With the Meat Free Monday campaign in mind, Paul was asked to write something for Gwyneth Paltrows website.
www.goop.com He wrote the following…
Ok,
here’s the story on Meat Free Monday. In 2006, the United Nations
issued a report which stated that the livestock industry as a whole was
responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the whole of the
transport sector put together.
I found this interesting
particularly because people at the UN are not a vegetarian society and
therefore, could not be accused of bias. They pointed out the following
facts:
• The Livestock industry produces gases that are extremely dangerous for the future of our environment.
•
The two main gases, methane and nitrous oxide, are considered to be
more harmful than CO2 (methane is 21 times more powerful than CO2 and
nitrous oxide is 310 times more powerful than CO2) so the data suggests
that this is causing a highly dangerous situation for ourselves and,
more importantly, for future generations.
• Methane also
remains in the atmosphere for 9 to 15 years; nitrous oxide remains in
the atmosphere for 114 years, on average, and is 296 times more potent
than CO2 - the gases released today will continue to be active in
degrading the climate decades from now.
• Livestock production
is land intensive: a recent report by Greenpeace on land use in the
largest meat producing state in Brazil found that livestock (cattle)
production was responsible for vastly more deforestation than soya.
•
A third of all cereal crops, and well over 90% of soya, goes into
animal feed, not food for humans. Eating less meat will free up a lot
of agricultural land which can revert to growing trees and other
vegetation, which, in turn, will absorb more carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere.
• Livestock production is water intensive: it
accounts for around 8% of global human water use. The estimated 634
gallons of fresh water required to produce one 5.2 ounce (150g) beef
burger would be enough for a four-hour shower. For comparison, the same
quantity of tofu requires 143 gallons of water to produce.
•
Livestock production is the largest source of water pollutants,
principally animal wastes, antibiotics, hormones, chemicals from
tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used for feed crops, and
sediments from eroded pastures.
• The meat industry is set to
double its production by 2050 so even if they manage to lower emissions
by 50%, as they have promised to, we will still be in the same position.
With
this in mind, my family and I launched Meat Free Monday in the UK, an
idea which has been gaining support from people like Tom Parker-Bowles
who, after a lifetime of denigrating vegetarians, recently wrote in his
Daily Mail column, “I wince at the memory of my boorish antics” and who
pronounced himself “intrigued” by MFM: “There's no doubting the plain
common sense of the message…Meat Free Monday is something to really
savour”. Another supporter is Al Gore who stated that initiatives like
Meat Free Monday “represent a responsible and welcome component of a
comprehensive strategy for reducing global warming pollution and
simultaneously improving human health."
Even a number of
schools have already done this in the UK with great success. The town
of Ghent in Belgium has a meat free day and, amazingly, Sao Paulo has
one even though Brazil is a large exporter of meat. In Sweden, the
government is now labeling food to give the consumer the opportunity to
understand the dangers of indiscriminate food consumption and there are
many more examples appearing online.
The point is that so many
people these days are looking for ways to “do their bit” for the
environment. We recycle - something we never would have dreamt of doing
in the past. Many people now drive hybrid cars but most people
understand that we cannot leave this important issue to the politicians
of the world. Recently, at the Copenhagen Conference for Climate
Change, this issue was not even on the agenda and so I believe it is
once again left to us, the people, to do it ourselves.
It’s
amazingly easy to take one day in your week, Monday or any other day,
and not eat meat. When you think about it, there are so many great
alternatives, for instance, in Italian cooking, so many of the dishes
are vegetarian already and Thai and Chinese cuisine are the same. All
it means is that you have to think a bit about what you’ll eat that day
but, in actual fact, far from being a chore, it’s a fun challenge.
Having been vegetarians for over 30 years, my family and I find it very simple and in fact, tasty and most enjoyable.
So there it is! Next Monday - don’t eat meat and do your bit to save
this beautiful planet of ours. For more information, ideas and lots of
meat free recipes, go to the official Meat Free Monday website
www.supportmfm.orgRock on ya’ll!
Paul