Environmental Reasons to Become Vegetarian

Why People Equate a Meatless Lifestyle With Saving the Planet

Sep 20, 2009

There are many reasons people become vegetarian. Others might not understand the environmental impacts of eating meat. Here are some environmental reasons to go meatless.

There are many reasons people become vegetarian-most often, people stop eating meat because of their health or for ethical reasons. But sometimes people become vegetarian for environmental reasons.

The term "sustainable agriculture" is often used when vegetarians speak of their choice to be meatless to save the environment. The idea is that farming should be self-sustaining (sustainable farming can include raising cattle). Because a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle requires less water and pollutes less, it is considered to be more sustainable.

Go Vegetarian To Save Water

Ed Ayres, in the Time Magazine article "Will We Still Eat Meat?" lays out the facts in no uncertain terms. He says, "To produce 1 lb. of feedlot beef requires 7 lbs. of feed grain, which takes 7,000 lbs. of water to grow." Note that he equates 7,000 pounds of water to raising just one pound of beef to maturity. Considering many feedlot cows can end up weighing well over 1,000 pounds, it's not hard to see how much water is used to simply fatten up cows for slaughter.

Global Warming Concerns

Most people have heard that global warming is caused by an increase in the number of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and carbon-specifically carbon dioxide (CO2)-is usually identified as a culprit. Some people don't know that methane is also a large contributor to global warming. The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook cites John Robbins's arguments that cattle on the planet "produce nearly 100 million tons of methane." Robbins's organization, the EarthSave Foundation, also mentions that cattle are just one of many other animals that are consumed by human beings.

Deforestation

The Vegetarian Society claims that meat eating causes deforestation in two ways. The first is that land (such as rainforest) is cleared to grow grain to feed cattle; the second is that land is also cleared to raise cattle. They mention that one "third of the world’s land suitable for growing crops is used to produce feed for farmed animals." It is "inefficient" to use land to feed animals that become food for human beings when using the land to directly feed people would result in more food and less land use.

Environmentalism Can Start With One's Diet

It really is possible to save more water and contribute less to global warming by going vegetarian or-at the very least-reducing one's consumption of meat than by doing many other things that help lessen one's carbon footprint.

The copyright of the article Environmental Reasons to Become Vegetarian in Vegetarian Issues is owned by Cynthia Jones-Shoeman. Permission to republish Environmental Reasons to Become Vegetarian in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.