Paul McCartney says Trump’s refusal to recognize climate change is “madness”

In a new interview with BBC, Paul McCartney criticized President Trump’s lax attitude toward climate change: “You’ve got someone like Trump who says that it (climate change) is just a hoax. A lot of people like myself think that’s just madness.”

Trump tweeted in 2012 that global warming was a concept “created by and for the Chinese” and in June 2017 announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Agreement to cut global emissions.

Nonetheless, McCartney is confident that ordinary people can take small measures to create change: The former Beatle, a longtime vegetarian, encouraged readers to avoid meat one day per week, arguing that the reduced meat consumption would aid the environment.

“It’s maybe a good time now to try and focus people’s attention and say, ‘Look, forget about (Trump) – we can do something. It’s not the total solution, but it’s part of the solution. A lot of people have been saying this for a long time but there’s resistance.”

Actvism

McCartney and his daughters launched Meat Free Monday in 2009 with the goal of inspiring people to change their diets as a way to combat climate change.

Since 1975, McCartney has been a vegetarian he and his wife Linda were vegetarians for most of their 29-year marriage. They decided to stop consuming meat after Paul saw lambs in a field as they were eating a meal of lamb.

Soon after, the couple became outspoken animal rights activists. In his first interview after Linda’s death, he promised to continue working for animal rights, and in 1999 he spent £3,000,000 to ensure Linda McCartney Foods remained free of genetically engineered ingredients. In 1995, he narrated the documentary Devour the Earth, written by Tony Wardle.

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