So in beginning - or re-beginning - my life as a veggie person I have been getting asked the obvious question: "Why are you doing this?" It seems each vegetarian or vegan person has their own reasons for adopting this kind of lifestyle - some for health reasons, some for animal rights, and others for environmental reasons. That last one is the main reason I have decided to go this route, and I figured I'd take a moment to highlight here this issue which has gotten far less press than it deserves (for reasons I'm sure I'll discuss at another point)...I don't want to apologize for or even justify my choices, but I do find that the lack of public awareness and education on a series of social issues, such as the following, is dramatic and frankly quite calculated, so whatever I can do to help fight that fight I will certainly try.
So that said - here is one of the major reasons I have decided to turn over this new leaf:
In a groundbreaking 2006 report, the United Nations (U.N.) said that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined. Senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization official Henning Steinfeld reported that the meat industry is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems.”
Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide together cause the vast majority of global warming. Raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions."
For more information and education you can go here: http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp or simply Google "vegetarian and environment" for over 800,000 other sources of information.....
