How Can Going Vegetarian Help the Planet?

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There are many reasons to be a vegetarian. Some are physical – decreasing your meat intake can reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, many kinds of cancer, obesity, and a host of other potentially life threatening illnesses and conditions.

Some are moral or political – factory farming, an increasingly common practice of breeding animals in small, overcrowded, dirty, and inhumane conditions gives many people pause if not requiring a total rethink of your philosophy on consumption.

Some are environmental – studies have shown that cutting animal flesh out of your diet results in a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by about 1.5 metric tons a year. Not only are cattle a huge source of methane (a particularly egregious greenhouse gas) but major fuel emissions are necessary to power factories and processing plants as well as trucks to ship the processed meat all over the world (a caveat – the fruits, vegetables, and grains that comprise the staples of a vegetarian diet are also often shipped to far away places). No matter the food, buying local is increasingly important.

The truth is that nearly 18% of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming come from activities associated with livestock production. In fact, studies done by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization found that livestock generate more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation combined. And not only are livestock responsible for direct greenhouse gas emissions, but in order to create new pastures to meet increasing demand for meat, forests are being cleared with alarming frequency. Nowhere is this more apparent than in South America, where forest clearing in the Amazon nearly doubled in the latter months of 2007 and continues to be on the incline.

One of the areas in which we are the most careless with our consumption is food. Many people know that driving hybrid vehicles or recycling will help decrease their carbon footprints, but what fewer people know is that decreasing meat consumption, or going vegetarian, will give our planet a dramatically better shot at a cleaner future. It is one of the easiest and most intuitive changes you can make. And a lot cheaper than a new Prius.

It’s pretty clear that there are a host of reasons to become a vegetarian. If you are eating meat, make sure you know from where it is coming.