Many studies have been completed to try and prove cutting out certain categories of food such as meat from your diet lower your carbon footprint. Studies conclude that there is a clear relation between cutting out most or all of the meat you eat and a lower carbon footprint. It is estimated that the livestock farming industry contributes 20% to 50% of our overall carbon emissions. This is because the process of producing, storing, transporting, and wasting food within the meat industry all emit considerable amounts of carbon, according to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/2 … 38914.html .

While this has all been proven correct, when going vegetarian you still may have a chance of increasing your carbon footprint rather than decreasing it, as it all depends on what you eat specifically. For example, if you eat cheese regularly it is estimated you are adding about 13.5 kilograms to your carbon footprint (equal to driving 31 miles), whereas eating pork regularly only adds 12.1 (equal to driving 28 miles) despite popular belief that all m eat adds more to your carbon footprint than any other food.

According to http://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/a-me … l-impacts/ , both the feed given to livestock and the manure produced by the livestock is notably contributing to our total carbon emissions by 12%. This is due to the water required to grow the animal feed such as soybean meal, corn, and fishmeal. To grow these crops, the following is necessary: 149 million acres of farmland, 167 billion pounds (76 billion kilograms) pesticides, and 17 billion pounds (7.7 billion kilograms) of nitrogen fertilizer. On top of the extravagant amount of water used to produce feed for livestock, the fertilizers used for the crop soil also have carbon footprints, due to a warming effect from nitrous oxide which can warm up to 300 times further than carbon dioxide.

A study displayed on http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/2 … 38914.html states that meat eaters emit anywhere from 46% to 51% more greenhouse gases than pescatarians, 50% to 54% more than vegetarians, and 99% to 102% more than vegans. The article goes on to say if everyone in the world were to go vegan, the equivalent would be like removing 460 million cars from the world and their total carbon emissions.

There is tons of evidence leading to one important conclusion:  The more meat you cut out of your diet, the more your carbon footprint will decrease. For more information, visit https://www.vox.com/2014/7/2/5865109/st … nt-in-half .

I think it is crazy how much smaller our carbon footprint could be if we cut meat out of our diet. According to http://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html, "the carbon footprint of a vegetarian diet is about half that of a meat lover's diet." I agree that it is all about what you eat if you change your diet. I recently switched from eating meat to being a vegetarian, and I noticed that I was eating more cheese and cooking things with milk and eggs more than I used to. After calculating my carbon footprint, I was researching ways to reduce my carbon footprint, and according to http://science.time.com/2011/07/26/how- … ootprint/, tons of noxious gases are produced at each dairy farm including carbon dioxide. Now, I am working on reducing the amount of dairy I consume in hopes that is will have a positive impact on my carbon footprint.

I have heard a lot recently about the benefits of going vegetarian or vegan but this one is the most surprising to me. I found on the vegetarian society website  https://www.vegsoc.org/reducecarbon that Livestock farming creates 20% of green  house gas emissions from human activity. Which means that going vegetarian would decrease ones carbon footprint by a lot. I think not everyone has to go vegetarian but even eating less meat or less dairy can have a big effect on one's carbon footprint so that should be something everyone is conscious of.