Funny little people, often dressed as chooks or cows (or last night, a prawn) and are everywhere handing out show bags full of paraphernalia espousing a veg-filled, meat-free diet.

They claim western diets need to be re-thought because emissions from livestock are killing the planet.

Backed now by their own television station which infiltrates press conferences with "journalists" asking loaded questions about how best to stop livestock production, the message from this group is that livestock is the main driver of deforestation and the largest single source of water pollution.

They say livestock emissions are the most potent source of greenhouse gasses, arguing livestock produces more greenhouse gases than the world's transport sector.

But scratch the surface and dig a little deeper into their show bags and their anti-meat campaign just doesn't stack up.

Last month, environmental scientist Tim Flannery debunked a lot of the common arguments used against livestock in the carbon and climate debate at an environmental forum in Sydney.

Instead he said large animals like cattle and sheep were essential to restoring the health of the planet and reducing greenhouse gas levels.

Dr Flannery said 99 per cent of gases we breathed were produced by plants and animals but about 200 years ago humans discovered fossil fuels which, "combined with our destruction of living things like forests and soils, had pumped tens of billions of extra tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere".

Dr Flannery said large farm animals helped retain fertility in the land and recycled carbon.

He did say they had to be better managed and bred to maximise their environmental benefit while reducing methane gas emissions.

It doesn't take a lot of prodding to uncover that rather than having an environmental problem with livestock, many of these people are actually just opposed to the slaughter of animals.

That is a perfectly valid and personal view they are entitled to hold.

Just leave it off the climate change bandwagon.