Veg Out

by Katie Ryder — August 18, 2008

OK people, I want to set some things straight. No, I am not an animal rights activist, and no, I am not trying to lose weight. The REAL reason I'm a vegetarian is the mere fact that the meat industry accounts for 1/5 of all greenhouse gas emissions. That's more than SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined. Combined!

Environmental Defense found that if every American substituted vegetarian foods for meat one meal a week, the CO2 savings would be equivalent to removing half a million cars off U.S. roads. The process of raising the animal for their by-products is one of the world's largest causes of excess atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, climate change is not only caused by CO2. Animal agriculture is also one of the leading emitters of methane and nitrous oxide, which are two more leading causes of climate change, when combined with carbon dioxide.

Methane is more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, therefore trapping 20 times more heat in the atmosphere. Methane is produced by the billions of animals in factory farms by digestion and by the cesspools filled with their excrement.

Nitrous oxide is (count it) 300 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., animal agriculture accounts for 65% of nitrous oxide emissions worldwide.

Becoming a vegetarian is one of the easiest steps you can take to make your ecological footprint smaller. You can even go local and organic with the food choices you make. To find a local organic farm, visit http://www.localharvest.org/.