PETA Blames McDonald’s for Dixie Fire: Big Macs Are Like Matchsticks

For Immediate Release:
September 20, 2021

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

As wildfires rage across California and the Dixie fire is on track to become the state’s largest wildfire ever, PETA is coming for a major culprit: McDonald’s. The group has posted a new billboard within spitting distance of a local McDonald’s restaurant, pointing out that it’s now indisputable that meaty meals are a driver of the climate crisis. Animal agriculture is responsible for nearly one-fifth of all human-induced greenhouse-gas emissions and for wasting massive amounts of water on factory farming, contributing to droughts and the spread of wildfires.

“Animal agriculture is fueling the climate crisis that’s burning up California, and Big Macs might as well be matches,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges people to go vegan and stop damning the planet at the drive-through.”

McDonald’s earned an F- on PETA’s ranking of vegan-friendly burger chains—even its fries contain beef tallow.

In addition to harming the planet past the point of no return, the meat, egg, and dairy industries are abysmally cruel to animals, who spend miserable lives in intensive confinement before enduring transport in all types of weather to slaughterhouses.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The billboard is located at 1000 Real Rd.