chicken suit and a vinyl banner” Are you serious? A Hummer! a vinyl banner! Meat may be a problem, but it doesn’t make gas guzzlers and plastics are okay. Couldn’t they have put the chicken suit man in a Prius (or better yet, had him walk) and wave a banner made of hemp? I know they’re trying to get attention, but guzzling gas to do so is just plain obnoxious.
Also, I agree with you, AZ, not everyone is going to go veg, and getting people to make changes they’re willing to make is better than turning people off completely.
Michael Gomez,
Whats a better way to change the way meat is produced that to not produce it at all. Go here for more info:
http://meat.org
Not only is meat production a major source of environmental destruction, but it is also at the root of infectious diseases like bird flu.
Recently, in the report, “A Safer Future”, the WHO Director margaret Chan said that new diseases are emerging at a “historically unprecedented rate” and “the majority of the 39 new diseases came from animals, including Ebola, SARS, and bird flu.”
According to the Washington Post:
…”one of the changes affecting human health was increasingly intensive poultry farming, which may account for the global spread of bird flu.”
“It should not come as a surprise that we are seeing more and more disease outbreaks coming from the animal sector,” Chan said.
Dr. Michael Gregor, director of public health and Animal Agriculture in the Farm Animal Welfare div. of The Humane Society of the US agreed:
“Highly pathogenic bird flu viruses seem predominantly to be products of factory farming. Indeed, said University of Ottawa virologist Dr. Earl
Brown, a specialist in influenza virus evolution, “You have to say that high intensity chicken rearing is a perfect environment for generating virulentavian flu virus.”
Many of the world’s scientific authorities agree. The WHO says that the increasing trend of emerging infectious diseases in part on the “industrialization of the animal production sector” in general, and the emergence of H5N1 on “intensive poultry production” in particular…According to the Royal Geographical Society, “Massive demand for chicken has led to factory (battery) farming which provides ideal
conditions for viruses to spread orally and via excreta which inevitably contaminates food in the cramped conditions that most birds are kept in.”
I am not sure how effective fear is for advocating a cause, but humor certainly is. Check it out: http://www.themeatrix.com/
I like to believe that there is room for everyone when it comes to raising awareness:-)
Many environmental groups are already on the eat-less-meat bandwagon so I don’t think PETA demonstrating at their offices is the best tactic. I like the ads done by the other animal groups though and I think they’ll make a fair number of people aware of the meat and environment connection and reconsider their eating habits.
I agree that influencing public policy is one of the most important tactics for creating change, but changing consumption patterns is also hugely important. Yes, all Americans aren’t going to go vegetarian overnight, but many will if given the facts, and those who do can have a huge impact. If even a small percentage of people go vegetarian or commit to eating less meat, millions of animals will be spared, a lot less methane will put into the atmosphere, and a smaller amount of land and water bodies will polluted.
I think it’s kind of funny that I find myself arguing these points, since I’m a vegetarian, too, mostly. I say mostly because I eat grass-fed beef on rare occasions. I’ve checked my facts and done my homework. Some cattle grazing can actually be good for the land and air.
In essence, I think that attacking someone like Gore can only weaken the cause of vegetarianism. And, just as importantly, the message is wrong. Meat IS NOT the #1 cause of global warming. It’s an oversimplification and it turns a complex issue — that we need to solve with action, not slogans — into a publicity stunt.
Industrial and intensive meat production is the culprit. Read the UN report that PETA seems to think makes the case. There is no call for people to go vegge, but there IS a call for REDESIGN and retrofit the meat production systems towards sustainability. Yes, people’s consumption needs to change, as well, but is this kind of Guilt-tripping going to work? No — never has, and never will.
We need to envision a redesign that works for 100% of the people on the planet, and over 1 billion those people depend on meat for their diet and their livelihood right now.
It would be far more productive and creative to actually bring the campaign for better meat production system to Gore, instead of this cannibalistic vitriol. Why such an antagonizing, black-and-white framing of the issue? Why the ultimatum? I suspect it is because people prefer to be “right” more than they prefer to be persuasive.
BS”D
PETA may be out here to appeal to conservatives who — correctly in my opinion — see Al Gore as a hypocrite for talking the talk but not walking the walk on global warming. Gore uses many times more electricity in his Tennessee mansion than the average American does in his or her home, yet thinks that by buying indulgences called carbon trading credits, he can get away with it. No wonder he thinks he can eat an SUV-style carnivorous diet and still think of himself as an environmentalist. I’m no fan of PETA’s antics, but this time they are right; and if they get a few conservatives to change their meat-, dairy- and egg-eating ways, so much the better. Actions do speak louder than words. Of course, the more mainstream advocacy of the Humane Society of the United States on this issue is also needed; HSUS is out with an ad that includes a car key and a kitchen fork and implies the fork is the bigger determinant of greenhouse gas emissions.
Reforming the meat industry is important, but those changes can only go so far in reducing the environmental impact of livestock. People around the world need to signigicantly reduce their meat, fish, dairy and egg consumption. Governments can make this less painful to meat producers by providing subsidies to animal-agribusiness farmers who switch to growing plant-based sources of protein.
”I’m a vegetarian, too, mostly.”
You’re not a vegetarian Michael, you just don’t eat much meat.
That’s like saying ”I’m teetotal, mostly, I only drink at weekends”.
Brilliant! Everyone wants to be a little greener. I can’t think of a better way to appeal to the masses.