Attention 'Global Citizens : Why Shouldn' T We All Become Vegans?

The human population is growing at an exponential rate. It is expected that the human population is going to increase to 9.6 billion by 2050, compared to 7.2 billion in 2013 (Porter). Because of the increasing human population, the rate of food production increases causing food waste produced to rise as well. Food consumption has decreased to less than a quarter of what was consumed in 1961 for people living in developing countries (Porter). These statistics are important to highlight because according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, most landfills are made up of food waste which is causing the emissions of greenhouse gasses. The Environmental Protection Agency also states that cows produce one of the most dangerous greenhouse gas known as methane. Methane is 21 more times stronger than carbon dioxide. The reason why this needs consideration is because beef is the most consumed meat compared to other meats such as chicken, which has less greenhouse gas emissions. Countries with the most greenhouse gas emissions come from great financial economies in which citizens are privileged with what they eat. The increasing rate of releasing emissions by food waste can be dramatically slowed down by, using systems that convert food waste into a source of renewable energy, implementing policies that limit the amount of food waste in each country, and having governmental officials influence citizens to take into consideration the amount of food waste they produce.

One of the biggest controversies with livestock production is that the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that get released into the atmosphere. Its assumed that cars produce most if not all the greenhouse gas emissions however livestock has a big say in air pollution. According to Cassandra Brooks, writer for the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, 18 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions are due to livestock production. This is nearly 20% and can be greatly reduced if people reduced their demand for meat. The Environmental Working Group used a tangible variable for Americans stating “if everyone in the U.S. ate no meat or cheese just one day a week, it would be like not driving 91 billion miles – or taking 7.6 million

It’s often argued that cows are the main source of our Methane emission, giving a strong argument to reduce, or even stop, our consumption of meat. In all actuality, only about six percent to seven percent of all greenhouse

Brought up in the southern of China, I often heard about that people from there “eat anything with four limbs except tables, anything that flies except aero planes, and anything that swims except ships”. Nevertheless, I eat more fruit, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains but less meat to make careful choices for environmental protection. Similarly, Kathy Freston argues that animal agriculture is one of the top contributors to global warming. In her Huffington Post selection “Vegetarian Is the New Prius,” Freston lists how many emissions of greenhouse gases people make when they eat meat and illustrates the consumption of tree in animal agriculture. She effectively convinces her audiences that the livestock results in the most serious environmental problems and encourages people to lead a greener diet to protect our environment. However, ardent craving, poor health, and perpetual hassle and cost prevent all Americans from being vegetarian.

Manufacture of meat - laden co2 and methane, and requires alot water. Farm animals such as cow or goats is the largest producer of methane. When they digest their food, the FAO of the UN mentioned the meat production accounts for 18 global warming, bigger than on the contributions of the entire world's

The excess of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere have led to a dramatic rise in the climate and the hottest recorded years the Earth has seen. To be specific, “the 25 warmest years on record have come since 1980 [and] the 10 warmest since global recordkeeping began in 1880 have come since 1996, (p 56)” which is nothing to boast about, seeing as this is also the largest population and most technology the Earth has ever seen. Moreover, in lecture, we went over the amount of greenhouse gases created solely by livestock and how being a society dependent of livestock for food is very negative. Livestock emit about 68% of all agriculturally produced methane(lecture) and methane counts for approximately 18% of greenhouse gases (p 57). That is not to say that livestock do not create a large amount; in fact, human-caused methane emissions are almost solely from agriculture. To combat this, Dr. Wailes proposed that instead of basing our diet on water-heavy crops and methane-emitting animals, we switch to much more sustainable foods. One example of this would be to eat bugs. Bugs contain much more protein by the pound and do not eat alfalfa, which is what causes cows and other livestock to emit greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. Dr. Wailes also displayed a chart with three different “meals” which

Meat and dairy productions’ livestock is responsible for over 51% of the greenhouse gas emissions, that could be cut by over 70% if we changed our diets to vegan or vegetarian. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the animals on the farms produce over 500 million ton of manure each

Bill McKibben, as environmentalist and widely published author observes, that the more livestock produced in unethical ways, the more green gases emitted into the atmosphere. In McKibben view, “Going vegan is fifty percent more effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions than switching to a hybrid car according to a University of Chicago study.(201)” McKibben claims that becoming a vegan is one of the only choices someone can make that can actually help the environment. Livestock produces most of the world’s greenhouse gases, when they belch and because the livestock is stuck in one place, all the manure is in one place just emitting gases. Vegans want people to stop eating meat, because the more people eat, the more meat needs to be produced, producing more greenhouse

Agriculture for meat and beef, eggs and dairy products are responsible for eighteen percent of all the greenhouse gas emission per year, which is more than the emissions of cars, planes, and trains together. And livestock and their byproducts are responsible for fifty-one percent of the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and for up to ninety percent of water consumption in the U.S.. Thousands of gallons of water are used to produce beef, eggs and dairy products. More than half of the oceans are fished and two acres of the rainforest get destroyed every second for food production. Switching to a vegan lifestyle can decrease all these factors and make the world we live in now exist longer.

