Less Meat

Less Heat

Paul

McCartney

Less Meat

Less Heat

I've been

vegetarian for

over 40 years

and brought my family up without meat.

I'm very happy to say that we all love the

lifestyle. We feel that we are not only

helping animals that would otherwise be

slaughtered, but we are also contributing

to a healthier lifestyle for ourselves.

Fore

word

It's also important these days because

the production of livestock is a major

factor in the emission of greenhouse

gases (check out ‘One Day a Week'

at meatfreemondays.com), so we are

happy to be contributing to the healthy

environmental future of our planet. It

was for this reason that my daughters

Mary and Stella and I launched the Meat

Free Monday campaign in June 2009,

encouraging people to skip meat for at

least one day a week.

I gave the following speech half a year

later, at the ‘Global Warming and Food

Policy: Less Meat = Less Heat' European

Parliament Public Hearing held on 3

December 2009.

We are delighted that Meat Free

Monday is catching on with so many

people, as well as schools, businesses and

government departments all over the

world, who are joining in and making a

difference to the environment –

for ourselves

today, and

for future

generations.

on behalf of the campaign that we've

started in the UK called Meat Free

Monday.

I first of all got involved with this

campaign after reading a story about

a UN report that was issued in 2006.

It was called Livestock's Long Shadow.

What interested me in this was that it

was not written by vegetarians. I think

if it had been written by vegetarians,

then people would have just said,

I am talking

‘Well you would say that.' And I can

understand that. But to me, the people

in the UN who wrote this were probably

traditional eaters, and probably ate

meat themselves. So that's what

attracted me to it. I then started writing

some letters to heads of governments

saying just that. You're going to think,

‘It's me, a vegetarian, just banging on

about my favourite subject.' In actual

fact, I pointed out that this was not

written by me and that these facts had

been obtained by the UN.

Since then, many more studies and

reports have appeared. The New York

Times and more recently the London

Times, had front pages on this subject,

so I personally think there is an urgent

need to do something about it.

Why is there

a need?

Basically, the livestock industry

produces more greenhouse gases than

all of the transport sector put together –

cars, planes, trains and trucking. They

used to be who we thought were the

villains of the piece, but it would appear

from these figures that the livestock

industry produces more gases.

So this goes

into areas like

deforestation.

They say that an area the size of six

football pitches disappears every minute

in deforestation, for grazing, or for

growing animal feed. To produce one

burger requires the amount of water

used in a four-hour shower.

To produce one

burger requires

the amount of

water used

in a four-hour

shower.

1

4

h

These are very

interesting

facts and I

would be

quite glad if

these weren't

true,

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