It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Time to Go Vegan! PETA Takes to the Skies for July 4

For Immediate Release:
July 3, 2023

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

Just in time for Fourth of July festivities and the National Cherry Festival, tomorrow PETA will point to animal agriculture as a leading cause of the climate catastrophe with a flying banner that reads, “Getting Hot? So Is the Planet. Go Vegan.” According to the United Nations, about a third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food production, and the largest percentage of those emissions come from the meat and dairy industries.

“Raising and killing animals for food drives the climate catastrophe in ways that growing cherries never will,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “This Independence Day, PETA is asking everyone to remedy the planetary crisis with eco-friendly vegan eating.”

PETA notes that growing water-intensive crops just to feed animals raised for food consumes more than half the water used in the U.S. and that up to 80% of deforestation in the Amazon is linked to meat production, either for grazing or for growing food for cattle. Vegan foods—such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, peas, nuts, and lentils—require less energy, land, and water to produce, and going vegan would help drastically reduce humans’ negative impact on the environment.

Every person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals each year daily suffering and terrifying deaths and reduces their risk of developing heart disease and cancer. PETA’s free vegan starter kit can help those looking to make the switch.

PETA’s banner will take off from Cherry Capital Airport around 12 noon and circle local beaches for four hours.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.