People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is pushing for a different kind of New Year’s Resolution on the first day of 2020: The left-wing group is looking for people to pledge not to eat any animals or animal products for the whole month of January.
The PETA website explains how to take part in the “Veganuary” pledge:
Veganuary, for the uninitiated, is the month when people around the world pledge to go vegan in order to help stop animal suffering, protect the planet and improve their health. More than a quarter-million people in 190 countries pledged to go vegan in January 2019. According to the Veganuary program director in the United States, 46 percent of people signed up for health reasons, 34 percent cited concerns about cruelty to animals and 12 percent were motivated by climate change.
It doesn’t really matter which reason means the most to you as long as you actually go and stay vegan. Scientists say that if we all went vegan, it could save the lives of up to 8 million humans (not to mention billions of animals), cut greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds and prevent 1.5 trillion dollars’ worth of climate-related damage by 2050.
Researchers have also said that going vegan is the “single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth.”
Like most climate change adherents, PETA relies on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for “facts” about global warming, which claims “more than half of food-related greenhouse gas emissions come from meat, eggs and dairy.”
“If we want to combat climate change, alleviate world hunger, conserve water and land and help prevent a mass wildlife extinction, we have to choose vegan foods,” PETA wrote on its website. “It’s estimated that each vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year and that’s just counting the animals who are killed and eaten, like chickens, cows, pigs and fish.”
The U.N. also blames animal agriculture, which helps feed people around the world, for habitat loss and the recent fires in the Amazon rainforest.
And not only is a meat-based diet killing animals, it is killing people by causing heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, PETA claims.
PETA touts the growth of vegan food in the U.S., including that “half of the chefs in the U.S. added vegan items to their menus in 2018, and sales of vegan meats, such as Beyond Burger and Beyond Sausage, have been skyrocketing. Between April 2017 and July 2019, sales of vegan food grew about 31%, to $4.5 billion. They’re estimated to reach $6.5 billion by 2023.”
PETA urges people to “turn over a new leaf” by signing the “Veganuary” pledge.
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