Last week on Fox News, Glenn Beck interviewed PETA spokesman Matt Prescott about a UN Report calling out the meat industry as the #1 cause of Global Warming.
According to Prescott, the report issued by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “found that the meat industry causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, planes ships – all of the world’s transportation systems combined.”
Furthermore, said Prescott, the report established that any person who switched from a meat-based diet to vegetarianism would have a greater impact on greenhouse gases than if the same individual stopped using cars.
Wow. Guess those McDubbles are giving me more gas than I thought.
Prescott rubs it in: “There’s another report out of the University of Chicago that found that … just switching from meat to vegetarian food, you could save more greenhouse gas emissions… then you could by switching to a hybrid-car.”
On hearing this news, Beck asked a simple question: Why is Al Gore — who shared his 2004 Nobel Prize with the IPCC — still eating meat?
I’d call it a fair rhetorical point: Gore is a hypocrite for not upholding his own principles.
Naturally, the compulsively biased Media Matters for America shortcuts Beck’s argument as part of his “pattern of attacking” Al Gore.
Well, I’ve got one word for Media Matters for America: ManBearPig.
But this isn’t about Al Gore or Glenn Beck: it’s really a story about principles and religious belief …. and about a self-righteous gaggle of true-believers thumping their UN Reports and Inconvenient Truth DVDs like Sacred Texts.
Beck points up a simple question of principle over hypocrisy: how can someone believe in human-caused climate change and still eat meat?
If Al Gore – the popular leader of the environmental movement — does not Go Vegan, then why should the throng bother with it?
Al Gore does not practice what he preaches. Therefore, he is a hypocrite.
In fact, I would go further and call this a moment of denouement for the Nobel Prize-winning environmentalist: Since Al Gore did not immediately become a vegetarian (or a leading proponent of vegetarianism) when the IPCC report was released, I am forced to conclude that he has no actual principles at all, and that his true profession is political propagandist and environmental hustler.
Beck’s observation is accurate and legitimate, and he was within his rights as a political commentator to offer his opinion to a national audience. Media Matters for America is out of bounds by offering boiler plate criticism in place of a direct response to this piece.
UN says eat less meat to curb global warming
Livestock a major threat to environment
South Park: ManBearPig (Full Episode online)
Correction: This article originally stated that Glenn Beck’s interview aired on CNN. In fact, Glenn Beck is a commentator for Fox News Channel. The copy has been corrected. We apologize for the error.
