"Sustainable" and "green" are our new buzz-words. There are conferences, seminars, magazines, websites - lots and lots about green and sustainable. Probably much of it is hype and marketing. Anyone who talks and/or writes about sustainability and eats animal products - dairy, meat, etc. is just talking. There is no action. There is no true commitment to sustainability.
To be sustainable is more than driving a Prius or switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs. Neither is enough - they are something, like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with a couple of pebbles. Recent articles in our news magazines paint a bleak picture of our future. Scientists suggest that we may never get control of CO2 emissions. There’s one place to start – with our diet. Over 10,000,000,000 (ten billion) animals are slaughtered for food in the United States alone. The “production” of these animals is not only devastating to the animals but to land and water resources. According to the a United Nations report issued at the end of 2006, animal production accounts for more emissions than all the vehicles used in global transport. 9% of all CO2 is emitted in the production and slaughter of animals as is 37% of all human sourced methane; and methane has 23 times the global warming potential of CO2. Further, animal production accounts for 65% of nitrous oxide emissions which has a disastrous multiple of 296 times CO2’s global warming potential.
Switching to a non-animal-based diet will reduced total greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 20% and switching to a whole food, plant based diet will provide greater savings by reducing the energy inputs for the production of processed foods found in our grocery stores and many of our restaurants.
Its a start - and eliminating animal production for our food will free-up 33% of our arable land for human food production.