Pope Francis: go vegan for $1m

A major global campaign, backed by a host of celebrities, environmentalists and scientists, is calling on Pope Francis to try vegan for Lent to ‘help fight climate change with diet change’.

In return, Million Dollar Vegan – the campaign behind the project – is offering $1 million to a charity of the Pope’s choice should he pledge to eat a plant-based diet for Lent.

The goal of the campaign is to highlight the impact of animal agriculture. Farming animals has a greater impact on global warming than the fuel emissions from the entire global transport sector combined. It contributes to deforestation and biodiversity loss, and causes suffering to billions of farmed animals.

These are all issues that Pope Francis has spoken out on in his 2015 Encyclical Letter, Laudato si’.

Genesis Butler

In a letter written to the Pope by 12-year-old animal rights and environmental campaigner Genesis Butler (the youngest person ever to give a TEDx talk), with the help of the Million Dollar Vegan team, Genesis urges His Holiness to try vegan for Lent.

Meeting the Pope

Each person that goes vegan for Lent will save emissions equivalent to a flight from London to Berlin, and if every Catholic on the planet takes part, it will be equivalent to the whole of the Philippines not emitting CO2 for a year.

Genesis has asked to meet Pope Francis, so that she can discuss the issues raised in her letter. The campaign has already led her to meet well-known vegans including Evanna Lynch (Harry Potter and Dancing with the Stars) and Benjamin Zephaniah (poet and writer).

She has also met with Joseph Poore of Oxford University and has the backing of environmentalists George Monbiot and Chris Packham. Paul McCartney, a long-time vegetarian and co-founder of the Meat Free Monday campaign, also supports Million Dollar Vegan and has signed the letter to the Pope.

‘We are launching this deliberately bold, audacious campaign to jolt our world leaders from their complacency. For too long they have failed to act on evidence of the damage caused to people and the planet by animal agriculture. Worse, many have defended and subsidised that very industry. But the evidence now is stark and compelling, and we cannot afford for them to remain silent any longer. We are thankful that Pope Francis has spoken out on these issues and that is why we are humbly asking him to try vegan for Lent, and set an example of how each of us can align our principles of caring and compassion with our actions.’

MATTHEW GLOVER
CEO of Million Dollar Vegan, co-founder of Veganuary

The letter outlines the connection to climate change and pollution, the inefficiency of animal farming and how it contributes to world hunger, the extinction of wildlife and the suffering of farmed animals.

‘Farming and slaughtering animals causes a lot of suffering and is also a leading cause of climate change, deforestation, and species loss. When we feed animals crops that humans can eat, it is wasteful. And with a growing world population, we cannot afford to be wasteful.’

GENESIS BUTLER
animal rights and environmental campaigner