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PETA requests Hormel place 'footprint' labels on packaging
Published Monday, August 18, 2008
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which owns 100 shares of meatpacking giant Hormel Foods as part of its corporate responsibility project, has submitted a shareholder resolution calling on the Austin-based company to include information on all of its meat packages about the greenhouse-gas "footprint" that the meat passes on to consumers. PETA believes shoppers are increasingly concerned about global warming and that meat production is the leading cause of greenhouse-gas emissions.
PETA also alleges that some food companies have already begun printing greenhouse-gas emissions levels per serving on product labels — but Hormel is not among them.
The resolution represents a new tactic in PETA's international campaign against factory farming.
According to a PETA spokesperson, they will wait for a reply from Hormel; if a reply is not received, they will attend the annual shareholders meeting in January.
A PETA attorney was in attendance at the 2008 meeting.
PETA will file an identical resolution with meat giant Tyson Foods later this week.
"If meat is on the menu, so is a hefty serving of greenhouse gases," PETA Senior Vice President Tracy Reiman said. "People have a right to know the extent to which Hormel's conversion of animals into canned goods is contributing to global warming."
PETA's shareholder resolution to Hormel follows:
“Resolved that shareholders request that the Board of Directors disclose to the public by 2010, via product packaging, the amount of greenhouse-gas emissions caused by individual products. The calculations should include all facets of company-owned and contract operations (e.g., feed crop production, animal rearing, waste decomposition, transport of crops and animals, slaughter) and should specifically cite levels of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane per serving.
Supporting statement
According to many scientific reports, meat production is a leading contributor to global warming. In fact, a recent United Nations report concluded that the meat industry causes almost 40 percent more greenhouse-gas emissions than all of the world's transportation systems — that's all the cars, trucks, SUVs, planes, and ships in the world — combined.
Many businesses are responding to the growing public concern about greenhouse-gas emissions by reporting on their environmental impact and undertaking "green" initiatives. A 2006 CBS News/New York Times poll found, in the words of a CBS article, that ‘two-thirds of Americans now believe global warming is having a serious impact’ and that ‘[b]usinesses like Ford and GE are responding and are trying to show they're environmentally friendly."
Tesco — which is the largest British retailer and sells nearly one-quarter of all groceries bought in the U.K. — has responded to this important social issue by starting to include products' greenhouse-gas ‘footprint’ per serving on product labels. Tesco is not alone; a February 2008 New Yorker article cited, ‘Several food companies have promised to label their products with the amount of [greenhouse-gas] emissions associated with making and transporting them.’”
PETA is encouraging shareholders to vote in favor of this proposal.
For more information, visit PETA's Web site, goveg.com.
Comments
Posted by Dave (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 8:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
PETA is just a group of thugs that cares more about their own agenda then the welfare of Humans, Don't be fooled by them!!
There is no proof that man is causing Climate Change.(a Consensus is not the same as proof) The IPCC can't even get the same results twice thru modeling. If your not afraid of a little investigation go to JUNKSCIENCE.COM and read.
I for one hope that Hormel does not give in to them!!!
Posted by Mary_Anne_Evans (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 12:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree about PETA. They're a bunch of nitwits.
On climate change? Junk science may not be much more than junk itself.
Sourcewatch says this about the Junk Science site (which isn't run by a scientist, BTW):
JunkScience.com is a website maintained by Steven J. Milloy, an adjunct scholar the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute - right wing think tanks with long histories of denying environmental problems at the behest of the corporations which fund them. Milloy is also a columnist for FoxNews.com.
Milloy defines "junk science" as "bad science used by lawsuit-happy trial lawyers, the 'food police,' environmental Chicken Littles, power-drunk regulators, and unethical-to-dishonest scientists to fuel specious lawsuits, wacky social and political agendas, and the quest for personal fame and fortune." He regularly attacks environmentalists and scientists who support environmentalism, claiming that dioxin, pesticides in foods, environmental lead, asbestos, secondhand tobacco smoke and global warming are all "scares" and "scams."
Milloy's attacks are often notable for their vicious tone, which appears calculated to lower rather than elevate scientific discourse. That tone is noticeable, for example, in his extended attack on Our Stolen Future, the book about endocrine-disrupting chemicals by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and Peter Myers. Milloy's on-line parody, titled "Our Swollen Future," includes a cartoon depiction of Colborn hauling a wheelbarrow of money to the bank [1] (her implied motive for writing the book), and refers to Dianne Dumanoski as "Dianne Dumb-as-an-oxski." [2]
Prior to launching the JunkScience.com, Milloy worked for Jim Tozzi's Multinational Business Services, the Philip Morris tobacco company's primary lobbyist in Washington with respect to the issue of secondhand cigarette smoke. He subsequently went to work for The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a Philip Morris front group created by the PR firm of APCO Worldwide. [3]
Although Milloy frequently represent himself as an expert on scientific matters, he is not a scientist himself. He holds a bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences, a law degree and a master's degree in biostatistics. He has never published original research in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Moreover, he has made scientific claims himself that have no basis in actual research. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, he claimed that greater use of asbestos insulation in the World Trade Towers would have delayed their collapse "by up to four hours." In reality, there is no scientific basis for claiming that asbestos would have delayed their collapse by even a second, let alone four hours.[4].
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?tit...
Posted by Dave (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 1:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
You don't have to agree with everything said by Steven milloy, however there are also articles from other respected Scientists on this site.
Posted by meatlover (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 5:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I for one, even as a meat eater, think this is a great place to begin in the fight to save our planet. I eat all organic, factory farm free meat from local farmers, which has very little of a footprint. But, according to the USDA 99% of all meat sold in the US is factory farmed, which means a large carbon footprint. My mother used to work for a toxin commission in Oklahoma, and the main thing that the commission did was fight the environmental devestation of a single hog farm, which destroyed area creeks, land, plants, and animals. Meat is bad, eventually I will go vegetarian.
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