Growing Wildfire Season Sparks PETA’s Massive ‘Cow on Fire’ Message
For Immediate Release:
October 28, 2021
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Because the climate crisis is causing California’s wildfire season to last about 75 days longer than usual and officials are warning that the blazes will continue to burn through the end of the year, PETA is urging shoppers to cross one of the culprits—leather—off their lists through a sky-high message now up on the route to Riverpoint Marketplace.
Animal agriculture—which includes the leather industry, a major part of meat and dairy profit margins—is responsible for nearly one-fifth of all human-induced greenhouse-gas emissions. The World Bank reports that cattle ranching has caused over 80% of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest since 1970, and because of fires—many of which are deliberately set to clear land to raise cows and grow crops to feed them—along with hotter temperatures and droughts, parts of the Amazon are now emitting more carbon dioxide than they can absorb.
“Avoiding leather is an easy thing that we can all do to avert a climate catastrophe, but we’re running out of time,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is asking people to save cows’ and everyone else’s skin by choosing vegan bags, shoes, and furnishings.”
In addition to harming the planet past the point of no return, leather production is abysmally cruel to cows. A PETA video exposé of the world’s largest leather producer revealed that the gentle animals were branded on the face, electroshocked, and beaten before being violently killed.
PETA’s billboard is located on I-80, just north of the junction with U.S. 50, just a mile from Ross Dress for Less, Skechers, Walmart, and other leather-selling retailers at Riverpoint Marketplace.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
