(USA) NYT - Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change

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August 29, 2007

Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change

By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

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.

 

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

$5 million 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.