COLOURLESS GREEN IDEAS:
Behold! The Mighty Vegivore!
By Muna Mire, Staff Writer
Issue date: 11/10/09 Section: Opinions
DISCLAIMER: Before launching into an uber-judgemental, Morrissey style polemic on vegetarianism, let me say now that my personal moral convictions do not weigh in...much.
It may surprise you that only about four percent of adult Canadians and less than three percent of Americans are vegetarians. In downtown Toronto, the vegetarian lifestyle is fairly established. There are countless restaurants to sample. On campus, everyone knows at least one person who's going vegetarian or vegan. Of course there is any number of reasons to change your habits: to lose weight or out of concern for animal welfare. But even from a strictly pragmatic viewpoint, we could all do with a little less meat in our lives.
What many people are not aware of are the ecological consequences of eating meat. The livestock industry has a devastating impact on the current environmental crisis. To give you an idea of exactly how much meat we eat, picture this: current data estimates that there 15 million heads of cattle, 13 million pigs, 8 million turkeys, and 96 million chickens alive in Canada. Each of these animals requires food, water, and land. Meat-based diets require nearly seven times more land than plant-based diets. An incredible amount of forest is clear-cut to provide pasture space for grazing livestock. In addition to wreaking havoc on already fragile ecosystems, we are destroying plants that supply us with oxygen in an increasingly polluted biosphere, as well as moderate the climate.
According to the Worldwatch Institute, "belching, flatulent livestock emit 16 percent of the world's annual production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas." We simply do not think about what goes into the meat we eat. Research at the University of Maryland asserts that clearing forest to produce one pound of hamburger does the same damage as driving your car for three weeks (in terms of greenhouse gas emissions). From a purely human-centric perspective, our current eating habits are unwise.
It may surprise you that only about four percent of adult Canadians and less than three percent of Americans are vegetarians. In downtown Toronto, the vegetarian lifestyle is fairly established. There are countless restaurants to sample. On campus, everyone knows at least one person who's going vegetarian or vegan. Of course there is any number of reasons to change your habits: to lose weight or out of concern for animal welfare. But even from a strictly pragmatic viewpoint, we could all do with a little less meat in our lives.
What many people are not aware of are the ecological consequences of eating meat. The livestock industry has a devastating impact on the current environmental crisis. To give you an idea of exactly how much meat we eat, picture this: current data estimates that there 15 million heads of cattle, 13 million pigs, 8 million turkeys, and 96 million chickens alive in Canada. Each of these animals requires food, water, and land. Meat-based diets require nearly seven times more land than plant-based diets. An incredible amount of forest is clear-cut to provide pasture space for grazing livestock. In addition to wreaking havoc on already fragile ecosystems, we are destroying plants that supply us with oxygen in an increasingly polluted biosphere, as well as moderate the climate.
According to the Worldwatch Institute, "belching, flatulent livestock emit 16 percent of the world's annual production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas." We simply do not think about what goes into the meat we eat. Research at the University of Maryland asserts that clearing forest to produce one pound of hamburger does the same damage as driving your car for three weeks (in terms of greenhouse gas emissions). From a purely human-centric perspective, our current eating habits are unwise.
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posted 11/23/09 @ 4:32 PM EST
It is a very informative article.
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