What can we do that is simple and can have a real positive impact on our environment?
I believe there are loads of things we can do! I know change is difficult and the products we need to choose and efforts we need to make are not well supported in our everyday lives. Start simple –you really can make a difference.
Eat less meat –eat low on the food chain.
You don’t have to become a vegetarian or a vegan to make a significant impact on the environment by simply eating less meat. Start with meat free days –like meat free-Tuesday and work up to 3 days a week.
Eating less dairy, cheese and eggs will also help the environment a great deal. Try foods lower on the food chain like pulses, legumes and grains, soy, almond and rice milks. Buy local and organic, from small ethical farms when you do eat meat and dairy while you continue to cut back.
What about fish? It’s a good idea to try to limit your purchase of fish as well. Our ocean ecosystems have been seriously abused and are very depleted. Eating less is an ecologically and environmentally sound idea.
Fast Facts:
- The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization has issued a stunning report on global warming. Livestock production is responsible for more climate change gasses than all the motor vehicles in the world.
- Livestock production is at the heart of almost every environmental catastrophe confronting the planet – rain forest destruction, spreading deserts, loss of fresh water, air and water pollution, acid rain and soil erosion.
- Meat is the most resource-intensive food on the table and eating less of it can be the single environmental move a person makes.
- The world is experiencing a population explosion of farm animals. The combined weight of the world’s 15 billion farm animals now surpasses the weight of the human population by over one and one half times. These animals have a huge appetite for feed crops and grazing land. A vegetarian diet requires only a half acre of land – seven times less land than a meat-based diet
- A single dairy cow produces about 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to the waste produced by 20–40 people. That means California’s 1.4 million dairy cows produce as much waste as 28–56 million people.”
- “The way that we breed animals for food is a threat to the planet. It pollutes our environment while consuming huge amounts of water, grain, petroleum, pesticides and drugs. The results are disastrous.”
- Between 1950 and 1994, global meat production increased nearly fourfold, rising faster than the human population. (Brown and Kane 1994; FAO 1997)
- Industrial fishing depletes marine food webs, seriously damaging ocean ecosystems.
- A recent global study, published in the international journal Nature in May 2003, concludes that 90 percent of all large fishes have disappeared from the world’s oceans in the past half century.
- Fish farms require large amounts of feed and chemicals. Disease and pollution often spill out from the submerged floating cages located along shorelines. Disease pathogens spread easily among the high densities of fish, and concentrated fecal wastes and drugs can contaminate adjacent waters. Fish that escape from the cages can spread disease and inbreeding to wild stocks. At least 140 distinct salmon stocks in British Columbia are already extinct.
- Shrimp farms in Asia and India displace mangrove forest. The lost of this critical buffer was one of the main reasons the 2004 tsunami caused so much damage.
Resources and refrences:
- Website: http://www.veg.ca/issues/e-fish.html
- Website: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/how_to_green_yo_8.php
- Website: http://www.veg.ca/issues/enintro.html
- Essay: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Notes from Underground,” Fall 2001
- Essay: David Brubaker, PhD Center for a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins University, Environmental News Network, 9/20/99
- Book: “Overfishing Disrupts Entire Ecosystems”, Science, 2/6/98.
- Book: “God’s Last Offer: Negotiating for a Sustainable Future.” by, Ed Ayres
I was reading the other day that in China there is a tradition where people are encouraged to eat an egg every other day for their health. Unfortunately for 1.4 billion people thats a lot of eggs. So many in fact that to support the chickens laying those eggs you need all the grain that Australia produces just to feed the chickens. We really need to educate ourself on sustainable eating and nutrition.