Dame Vivienne Westwood Jumps Into The Shower In New Pro-Vegetarian Video. By avoiding meat, you do more for the environment than recycling or driving a hybrid car.’
For this year’s World Water Day, iconic designer Dame Vivienne Westwood literally makes a splash in a new PETA video about the meat industry’s depletion of world water supplies.
In the video, which is screening in advance of the U.N.’s World Water Day on March 22, the designer draws attention to the huge amount of water used by the meat trade. For example, rivers are diverted for livestock factories, not only for the animals but also for crops grown exclusively to fatten them. Last Sunday’s New York Times piece, “Meat Makes the Planet Thirsty,” reports that it takes 4 million gallons of water to produce 1 ton of beef but just 85,000 gallons to produce a ton of vegetables. This troubling ratio is found in all animal agriculture; it takes 4.5 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of chicken meat and 7.3 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of pork. Another U.N. study singles out the meat industry as one of the leading causes of climate change.
“I am an eco-warrior, but I take long showers with a clean conscience because I’m vegetarian,” she says in the spot, which PETA released online globally today and Dame Vivienne unveiled at a vegetarian hot spot in London.
“By avoiding meat, you do more for the environment than recycling or driving a hybrid car,” Dame Vivienne explains from under the showerhead. The stylish spot was scored by Carter Burwell, the BAFTA and Emmy winner known for his soundtracks to films by the Coen brothers and Spike Jonze.
