Former Beatle Paul McCartney is encouraging people to stop eating meat each Monday as a way to curb greenhouse gas from farm animals and help the environment, British and U.S. media reported this week.

The United Kingdom campaign, called Meat Free Monday, launched June 15 with support from other celebrities, including Yoko Ono and Kelly Osbourne.

One reason for this campaign to address global warming, according to a Bloomberg report, is that:

Cows, pigs and sheep bred for human consumption discharge millions of tons of methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Livestock accounts for about 18 percent of greenhouse gases, more than all the world’s cars, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has said.

The U.S. campaign is using the banner Meatless Monday and its Web site includes several tofu recipes for people, as well as health and environmental information.

The site lists instructions for how to use bean curd to make mock crab cakes, Jamaican jerk tofu, beer-basted tofurky brats with mustard and caramelized onions and other dishes.

(Full disclosure: I have never tried any of the tofu recipes on the organization’s Web site.)

Last year, the Observer in the United Kingdom quoted economist Rajendra Pachauri, one of the world’s leading climate change authorities, as saying that not eating meat for one day each week could bring “about reductions in a short period of time.”

He was referring to greenhouse gas emissions. “It clearly is the most attractive opportunity,” he told the Observer.

Bloomberg cited one campaign critic, Milton Keynes, who works for an agricultural and horticultural group that receives money from United Kingdom farmers.

He told the news service:

It’s misguided in trying to boost the guilt factor for the 97 percent of the population who enjoy red meat as part of their diet.

But McCartney told people at the campaign launch event that one meatless day each week “is actually a meaningful change that everyone can make,” according to an article from The Guardian, which is based in the United Kingdom.

It also would contribute to a “cleaner, more sustainable, healthier world,” he added.

McCartney’s late wife, Linda, was a photographer who started a vegetarian food company.

TofuWatch.com, which launched in May, offers three Chinese recipes that use soybean cake: a cold, dry, pressed tofu salad, chilled tofu with optional preserved duck eggs and twice-fried tofu with broccoli, hot oil and garlic.