‘Mad Men’ Star Vincent Kartheiser Encourages Others To Go Vegetarian For The Environment

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by Ali Berman November 18, 2010
Categories: People
Tags: .

A few weeks ago we told you about “Mad Men” star Vincent Kartheiser’s choice to forgo owning a car and instead take public transport around LA. Now he’s speaking out about the other ways he has chosen to go green.

Vincent said in an interview on MSNBC:

“I’ve been a vegetarian for four years and I have chosen not to have children also, which are both green choices in my life. I also zeroscaped my lawn.”

Kudos to Vincent! By going veg and helping reduce the population by choosing not to have kids, he’s a model eco citizen. But he doesn’t stop there. He also encourages others to make sustainable choices.

Kartheiser said, “If there is some way you can give up meat or give up your car on the weekends or something small like that, I think every little difference in our own lives makes a big difference when done by the masses.”

We agree with you Vincent. Check out the interview after the jump below.

Via Huffington Post

About Ali Berman

Ali Berman is a writer, teacher and activist. She works as a humane educator for HEART teaching kids about issues affecting people, animals and the environment. Ali is also a fiction writer. Her published work can be found on her website at aliberman.com. In early 2012 Ali co-founded flipmeover, a production company with the mission to use media to raise awareness of social issues.

View all posts by Ali Berman →
  • JP

    This just revolved my stomach. I eat meat, I love meat. However, I profoundly respect other people’s decisions. If other people is vegetarian or vegan I respect that, but saying that not having children is a green decision, that completly insane, and as a parent, offensive. Your children is your flesh and bone, is a human been!!! For christ sake. When we became “green options”?. We are not cattle or a Prius. If you are real “model eco citizen” raise your voice against the real enemies of our planet: the multinational companies that polute our air, poisson our water all around the world.

  • Ali Berman

    JP: Certainly being a parent is a wonderful thing. And no one is saying that choosing to have children makes you a bad environmentalist. However, our population is growing fast. And we only have so many resources. Some green folks such as Vincent Kartheiser are choosing not to have kids to put less of a burden on the earth. It’s a choice he made and a very self sacrificing one. I think it’s pretty great. It comes down to what he said: there are many ways to be more sustainable. We all have to find the ways that work for us.

  • georgina

    I agree with Ali as well as with Vincent. Nobody is saying anything against parenthood and the decision not to have/to have kids is so personal nobody can/should touch it. However, like Ali said this world is becoming quickly overpopulated, and more and more land is being destroyed to build more buildings, houses, and apartment complexes to accommodate us all. Also, an alternative to not having kids for environmental reasons would be to adopt a kid; there are many innocent little ones that would make a perfect son or daughter to a person who does not want to put a strain on this planet and its limited resources.

  • JP

    As I said before, I respect the personal decisions of everyone. However, my concept of enviromentalist is totally diferent from some of yours and that’ ok, as somebady said is what it work better for as. And that is why I totally desagree and resent this kind of eco-declarations. You are definitely right saying that we humans are abusing of the earth, but wasn not allways like that. What I am triying to say is that the CAUSE of the envimental problems we have now is due to the greedy, destructive and unfair global model that we entered since the industrial revolutuon. I know that change this is almost impossible, and that any “rational” thing we can do to help is very important….

    • georgina

      I know, you are right, we have managed to successfully screw up every thing that is natural and that used to have a balance on its own on this planet.

    • http://www.herwinsvegancafe.com herwin

      thats too easy to blame the environmental degradation of the earth on a nameless and faceless “greedy destructive and unfair global model”. (whatever that means and whoever they are..)
      it all starts with ourselves, we make the choiches ourself, so we have to change ourselves and our behaviour. For one, eating meat is very environmental unfriendly, needs much limited natural resources to produce, supports inequality in the world, is very cruel for countles of animals, is bad for your health and is a mayor cost for society to treat all these meat-eating related illnesses, etc.
      so please take a moment to reflect on ones own behaviour and lets change that, okay ?

  • JP

    However while we do not tackle the real CAUSE and the whole system built tho protect it, all our effort will be worthless. Again I respect your opinions and I just wanted to clarify my own.

    • georgina

      That is totally cool. That was my opinion as well :)

      • http://www.ecorazzi.com Michael dEstries

        Thanks for your comments, JP!

  • http://none Ayla

    Although I completely respect his sacrifices, I think he should reconsider having children. Environmentalists should not emphasize everyone not having kids. SMART, CARING & RESPONSIBLE individuals should have MORE KIDS. And the majority of people out there who don’t have brains (who are having the majority of kids right now) should be pushed to not have kids.

    The majority of people using welfare have about 8 kids. I think most people can agree that smart people need to start having more kids, not the opposite.

    Vincent sounds intelligent, caring responsible and this is exactly what we need in the world. Vincent!! HAVE KIDS!! PASS THOSE GREAT GENES ON!

    • mcnicolandrew

      “SMART, CARING & RESPONSIBLE individuals should have MORE KIDS.”

      This logic doesn’t work in practice because everyone sees themselves as ‘smart, caring and responsible’ in relation to the average. This also makes the population issue worse when it is used as a justification to have more than a sustainable number of offspring.

      I think smart, caring and responsible individuals who choose not to have their own children should be praised. And part of the ‘smartness’ of what Vincent is doing here is publicising this decision and creating awareness that this is a possibility – and a green issue.

      There are many ways we can have an impact on future generations, and it’s dangerous to see our biological children as the primary way our own ideas can live on. Besides, I know I’m very different to my parents, so who’s to say any children of mine would follow in my footsteps?

  • JP

    “… Easy to blame…whatever that means….” if you think thay I am trying to get my hand cleans you are very wrong. We all are part of the problem, BUT we dont have the same share on this. If you try to reduce your footprint by not eating meat, that is ok. But I have a question for you. Do you believe that eating meat is the biggest source of the increase in CO2? Or the responsible are the big coal, oil, chemical, automotive, etc… Companies and the laws and goverments who support them? Anyway you are trying to do your part and I salute that, me? I am trying to do my part too (eating my local-grass-fed meat and enjoying my child in the meanwhile)

    • Pat

      JP I agree with you. The large share of responsibility lies on the companies and the governments that give these companies breaks and free-passes to do whatever they want to do. The citizens of these countries are also to blame, because they are distracted and do no think about the what they eat and buy. Becoming a vegetarian will not solve the problem if you only eat the vegetables mass-produced by the big Agro-businesses because they use fertilizers, pesticides, etc that harm not only the Earth but us too.

  • Genny

    Like I needed more reasons for him to be my favorite Mad Men actor (p.s. I didn’t).

    I’m really amazed that he mentionioned the kids issue because of the sort of responses demonstrated here. I have nothing against people who want to have biological kids, afterall I wouldn’t be here without them. But anytime I say I DO NOT want to have children people either rationalize their choice or try to undermine mine. Ever since I was a child I have wanted to adopt. Nothing you say is going to change my feelings on the situation and guess what that is ok. Just like it is ok that Vincent made his feelings on the subject known. He did not seem to be coming from a place of superiority, he was just informing the viewers of his own choices in life and how they correlate to his feelings on the environment.

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