Going Vegetarian will help Save the Planet

By Stuart Gardiner

Studies on world food consumption have shown that an affluent diet including meat requires up to three times as many resources as a vegetarian diet. With demand for meat on the rise, resources already stretched and a world food shortage we are building up serious problems for future generations.

One little known fact is that animals produce more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire worlds transport system!

The 3 main greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. All three have increased significantly in modern times. Increases of carbon dioxide are mainly due to fossil fuels but methane and nitrous oxide are primarily caused by agriculture. 

Methane has more than 20 times the global warming impact than CO2 and ruminant mammals (cattle and sheep) are responsible for over 30% of the methane generated by human activity. With just over 3 billion cattle and sheep on the planet and a single cow capable of producing 500 litres of methane a day it's not hard to understand the impact they make.

Nitrous oxide is nearly 300 times more damaging to the climate as carbon dioxide and 65% of it is produced through raising livestock. When we add ammonia into the equation it all leads to a pretty disastrous scenario.

However, it doesn't end there. Increasingly, water is running out. By 2025 the Food and Agricultural organisation have estimated that two thirds of the worlds population will be living under water stressed conditions. It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that it takes more than 10 times the water to produce a kilo of meat than it does to produce a kilo of wheat.

The demand for meat throughout the world is set to double by the year 2050. In order to meet the demand animals will no doubt be reared more intensively. How can we continue to sustain such growth without suffering huge consequences?

It must be clear that we can reduce our carbon footprint by eating less meat or by becoming vegetarian. But there are many other benefits as well. We will save large amounts of water, avoid many types of pollution, limit the destruction of forests and reduce the amount of antibiotics in our food chain. These are but a few advantages we would experience by a global shift in our diets.

Let's eat green and save the planet!