PETA CALLS ON BYRON BAY TO FOLLOW EUROPEAN EXAMPLE AND GO VEGETARIAN ONE DAY A WEEK
'Greening' Our Plates Is the Best Way to Fight Climate Change, Say Experts
For Immediate Release:
5 November 2009
Byron Bay -- This morning, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Australia sent a letter to Byron Bay Mayor Jan Barham urging her to proclaim one day a week as "Vegetarian Day". The letter comes on the heels of Ghent, Belgium's, recent decision to ask all city employees and residents to eat vegetarian meals one day a week in an effort to combat climate change. PETA hopes that Byron Bay will do its part to fight against climate change by changing people's diets.
Why Byron Bay? The city is already a virtual vegetarian haven, boasting several vegetarian restaurants and natural food stores. Dozens of other restaurants -- which serve everything from Thai and Chinese food to modern Australian and Italian food -- offer meat-free options and menus, and the Byron Bay Community Market, the Bangalow Market and the Channon Market offer more animal-friendly products, natural foods and healthy meals than any vegan can dream of.
In the letter, PETA points out that in addition to leading to the daily suffering of billions of animals who are raised and killed for food, eating meat, eggs and dairy products is the number one cause of climate change and is a major contributor to resource depletion, pollution and even world hunger.
The recent UN report Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options concluded that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, SUVs, planes and boats in the world combined. The report goes on to say that meat is "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global". In addition, feeding, transporting and slaughtering farmed animals and packaging, transporting and storing their flesh wastes enormous amounts of energy.
"Byron Bay has a golden opportunity to lead the charge for a greener Australia", says PETA Director of Campaigns Jason Baker. "The best thing that any of us can do to protect our health, animals and the Earth is to go vegetarian."
For more information on vegetarianism, please visit PETAAsiaPacific.com.
PETA's letter to Byron Bay Mayor Jan Barham is available upon request.
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