In a study conducted by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2003, it was estimated that there are approximately 2 billion people that live primarily on a meat-based diet while approximately 4 billion people live primarily on a plant-based diet (Pimentel, 2003). With this information we can deduce just how much of a difference in environmental effects there are between a vegetarian diet and a diet that consumes meat. For example, in this study it was found that the average amount of fossil fuel energy used for 1 kilocalorie of animal-based protein was 11 times more than that for 1 kilocalorie of grain protein. This statistic shows that the mass production of animal meat-based foods requires a much larger amount of the already limited amount of fossil fuels that are on Earth than plant-based food. By examining this fact, it is not a broad leap to assume that in reducing the worlds extravagant use of animal meat for consumption we could not only preserve the natural resources we have but also assist in reducing factors that add to climate change. Although the argument could be made that because both the vegetarian diet and a diet with meat in it use a large amount of resources there would be no difference in reducing the effects that the agriculture industry has on climate change but that is simply not true. While it is true that both diets use a large amount of resources, across the board the meat-based diet uses a much larger amount of resources. In fact, in the study conducted by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition it states, “The meat-based diet requires more energy, land, and water resources than the lactoovovegetarian [vegetarian] diet.” Although both are considered unsustainable, this study provides very valid evidence that the vegetarian diet is more sustainable than that of a meat-based

First, we are going to discuss what a plant-based diet could do to combat the issue of climate change. According to the United Nations, “a global shift toward a vegan diet is one of the steps necessary to combat the worst effects of climate change” (1). Carbon dioxide, methane gas, and nitrous oxide emissions combined create most of the greenhouse gasses going in to our atmosphere. These are all produced largely by animal production. Overall, a plant-based diet would assist in lowering the amount of greenhouse gases emissions drastically. Justin Worland has written on hundreds of energy and environmental issues for TIME. According to Worland, climate change’s effects on global food supply could lead to more than 500,000 deaths by

The fact of the matter is that the meat and dairy industry are one of the biggest producers of food related greenhouse gases. This in turn speeds up global warming and is quite literally killing the planet. There are a multitude of ways we can cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, but the most effective in the long run is to drastically reduce our meat and dairy

The final argument comes from Peter Dockrill, who claims that vegetarianism is bad for the environment. He begins with talking about a Carnegie Mellon Study, which states that the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) , current recommended number of daily servings, if followed to the letter, would actually be bad (Dockrill 2015). However, this does not necessarily have anything to do with a vegetarian diet. Dockrill (2015) discusses how lettuce and other plants emit more greenhouse gas emissions than some meat products. He proposes three scenarios that could occur. The first, is that if people ate less of what they already do it would decrease the environmental impact (Dockrill 2015). Dockrill’s (2015) second scenario would involve

The documentary ‘Food Choices’ is about the connection between our food choices and the environment. They stated that eating meat leads to global warming, water scarcity, extinction of spices, Amazon destruction, and depletion of the oceans. This documentary talks about how awful the meat industry is to the earth. The creators of this documentary are strongly pushing a plant based diet and, or veganism. They said that live stock is responsible for 14.5% of global CO2 emissions. Then also stating that that is more emissions that the entire transportation system sector combined. They talk about how our small changes to hep the environment, (taking shorter showers, using energy efficient light bulbs, electric cars, is not really that significant. On the contrary, the way to most affectively help fix climate change would to switch our diets. Apart for being bad for the environment they also strongly support that slaughtering innocent animals is wrong. That say freedom for all things, includes animals. They compared our killing of animals to Hitler and the Holocaust. They said that today with all our resources and other foods, there is no need to eat animals. It is a huge misconception that protein is extremely important. They the way Americans consume meat is ridiculous and completely inhumane and unhealthy.

Eating vegetables and alternative protein sources can lower the carbon emission the most. The process to produce red meat and dairy food requires energy that