Sir Paul McCartney Takes On the Livestock Industry Over Global Warming
- Posted on May 7th 2010 6:50AM by Julian Marszalek
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Sir Paul McCartney has managed to incur the wrath of the British Beef Association after making comments on BBC Radio 4's Today show on Thursday, May 6, when he claimed that the livestock industry made more of a contribution to climate change than the combined effects of pollution from planes, trains and automobiles.McCartney was discussing his involvement with the Meat Free Mondays campaign, which calls for people to drop meat from their diets at the beginning of the week in order to help combat global warming.
Sir Paul told the BBC, "It started off with the United Nations saying the livestock industry is a bigger demon, as far as global warming is concerned, than the whole of the transport industry put together."
The committed vegetarian continued, "I wrote to millions of people like Gordon Brown and the leaders of this and that country and saying, 'Do you think this is an interesting idea?'
"Since then, it has caught on and I understand that [chef] Gordon Ramsay has said that one meat-free day a week is a good idea and I understand that [fellow chef] Jamie Oliver too has said that it's a good idea, so that's why I got involved."
However, according to the Independent newspaper, the British Beef Association has reacted badly to the claims and has demanded that the BBC gives it a voice to respond in the interests of the broadcaster's "reputation for balance and accuracy." Whether the BBC responds to their challenge or not remains to be seen, while McCartney has refused to make any further comment.
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