Glenn Beck interviews Matt Prescott, spokesman for PETA regarding the King/RFK exchange below(emphasis mine):
BECK: You know, look, here’s the thing. I have no problem with people who actually believe in something and are not hypocrites about it, actually will do something in their life. The IPCC report says that animal farms, just if we all became vegans, that we would dramatically change global warming. Do they say it is the fastest solution or the biggest problem or both?
PRESCOTT: It’s the biggest contributor to global warming that — the U.N. report 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.
BECK: Could you say that again, Matthew, please?
PRESCOTT: Yes. Well, I’ll emphasize it here for you. The U.N. report found that the meat industry causes more global warming emissions than all of the world’s transportation combined.
BECK: So why do you suppose that when we called RFK, Jr.’s office today — by the way, he didn’t come on the show. When we called RFK, Jr.’s office and we asked him if he was a vegan, he said no. He is not a vegetarian.
PRESCOTT: Oh, it’s very surprising. Shocking. Shocking.
BECK: Yes. Why do you suppose that people like Al Gore who is also not a vegetarian or a vegan — why are they eating meat if they truly believe that, you know, the world is going to come to an end in some sort of a fiery flood?
PRESCOTT: You know, we’ve been trying to find that out for years and we’ve never actually gotten an answer. I mean, personally, I’ve got to say, you know, if you’ve got a belief and out there trying to change the world and make it a better place, I got to give you support.
But I also have to ask questions. I mean, why, if somebody who is so vigorously fighting against global warming — they haven’t even looked at their own plate. There is another report out of the University of Chicago that found that if you switch from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius, it’s not even as good as switching from a meat-based diet to a vegetarian diet.
So just switching from meat to vegetarian food, you can save more greenhouse gas emissions from going up there into the atmosphere than you could by switching to a hybrid car.
BECK: So wait a minute. You said a minute ago — you said, “I have respect for you if you’re out there trying to change the world.” I don’t have respect if you’re trying to change the world if you’re not living by your own principles, if you’re being dishonest.
PRESCOTT: Well, yes. Yes, and hat’s the key thing here. I think Gore and others who aren’t vegetarian, who are fighting this fight, need to look at their own plate before they go out and, you know, tell anybody else to change their ways. Because, really, it’s the biggest thing that you could do.
There is a major environmental group found recently that if every American just replaced one meal of chicken, just one meal of chicken one time each week with vegetarian food, it would be the same as taking about 500,000 cars off of American roads. That’s a huge number.
BECK: May I ask you, could I replace it with a bowl of ice cream or are you going to take my ice cream away?
PRESCOTT: Well, if it’s soy ice cream -
BECK: Let me ask you this question — do you think that pig farmers are more of a danger than Usama bin Laden?
PRESCOTT: Well, I think it’s two totally separate issues here. I mean, we seem to have done pretty well fighting Al Qaeda threat.
BECK: Well, I will give you that.
PRESCOTT: But we haven’t done anything — we haven’t done anything to start tackling what is a very serious threat, effect of farming. I mean, this industry is the leading cause of global warming. This industry is the biggest threat to Americans’ health that causes — the meat and cheese and yogurt…
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today turned a congressional subcommittee hearing into a diatribe on the dangers faced by the United States, affirming that hog producers are a far greater threat to the nation’s future than Osama bin Laden and his terror network.
Kennedy’s comments came in response to a question from U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
King asked whether a comment attributed to Kennedy in a published Iowa report in 2002 was accurate. According to the report, Kennedy stated, “Large-scale hog producers are a greater threat to the United States and U.S. democracy than Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network.”
“Is that an accurate quote?” asked King, whose state includes thousands of small businesses producing pork.
“I believe it and I support it,” Kennedy said.
