Will Paul McCartney Change the Way the World Eats?

Try to order a vegetarian meal in most European countries and you'll likely get a blank stare followed by a plate of bacon-sprinkled fish. Deeply attached to its culinary traditions, the meat-loving continent across the pond might not yield to a nauseatingly PR-flavored call to action like the one made this week by Paul McCartney to get on board the veggie train.

In the days leading up the the Copenhagen Climate Conference, Sir Paul pulled the climate change card when he spoke at the European Parliament, pleading with Europeans to abstain from meat consumption for at least one day per week. A famed vegetarian and PETA poster boy, McCartney explained that the reduction in meat consumption would come hand-in-hand with a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

His claims don't come without solid basis. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that meat production is responsible for nearly 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, which tops the approximately 13 percent that transportation is responsible for. And while the meat industry in Europe is less storied in its staggering feats of human and animal rights violations, it's still a massive machine of resource consumption.

But the Europeans are notably less receptive to dietary adjustments than Americans and McCartney's plea has the potential to be interpreted very negatively -- European politicians have labeled the campaign, "muddled, misleading and wrong." And take Telegraph writer Charlie Brooks, who came out swinging in his piece titled "Sir Paul McCartney and his 'green' celebrity friends should put up or shut up."

"First, he thinks that he knows better than I do how I should live," Brooks said. "What has become evident in the run-up to Copenhagen is that every time someone comes up with some ludicrous, self-flagellating proposal, yet another chunk of the population becomes disenchanted with the whole issue." Please, someone bring Brooks a filet before he ends up eating McCartney alive.