Your Real Carbon Footprint

We hear a lot about the “carbon footprint” these days. So here’s a question:

                                What is the most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint?

A.       Drive less or choose a hybrid car

B.       Unplug your electronics

C.       Eat a vegan diet

    You may be surprised to find that the answer is C, and to hear that eating meat is the leading cause of greenhouse gases which contributes to climate change. In fact, The University of Chicago reports that going vegan is 50% more effective than switching to a hybrid car in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Eating 1 pound of meat is environmentally equal to driving 40 miles in an SUV (and the average American consumes over 250 pounds of meat a year, so that’s over 10,000 miles in an SUV)!  Actually, it can be argued that you cannot call yourself an environmentalist if you continue to eat animals and animal products, due to the climate change impact, the pollution, the use of fossil fuels, and the devastation to land and water.

    One of the most popular discussions in the sustainability field is our reliance on fossil fuels, specifically oil. Our oil dependence has a variety of serious ramifications, both environmentally and politically. However it is rarely publicized that eating a meat based diet uses up more than 1/3 of our fossil fuel resources. If every person in the U.S. traded in one chicken meal for a vegetarian meal each week, it’s the equivalent to taking 5 million cars off our roads (8 million cars for a whole day per week of vegetarian meals). So even just cutting your meat consumption for one meal or one day a week creates a more environmentally efficient system.

    If fossil fuels are not your concern, what about the social justice issue of hunger? Another astonishing fact is that more than 70% of the grain grown in the United States is used to produce animals and animal products for consumption. Think of the global food shortage issues, and then think of how much of our agricultural land and energy we are wasting on producing such a low yield to feed so few people. It takes approximately 16 pounds of grain to yield just 1 pound of edible meat, which is clearly an inefficient equation. With the grain the U.S. alone feeds to animals for consumption, we could feed an additional 1.4 BILLION people world-wide. 

    Land and water are other resources that are being destroyed by our meat focused society. According to the Smithsonian Institute, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals. Seven football fields! Our water systems are also deeply affected by the runoff of animal wastes. When you hear about a food recall issue due to E. Coli or other bacteria, you have to realize that that item was infected by animal waste. When a food like spinach is recalled, the tainted product was directly impacted by animal waste runoff from a farm raising animals for meat consumption. Likewise this runoff finds its way to our lakes and rivers, having a harmful health impact. It’s all interconnected, yet we are rarely asked to consider these facts. If you are interested in the environmental impact your actions have, it is critical to investigate a vegan diet. Even making different food choices once a week can have a great impact and can help create a cleaner, healthier and more efficient Earth for the future. And who doesn’t want that?

    For more information about how adopting a vegan diet can impact the environment, and to check out the facts in this blog, please visit: http://www.goveg.com/environment.asp

–Tracey Starkovich

Comments

[Groomsmen Gifts]

Nobody knows what Tracy has detailed, anyway thanks for information

[whey protein isolate]

Thanks for the post. You have describe all three points to avoid carbon foot print is good. I like it....

[repossessed cars]

I guess the optimum way would be to be a vegan who drives a hybrid car snd doesn't leave electronic gadgets on standby.

Cat :)