In honor of our beautiful Mother Earth, I’m sharing some changes we can make to lessen our impact on the environment and help ensure that our earth is as beautiful for our children as it was for our parents.
It’s no secret that real, devastating change is happening to our environment right before our eyes. Even before the terrifying California drought caught significant media attention, there were very scary things happening due to human impact on our planet. The Colorado River has been drying up at a depressing rate, the rising sea temps are having huge impacts all over the globe, species are going extinct at record rates, and a large part of the Amazon rainforest has been completely decimated.
Don’t lose hope. You can make a difference. Every little bit counts.
So what’s the single most eco-friendly change you can make?
Eat More Plants
Eating more plant foods has a substantial impact on your environmental footprint! Even if you never drove your car again, took only 60-second showers, and lived in one of those tiny solar-powered carbon-neutral houses in the middle of the forest, all of that would still not add up to the impact you can make by replacing animal foods with plant foods.
It’s pretty simple: eating lower on the food chain is more sustainable. Rather than growing loads of plants (and using land + insane amounts of water to do so) to fatten up animals and then slaughter and process those animals, why not just eat the plants to begin with?
Eating meat is an incredibly inefficient means to obtain energy.
Here are some facts & figures on agricultural impact on the environment:
Water Use
- 1/3 of the planet’s water use is for animal agriculture
- Water footprint per gram of animal protein is 1.5x that of legumes
- Producing 1 lb of beef requires ~1,800 gallons of water
- Producing 1 lb of wheat requires ~100 gallons of water
- For more: Water footprint of various plant + animal foods
Land Use
- Cattle grazing is responsible for 80% of the deforestation of the Amazon
- Animal agriculture covers 1/3 of the earth’s surface
Carbon Emissions
- Clearing forest to allow cattle to graze releases hundreds of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere (second only to fossil fuel use)
- Livestock are responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions (fart much?)
Pollution
- Livestock and poultry farming pollutes our air with allergens, gases, dust, and particles
- Pollution from factory farms threatens public health by spreading deadly disease-causing pathogens
Reduce then Reuse & Recycle
I think sometimes we forget the first part of this cycle. And it’s in that order for a reason. First, reduce. Reduce what? Reduce your material consumption and anything that comes in packaging. Reduce the new clothes you buy, the electronics, the new whatever because you’re tired of your old one. Before you reach for something new, ask yourself if you really need it!
Related posts on sustainability:
“Livestock are responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Some estimates are much higher, like this one from the World Resources Institute:
“The environmental impact of the lifecycle and supply chain of animals raised for food has been vastly underestimated, and in fact accounts for at least half of all human-caused greenhouse gases (GHGs), according to Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, co-authors of “Livestock and Climate Change”.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294
I have heard that recent figure too, thanks for sharing, Jeff!