[graffis-l] dinner plate and global warming

[Guest guest]

At 08:27 AM 8/30/07, you wrote:

>Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change

>Posted by: " Mark Graffis " mgraffis mgraffis

>Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:02 pm (PST)

>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/business/media/29adco.html?_r=1 & oref=slogin

>Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change

>

>A People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals billboard chides Al Gore.

>

>By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

>Published: August 29, 2007

>EVER since “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore has been the darling of

>environmentalists, but that movie hardly endeared him to the animal rights

>folks. According to them, the most inconvenient truth of all is that

>raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the

>sport utility vehicles combined.

>

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>

>The Humane Society links environmental issues and food.

>

>The biggest animal rights groups do not always overlap in their missions,

>but now they have coalesced around a message that eating meat is worse for

>the environment than driving. They and smaller groups have started

>advertising campaigns that try to equate vegetarianism with curbing

>greenhouse gases.

>

>Some backlash against this position is inevitable, the groups acknowledge,

>but they do have scientific ammunition. In late November, the United

>Nations Food and Agriculture Organization issued a report stating that the

>livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms

>of transportation combined.

>

>When that report came out, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and

>other groups expected their environmental counterparts to immediately hop

>on the “Go Veggie!” bandwagon, but that did not happen. “Environmentalists

>are still pointing their fingers at Hummers and S.U.V.’s when they should

>be pointing at the dinner plate,” said Matt A. Prescott, manager of vegan

>campaigns for PETA.

>

>So the animal rights groups are mobilizing on their own. 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.

>

>He said that PETA had written to more than 700 environmental groups,

>asking them to promote vegetarianism, and that it would soon distribute

>leaflets that highlight the impact of eating meat on global warming.

>

>“You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist,” said Mr. Prescott,

>whose group also plans to send billboard-toting trucks to the Colorado

>Convention Center in Denver when Mr. Gore lectures there on Oct. 2. The

>billboards will feature a cartoon image of Mr. Gore eating a drumstick

>next to the tagline: “Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat Is the No. 1

>Cause of Global Warming.”

>

>•

>

>The Humane Society of the United States has taken up the issue as well,

>running ads in environmental magazines that show a car key and a fork.

>“Which one of these contributes more to global warming?” the ads ask. They

>answer the question with “It’s not the one that starts a car,” and go on

>to cite the United Nations report as proof.

>

>On its Web page and in its literature, the Humane Society has also been

>highlighting other scientific studies — notably, one that recently came

>out of the University of Chicago — that, in essence, show that “switching

>to a plant-based diet does more to curb global warming than switching from

>an S.U.V. to a Camry,” said Paul Shapiro, senior director of the factory

>farming campaign for the Humane Society.

>

>The society, Mr. Shapiro said, is not only concerned with what happens to

>domesticated animals, but also with preventing the carnage that global

>warming could cause to polar bears, seals and other wildlife. “Our mission

>is to protect animals, and global warming has become an animal welfare

>issue,” he said.

>

>Even tiny pro-veggie operations are starting to squeeze dollars out of

>their shoestring budgets to advertise the eating meat/global warming

>connection. Vegan Outreach, a 14-year-old group in Tucson with just three

>full-time workers and a $500,000 annual budget, is spending about $800

>this month to run ads and links to its Web page on about 10 blogs. And, it

>will give more prominence to the global warming aspect of vegetarianism in

>the next batch of leaflets it orders.

>

>“We know that vegetarian organizations have sometimes made exaggerated

>health and environmental claims, but that U.N. report is an impartial,

>unimpeachable source of statements we can quote,” said Matt Ball,

>executive director of Vegan Outreach.

>

>Like Mr. Prescott, Mr. Ball is incensed that high-profile people like Al

>Gore — or environmental groups with deeper pockets than his — have not

>stepped up to the plate.

>

>“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.”

>

>•

>

>Advertising specialists warn that this new attention to global warming may

>attract enemies as well as converts.

>

>“Using global warming as a tactic for advancing the cause of vegetarianism

>feels a bit opportunistic,” said Hank Stewart, senior copywriter at Green

>Team Advertising, which specializes in environmentally themed ads.

>

>He also questions the logistics. “You want to get the message as close to

>the meat-purchasing moment as possible,” he said, “but can you imagine a

>supermarket allowing ‘Attention, Planet-Destroying Carnivores’ on the

>in-store radio?”

>

>Environmental groups, meanwhile, readily concede that mobilizing against

>meat eaters is not their highest priority.

>

>“We try to be strategic about doing the things where each unit of effort

>has the most impact,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra

>Club. Mr. Pope notes that his group has stopped short of castigating

>people for driving S.U.V.’s or building overly large homes, too.

>

>“We’ll encourage companies to make more efficient S.U.V.’s, and we’ll

>encourage consumers to buy them,” he said, “but we do not find lecturing

>people about personal consumption choices to be effective.”

>

>Environmental Defense is also “in agreement on the value of eating less

>meat,” said Melanie Janin, director of marketing communications. But, she

>added, her group would rather spend its time and money influencing public

>policy — specifically, getting Congress to regulate greenhouse gases.

>

>Mr. Gore declined to make himself available for comment. Chris Song, his

>deputy press secretary, simply noted that a suggestion to “modify your

>diet to include less meat” appears on Page 317 of Mr. Gore’s book version

>of “An Inconvenient Truth.”

>

>He did not address Mr. Gore’s personal food choices.

 

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