Morrissey Challenges Live Earth To Go Vegan

In partnership with the United Nations, the second edition of Live Earth will take place June 18 with events planned on six continents over 24 hours. Following his involvement in the inaugural Live Earth in 2007, Pharrell Williams is serving as the creative director for Live Earth Road to Paris.

Live Earth, and a yearlong campaign in partnership with the world’s leading brands, NGOs and nonprofits, is all leading up to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, which is scheduled Nov. 30 through Dec. 11.  

In his letter, which was obtained by Rolling Stone, Morrissey urges Gore and Wall not to serve meat or dairy at the Live Earth events and he notes that he’s talking about completely eliminating animal products from the menu, rather than just offering a vegan option. While the singer has long been vocal about his views on animal rights, this time it’s not about offending his nose with the smell of “burning flesh” – this is about taking a stand for the future of the planet.

“Serving meat and dairy products at an event to combat climate change is like selling pistols at a gun-control rally,” Moz writes. “Your responsibility is to alert people to a crisis, not sell out to the vendors responsible for it.”

The singer points out that offering 100 percent meat-free menus at venues isn’t too difficult. After all, those are the conditions Morrissey sets forth at every venue he plays.

Morrissey goes on to list some of the ways raising livestock harms the environment and plays a major part in climate change including contributing to greenhouse-gas emissions, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and air and water pollution.

“Since you can’t miss the fact that meat consumption is killing the planet – your own sponsor organization, the United Nations, states this – and since venues can and will cater vegan food for events, if you choose to serve animal flesh at Live Earth, you’ll be making a mockery of the very concept of the event, in which case it should be renamed ‘Dead Earth: We Contributed!’” Morrissey writes.

He closes the letter by adding, “Don’t be a denier of the causes of climate change. You know the facts. Make the right choice.”

Moz makes a strong case. It does seem rather silly to serve meat at an event put on to combat climate change when you’re faced with statistics like the ones included in the Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations’ 2006 report that found “livestock’s contribution is enormous” when it comes to gaseous emissions and climate change. “It currently amounts to about 18 percent of the global warning effect – an even larger contribution than the transportation sector worldwide. Livestock contribute about 9 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions, but 37 percent of methane and 65 percent of nitrous oxide.”

Rolling Stone reports that Live Earth producers told PETA that “organizers have no control over what food the venues involved serve.”

We’ll have to wait and see if Moz’s letter makes a difference.

And by the way, Gore is no dummy. In an interview in 2009 he said, “It’s absolutely correct that the growing meat intensity of diets around the world is one of the issues connected to this global crisis, not only because of the CO2 involved but also because of the water consumed in the process.”

At the time he said he was cutting back on meat. A December 2013 Forbes piece noted that Gore had recently become a vegan.