Should We Eat Meat?

If you look into the issue, you’ll find that Greenpeace does not believe that people should eat kangaroo to combat climate change. The organization’s Web site states, “…And just to reiterate, Greenpeace does not endorse eating kangaroos nor is it advocating eating kangaroos as a solution to climate change.” You can read the full comment at the evidence section below.

In fact. many environmental organizations encourage people to eat vegetarian foods to help halt climate change, air and water pollution, and to conserve resources. According to a November 2006 United Nations report, raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes in the world.

The 414-page report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, concluded that the meat industry is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” The report suggested that the livestock industry should be “a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.”

The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook; 77 Essential Skills To Stop Climate Change states that “refusing meat” is “the single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint.” Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that switching to a vegan (pure vegetarian) diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

When you consider all the resources wasted on meat production—and all the other associated environmental problems—you’ll understand why a vegetarian diet makes sense. Here’s some food for thought:

• Nearly half of the water used in the U.S. is squandered on animal agriculture. It takes approximately 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, but only 25 gallons of water are needed to produce 1 pound of wheat. More than 4,000 gallons of water per day are required to produce a meat-based diet, but only 300 gallons of water a day are needed to produce a vegan diet.

• The Environmental Protection Agency has reported that factory farms pollute our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. Animals raised for food produce approximately 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population.

• The aforementioned U.N. report states that the “[e]xpansion of livestock production is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America, where the greatest amount of deforestation is occurring—70 percent of previous forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures, and feedcrops cover a large part of the remainder.”

• Cows, pigs, chickens, and other farmed animals eat more than 70 percent of the corn, wheat, and other grains grown in the U.S. The world’s cattle alone consume an amount of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population.

• More than one-third of all fossil fuels produced in the U.S. are used to raise animals for food. Overall, it takes 11 times as much fossil fuel to produce a gram of animal protein as it does to produce a gram of plant protein.

We should all eat as though the Earth matters. While no one has zero impact on the environment, vegetarians generally do tread lighter on the planet. See the links below to learn more.