Any good Marketing professional knows their “ABCs of Marketing”* — Ability to persuade, Businesslike demeanor, and of course, Coercion through bribery. Well, yesterday, in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Beckley, West Virginia, PETA’s Lettuce Ladies rocked all three of these important guidelines as they gave away free gas and vegan sandwiches to 100 people in exchange for a brief chat about the benefits of a vegan diet.

According to the Ladies, there were huge crowds gathered to take advantage of the freebies and find out what all the fuss was about after a news report announcing this unique demonstration, and they gave away hundreds of vegetarian starter kits to a very receptive audience, who were stunned to learn that eating just a single pound of meat is the environmental equivalent of driving more than 40 miles in a Hummer. Here’s what my friend and professional Lettuce Lady Colleen Higgins had to say about the experience: "In a time of rising gas prices and rising concern for the environment, we're going the extra mile to help Americans fill up on vegan fuel for their tummies and gas for their tanks." Good stuff.

*I just made these up.

At a weekend religious youth rally in Italy, Pope Benedict XVI told the more than 500,000 attendees that young Catholics should take the lead in the fight to save the earth. Check out what he said, “Before it's too late, we need to make courageous choices that will recreate a strong alliance between man and Earth … We need a decisive 'yes' to care for creation and a strong commitment to reverse those trends that risk making the situation of decay irreversible.” Amen to that.

Makes this ad even more apropos, eh?

Are you as psyched as I am for Live Earth this weekend? Mad props to the organizers of this amazing event, which is actually nine concerts rolled into one huge global event to draw attention to the global warming crisis facing the world. What an undertaking . . .

Now don’t get me wrong, anytime Snoop Dogg and Snow Patrol play the same event, I’m all for it, no matter what the cause. But let’s be real here. Because the meat industry emits massive quantities of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, selling meat at Live Earth would be like selling cigarettes at an anti-cancer fundraiser. And that’s exactly the message we sent in a letter to George Zoffinger, the guy in charge of Giants Stadium, the venue for the US portion of the event. Check out the letter here.

While it might be an Inconvenient Truth, for some at first, the reality is that what people eat is far more important than anything else they do—like, more important than switching from a Hummer to a Prius even—in determining greenhouse gas emissions, so making the concert venue vegetarian for the day is really the least the organizers can do. And the single most important step any of us can take to alleviate global warming is to simply go vegetarian.

In any event, enjoy the show, and if you’re looking for something to keep you awake while Madonna and Sheryl Crow perform, check out our “Live For the Earth” contest to win a $50 iTunes gift card.

PETA India's Campaign Coordinator, Rohini Kamath, just sent me some photos from a couple of protests that she and her colleagues held this week to draw attention to, respectively, the cruelty of the dairy industry, and the hypocrisy inherent in eating meat and trying to save the environment at the same time. Check 'em out:

Bound to a wheelchair and carrying a sign reading, “The dark side of dairy,” PETA India’s cow mascot, Ganga, protested the hideous cruelty of the dairy industry on World Milk Day. The activists also held signs emblazoned with the slogan “Doodh: not so cool, Dude,” and, though it's not entirely clear to me what that means, I'm told that if you say that to someone in Ahmedabad, they'll cut the dairy right out of their diet in a hot second.

And …

Eating out of a giant earth and holding signs reading “You Can't Be a Meat Eating Environmentalist” the PETA India folks held a demonstration on World Environment Day to protest the massive environmental devastation caused by the meat industry.

PETA India — you guys are, hands down, my favorite PETA affiliate. OK, fine, I say that to all the affiliates, but I'm totally smitten with that globe-eating demonstration. Keep up the great work.

The argument goes like this: Hybrid car owners get a tax break for purchasing a vehicle with low carbon emissions. So if a group of people are taking active steps to make purchases that are even better for the environment than switching to a Toyota Prius, they should get a tax break too, right? Given that a recent University of Chicago report proved that switching to a vegetarian diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard car to a hybrid, it seems like we're on pretty solid ground with this one. Earlier this morning, PETA's president, Ingrid Newkirk, sent letters to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid making exactly that point. Not to say that choosing a hybrid vehicle isn't responsible, but if you're looking for a way to help the environment, ending your support for an industry that generates more greenhouse gases than all the world’s transportation systems combined is a pretty damn good one.