Life is full of disappointments, such as being invited out by your mates for a quiet pint after work and they all go home after exactly one.

I would imagine it would be a similar sensation after being invited to a barbecue only to turn up and find it’s vegan fayre only.

I’m not sure if vegans even have barbecues but judging by recent comments from the barmy animal rights group Peta, I would doubt it.

Because according to Peta, men who eat meat should be banned from having sex because it is killing the planet.

They claim that devouring sausages and burgers is a symptom of “toxic masculinity” which is accelerating the climate crisis.

Now men get the blame for quite a lot of things, most probably justified too, but this takes the biscuit altogether.

Peta’s German operation claim to cite research from the scientific journal PLOS One which showed that men caused 41 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than women largely because they consume more meat.

This, it claimed, justified a “sex ban for all meat-eating men” and called on women to “go on sex strike to save the world”.

Daniel Cox, campaigns team leader for Peta Germany, said: “We all know them, the suburban fathers with beer bottles and barbecue tongs, sizzling 70c sausages on their €700 grill. The courgette added by the visitor is eyed with suspicion and only reluctantly tolerated.

“The fact that Germany’s ‘grill masters’ believe they have to prove their masculinity to themselves and their fellow species through their consumption of meat is not only to the detriment of the animals, however.

“Now there is scientific proof that toxic masculinity also harms the climate. Therefore, a hefty meat tax of 41 per cent for men would be appropriate.

“A ban on sex or procreation for all meat-eating men would also be purposeful in this context.”

Who even eats courgettes at a barbecue? 

The animal rights group also said that every child not born saved the equivalent of 58.6 tonnes of CO2 a year.

Peta clearly does not understand children at all if it thinks the average kid only creates 58.6 tonnes of CO2 a year.

Think of a number, double it, treble it and multiply it by 17 and you would probably be closer.

Youngsters today can cause the planet to heat up simply by getting up in the morning.

All they have to do is charge all their gadgets, make smoothies out of fruit that comes in plastic punnets from the other side of the world and drinking coffee out of non-recyclable mugs.

They then jump in their cars or beg for a lift to get them wherever they’re going.

That is clearly a sweeping generalisation but as a father I’m entitled to make it.

Clearly the extremists at Peta will stop at nothing to get their narrow-minded agenda across.

But their attention-seeking nonsense can have serious implications if they are not challenged.

Peta added: “For all the still meat-grilling dads who still want children with a liveable future on a liveable planet, we recommend changing your lifestyle by joining our free Vegan start programme.”

The UN has said that the rearing of livestock generates 14 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions and has called on governments to create incentives for people to eat less meat.

This seems a sensible goal but to resort to downright lies is ridiculous.

It is one thing to advise cutting out meat and reducing livestock numbers but to suggest that men who eat meat and like to barbecue are somehow responsible for global warming is patent nonsense.

But it appears that it is not just the animal rights extremists from Peta who are having a pop at the humble barbecue either.

The organisation referred to comments by Sandrine Rousseau, a prominent French Green MP, who ignited controversy in France last month by branding the outdoor grill as a ritual that reeks of virility, male meat-eating compulsion and power over women.

“If you want to resolve the climate crisis, you have to reduce meat consumption, and that’s not going to happen so long as masculinity is constructed around meat,” the self-declared “eco-feminist” said.

So there we have it, at a stroke the barbecuing habits of millions of people is weaponised in the name of environmental activism.

Nothing, it appears, is out of bounds.

But like so much of the environmentalists arguments, they demonise things they don’t like while offering nothing as an alternative.

Some will clearly not be happy until we’re back living in caves and eating berries and grass.