Wednesday, June 25, 2008

McCartney's Meat-Free Monday

Paul McCartney's in the news this week. I just read a story this morning about how he's promoting the idea of a meat-free Monday in Britain. He's encouraging people to abstain from eating meat one day a week to help the environment, citing the UN's recent report on climate change which linked meat consumption to global warming. I think it's a great idea from an environmental perspective. In terms of animal rights, it's no more than a token gesture that will leave people feeling better about what they eat the rest of the week.
Around four years ago, I went to hear Canadian pop culture icon (and environmentalist extraordinaire) David Suzuki speak on one of his tours, he was also promoting the idea of
non-vegetarians integrating a meat-free day into their routines. I've always wished Dr. Suzuki would publicly come around to vegetarianism (or even more so, veganism), especially considering the fact that he frequently addresses the environmental impact of factory farming, as well as its inherent cruelty and also often writes about the environmental impact of the Canadian fisheries industry. I've read here and there that the only animal products he consumes are fish and dairy, but haven't seen official confirmation of it.

Update from an August 23, 2012 article in the Globe and Mail:

"[I]note>We shun red meat, but eat eggs, chicken and fish. I'm not a breakfast guy. For me it's get up, have a coffee and go to work. My idea of a wonderful breakfast is leftovers from a Japanese meal the night before. It's called ochazuke: You take cold rice and pour hot tea on it and eat that with pickles and a bit of salmon.

"Our foundation works a four-day work week. Usually my workout is before dinner, so I come home and have a beer because after I work out the beer goes right to my head, so I get a buzz off of that. My wife has a nice Japanese meal for me. The one indulgence I have when travelling is Panago's thin-crust pizza with everything on it."



3 comments:

J said...

I recently watched a CBS program with David Suzuki, it was about factory farming, and then there was a follow up program that talked about the alternatives, it was pretty good.

I love the idea of Meat Free Mondays. I remember how truly surprised I was to see that meat eating contributes more to global climate change than transportation! I think that now that people are becoming more aware of these topics and seeing what they, as individuals can do to help, they will be accepting of such an idea. Even though, ideally, people would rarely, if ever, eat meat, just them eating less does so much to postively impact the environment. I try not to be an 'all or none' kind of gal, so any little step in the right direction should be fostered in my opinion.

Is your laptop still giving you trouble?

Oh, and I noted in your last post you might be trying to make a solar oven, please blog about it if you do. I've seen all those DIY sites but figured building one would be too hard and probably wouldn't work, though you never know until you try...

M said...

It's my desktop that's on the fritz. I've been trying to get my ancient laptop online (I'm now sitting on a bench in my city's downtown, using the wi-fi network we have here -- it works!). I've been waiting for a DSL box upgrade to arrive that has wireless capability so that I can use the laptop with it at home. I'm also just wrapping up a deal on buying a new (to me) Mac G4 off a friend, but that won't fall into place until after the weekend.

M said...

Argh. Wanted to respond to the rest of your comment, but my battery's about to die on me. Gotta go back home to my 'net-free zone. :(