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TV host Piers Morgan has offered to donate $1 million to charity – if all vegans ‘shut-up’.
He made the comments in response to the Million Dollar Vegan campaign – created by Veganuary Founders Matthew Glover and Jane Land – which launched yesterday.
As part of the initiative, a clutch of celebrities, environmentalists, and scientists have joined forces to urge Pope Francis to go vegan for Lent. In return, the organization will donate $1 million to a charity of his choice.
Vegans shut-up
The initiative has enraged Morgan, who spoke about it on breakfast show Good Morning Britain. “I will donate a million dollars if every vegan on the planet just shuts up,” he said.
“You had your month – you had Veganuary, it’s over. If you wanna go and eat kale and you want to go and eat your bee-killing almonds and your insect-destroying bread, go and do it and shut up.
“I will pay a million dollars if every vegan shuts up for a calendar year – all of you, the whole lot of you, stop screeching about your ghastly, ghastly way of life…I’m a Catholic and they’re taunting my pope. As a Catholic, I’m defending the holy father against this ridiculous taunting from radical vegans.”
Vegan pope?
Pope Francis spoke out about climate change and pollution, and the inefficiency of animal farming and how it contributes to world hunger, the extinction of wildlife and the suffering of farmed animals in his 2015 encyclical letter Laudato Si.’ All these issues could be improved by the widespread adoption of a vegan diet.
“We are launching this deliberately bold, audacious campaign to jolt our world leaders from their complacency,” said Matthew Glover, the CEO of Million Dollar Vegan and Co-founder of Veganuary.
“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 subsidized 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.”
You can find out more about the Million Dollar Vegan campaign here
