Vegetarians can drive Corvettes if they want to
20th Feb 2009 09:16:10
Scientific American has revealed (a fact that every card-carrying vegetarian repeats endlessly when asked why they choose to restrict their diet) that a vegetable-based diet is greener than a meat based one, in terms of CO2 released per pound of food.
It's not like we didn't know it before. The UN Food and Agriculture issued the report in 2006. It's astonishing. I'll just summarise the points:
- The FAO report found that current production levels of meat contribute between 14 and 22 percent of the 36 billion tons of "CO2-equivalent" greenhouse gases the world produces every year. That's 5-8 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
- Producing half a pound of hamburger releases as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as driving a 3,000-pound car nearly 10 miles.
- Producing a kilo of beef protein requires the cow to eat 10 kilos of plant protein. We may as well just have dumped 9 kilos of plants.
- Growing half a pound of asparagus in Peru, then shipping it over to the US generates 3.2oz of CO2. Growing vegetables in one's garden though, releases no CO2.
Time magazine quotes the report as saying that 18% of Greenhouse Gas emissions come from livestock farming. Only 13% come from all the world's transport combined.
So basically, don't eat meat, and grow vegetables in your garden (if you have one, of course). Growing your own vegatables is fun and rewarding too. If you grow even just a few of the more expensive veggies, like rhubarb, parsnip, etc., as opposed to potatoes and carrots, you'll save yourself a tidy sum. If you are going to eat meat, eat organically grown stuff.
Vegetarianism provides all the nurtients and proteins anyone needs, and even those doing heavy sport and martial arts can survive on a vegetarian diet - they don't need meat. So, to sum up:
- Time Magazine
Submit this Story to the following Social Networking Sites:
