Meatless Mondays are the thin edge of the salami.

Last week, an article written by Matt Ridley appeared in the UK Telegraph. It was titled: The War on Meat has begun, and there are many reasons to join the resistance.

He observes that “what starts out as a suggestion then becomes ostracism and ends in state coercion.” In other words, we need to be concerned about trajectories and end points.

For more than a decade, the UN has been trying to telling us what to eat. A 2008 article in the Guardian began this way:

People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, the world’s leading authority on global warming has told The Observer

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further. [bold added]

Meatless Mondays may sound harmless, but they’re just the thin edge of the salami. Last year, Sweden’s publicly funded television reported extremist remarks by another UN climate official, Christiana Figueres:

the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres proposes that carnivores should be treated equally as smokers at the pub. “If they want to eat meat, they have to do it outside the restaurant,” she says.

…I like to think outside the box. How about restaurants in 10-15 years start to treat carnivores in the same way smokers are treated?  [bold added, original here; translated by Google here]

Turning people into pariahs because of what they eat. Yeah, that’s the job of the UN. Rather than promoting peace and harmony, this kind of rhetoric does exactly the opposite.

You’d think we’d all understand by now that regulating what other people eat – in the name of environmentalism or other kinds of religion – leads nowhere good. I invite you to reflect on these news stories:

2015, India’s Food Fight Turns Deadly. A mob recently killed a 50-year-old Muslim man. His alleged crime? Eating beef.

2016, Muslim Youths Attack Carpenter for Eating During Ramadan. A 41-year-old carpenter…almost lost his right eye on Tuesday following an attack

2017, Muslim man dies in India after attack by Hindu ‘cow protectors’ Police say 55-year-old died two days after mob targeted his cattle truck in latest in spate of killings

2107, Saudi attacks migrant worker for eating during Ramadan

2019, Ramadan: 80 Arrested For Eating Publicly

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LINKS:

• Matt Ridley’s article: The War on Meat has begun
• my previous commentary: Ramming the ‘Great Food Transformation’ Down Our Throats
• Lancet EAT Report Promotes Activism Over Science