What did you learn about dietary choices from using the footprint calculator? Now imagine that you could translate what you learned into an effective societal policy on food- what would it be? And how would this policy effect the need to alleviate world hunger?
925 million people on earth do not have enough to eat according to the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization]. That's almost 1 in 7 inhabitants of our planet!
Food & Hunger >
The Meat Industry and CO2
An American diet consist of a large assortment of meats, poultry, and other animals products. The red meat industry uses 28 times more land and 11 times more water than pork and chicken. Combined meat industries use an ample amount of land and water to feed and bulk these farm animals for slaughter. Not only is it cruel to animals, it harms the environment. Meat "requires 160 times more land and produces 11 times more greenhouse gases." Meat rich diets produce 7.2 kgs carbon emissions each day. The idea is to reduce how much meat we eat, but more importantly know how much it harms the environment. A person doesn't have to become vegan. But if we are conscience about our choices, then we can help reduce CO2 emissions in a simple way.
I definitely agree with your take on the issue. Many people do not realize that when we consume large amounts of meat, we easily emit carbon in the atmosphere. Our diets happen to be a immense source of carbon emission. We should surely reduce our meat intake because it can eventually save our planet. So much greenhouse gas emission is caused by the way we raise livestock such as cows, which is often extremely cruel! The fact that the consumption of meat causes more CO2 than cars tells humans that we can easily act on the issue by starting with our own diets.
I think your statement about how "the red meat industry uses 28 times more land and 11 times more water than pork and chicken" is interesting and something I feel like people are more conscious about than before. According to Health.Fitness.Revolution.org there are several reasons why red meat is not only increasing Greenhouse gas emissions, but also considered an unhealthy food choice. Not eating red meat reduces the chance of obesity, diabetes and chronic heart issues. In general, not eating red meat increases your life span and people are more aware of the consequences that come from consuming this type of food even if they are not vegetarian or vegan. I feel like if people are more educated about the effects certain foods have on animals, the Earth and their health, more people will be conscious about their consumption of certain types of foods. I think gaining that education will also help reduce CO2 levels too.
I agree with everything stated, and a great bringing up of the issue. It is so important to recognize that such small details like our diets make such a big differnce in our Earths atmosphere. To combat this one of the responses was education. Educating people on this topic would definitly bring more attentio to this problem and also make people start changing their daily habbits for the better. The issue here is that food is a big part of any culture and more often than not, that food culture includes meat. What I'm saying is that it would be difficult to make some people change their habbits because their culture and it's tradition is so deeply ingrained in them. However small changes would definitly happen so that in itself would be a great step forward.