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”.

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.

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.

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 like to believe that there is room for everyone when it comes to raising awareness:-)

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.”