All of you have calculated your emissions and you have surely discovered the unexpectedly high impact of some of your behaviors (eating meat, flying to a sunny destination, etc.) on your total footprints.
Are there any behaviors that you are really willing to change or to improve for the sake of the environment? What challenges do you encounter or think you will encounter while trying to change these things? What help, support, and insights from others would make your life easier with these new behaviors?
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Taking Meat out of your Daily Diet and How Much it can Help
Nearly every child has heard their parents complaining about their water bill. “Two thousand, five hundred gallons in a single shower?” might be stretching it a bit in terms of a human’s water usage, but it’s actually quite accurate when it comes to the average cow’s.
Agriculture affecting the environment has recently come to the attention of those studying the effects of greenhouse gases on the environment; being responsible for a whopping 24% of the world’s total emissions, agriculture/forestry/land use beats Transportation’s 14%, Buildings, and even Industry. Although one could assume that it’s not the animal that generates the CO2, methane, and Nitrous Oxide, but the steps that humans have to take to raise said animal count, too. From the deforestation for pastures, draining of water sources, and the straight-up digestive process of multiple animals generating such large amounts of methane that it could be compared to the pollution produced by a car.
Cows alone produce a ridiculous amount of methane and nitrous oxide— because the general public of first-world count ries gorge themselves on too much meat. The demand for meat is still high, but the consumption of it is slowly declining. If we started eating less meat, would it be beneficial?
I, in personal opinion, believe it would. With meat being less popular and highly regarded as ‘rich people food’ (Family’s words, not mine) and more as a hazard to the environment, our world could easily cut down the emissions from one of the world’s leading greenhouse gas producers. Not only would less meat be beneficial to worldwide health and the economy (due to meat being so expensive.), but it would also indirectly help the environment, and lower greenhouse gas emissions on our planet.
http://www.treehugger.com/health/study- … -meat.html
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global … sions-data
http://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammal … ne-cow.htm
http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
http://www.countinganimals.com/meat-con … n-decline/
https://www3.epa.gov/watersense/pubs/indoor.html
http://www.vegsource.com/articles/pimentel_water.htm
(I’m not a vegan. I just like nutrition.)