not exactly breaking news: Going veg reduces your carbon footprint

Vegan Soapbox points us today to a news item on MSN that reveals that going vegetarian is way more enviro-friendly than eating meat, and that going vegan is even more so. Going organic? Well, that just practically gives you only a carbon toe-print.

The study uses miles driven as a metric...IOW "producing a kilo (2.2 pounds) [of beef is] the same as driving 71 kilometres compared with 26 kilometres for pork."

Meanwhile, someone who somehow managed to eat a 100% organic vegan diet would produce a carbon footprint equivalent to driving only 281 kilometres in an entire year. (Or about the carbon footprint produced by producing only 4 kilos of beef.)

I don't think the contention that going veg is easier on the environment than eating meat is a big surprise to most people who follow this stuff to begin with.

I do think that as more people (non-veg) people do get drawn into "going green" they may see the light on that.

Now, if Al Gore would just go veg? That would be nirvana...seriously how can he not?

Your health
The planet's health
Avoiding unnecessary cruelty and suffering for animals

Seriously: Who or what doesn't benefit from you going veg?

(And don't tell me the owners of slaughterhouses and cattleyards, or I'll have to into my whole yes-people-make-a-living-dealing-drugs-and-running guns-and-running-Internet-scams-doesn't-make-it-a-reason-those-activities-deserve-to-continue argument.)

Comments

[Mo]

This is really interesting, and as someone who has been vegetarian for years, I would like to think that I'm making a difference with my eating choices, but I also think that vegetables usually travel just as far to get to my table as meat does, unless I strive to eat locally, and agribusiness is also a huge threat to the environment. I agree with you, though, that going organic is a very smart choice,and I also think that eating locally is just as important, since it could be argued that a tomato shipped from South America isn't any more enviro-friendly than a pound of beef procured locally.
At any rate, thanks for the thought-provoking post :)