The shadow
Although I allude to being a vegetarian now and then on my blog, I actually try to refrain from talking about it too much because it's a touchy subject. But yesterday I got a link to an article from the latest issue of E/The Environmental Magazine that summarizes and quantifies a lot of my opinions, and is too good to leave alone.
Here's a quick quote:
According to a little-known 2006 United Nations (UN) report called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” livestock is a “major player” in climate change, accounting for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
That’s more than our entire transportation system.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that the American meat industry produces more than 60 million tons of waste annually -- five tons for every U.S. citizen and 130 times the volume of human waste. Michael Jacobson at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) adds that just one mid-sized feedlot churns out half a million pounds of manure each day. And waste is just one of meat’s many harmful environmental side effects.
You can read the rest at www.emagazine.com.
I'm not suggesting that everyone should immediately go cold turkey on turkey, chickens, cows, and other animals, but I do think that individuals should think about what they eat and how it affects the world around them--and not just consume what they've been eating since they were kids.
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." - Albert Einstein
"A vegetarian--no goat or ham or chicken or turkey or hamburger--because to me that's suicide, self-murder." - KRS-1
posted by gr at
11:06 AM
Good quotes! Here's another:
"The measure of a society can be how well its people treat its animals." ~Mohandas Gandhi"
I was vegetarian 2 years before falling off for no good reason. Healthiest period of my life, gotta get back to it. Everyone got sick around me, I didn't get even a slightest cold during that time.
I'm constantly off track and not being very mindful of what I consume. Thanks for the blog!
mhigh five, martin. awesome blog post. way to live consciously.
this is a wonderful argument for all those people who don´t find any "real good" argument of why they should stop eating meat.
and i loved what you said about people not really judging their daily diet, because "that's what they've been eating since they were children"
i am sorry for my bad english :s,
saludos from Mexico
Thanks for the comments. I actually expected angry, critical, and reactionary responses.
Also, I received an email from the magazine's editor, who has a correction; the correct figure for animal waste should be 1.4 billion. That's more than twice what was cited.
-mw
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