When I first heard about global warming, like most of us in Australia, my personal footprint was astronomical.
Here in Australia, we are each disproportionately large contributors to this developing global catastrophe. This realization was a big kick in the face for me and enough to drive anyone to drugs, alcohol and other emotional consumption. This response of course just makes the problem worse and feeds the shame. For me, the decent way to react to this is to have a serious think about it and the ways I stop being an environmental vandal. This is a bit of a minefield.
Trying to zoom in on the big areas and the obvious issues seemed the best approach. For example, when I needed a car, fuel economy and emissions were primary purchase considerations. I installed solar panels on the roof as I had a good north facing roof ideal for this. Other things like recycling, not wasting water, choosing environmentally friendly products, growing as much food as possible and thinking twice about unnecessary consumption were all sensible ideas.
There are many other considerations but meat consumption is huge and has now achieved the elephant in the room status.
The excuse of not knowing the environmental consequences of meat has lost its validity. Short of science deniers, the impacts of meat are now well-known facts. The 2008 United Nations report found that animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gases than the entire transport sector. Later the report by Worldwatch suggested the UN report underestimated the impact and that at least 51% of all man made greenhouse gases come from animal agriculture. Another sobering reminder of this is the finding from a life cycle study on various foods that 1kg of lamb results in 40 times the emissions of 1kg of lentils.
Some people still try to justify their meat eating with the suggestion that vegan agriculture would require more crops and so do more harm. In fact the complete opposite is true. For example approximately 80% of the soy crops grown globally are fed to animals. In other words, meat consumption is a major disproportionate driver of the increase in land clearing, either for the massive amount of crops needed to feed the animals or to make way for pasture for animal grazing. This is only part of why meat has such a major impact on our environment. To read more, check out our website link on meat and the environment.
The fact is that anyone genuinely concerned about global warming should give up eating meat. It’s not that hard and all the science says this is a very healthy thing to do.
