Don’t Panic

I wouldn’t be a true borderline vegan activist without getting a bit preachy at some point, so here goes. You have been warned.

I have been loving the beautiful 70 degree days at the end of January just as much as everyone else. My inner cynic can’t help but burst my bubble and point out how unnatural the weather has been lately and I should be very concerned about the state of the planet right now. My train of thought lead me to consider ways in which every person can reduce their impact on the environment. The first thing I thought of was my annoyance when people use the elevator in Lakeview when they have no good reason to do so; they are not carrying anything or crippled, just lazy. It is unethical to use the elevator when it is unnecessary.

These thoughts about the environment and ethics and the planet synthesized into a desire to educate people about how they can both help the environment, and be more ethical with one simple action.

-Warning.- From here on out, there is a chance you will hate my opinions.

Stop eating so much meat and dairy if you truly care about the planet. Its all well and fine to get a more efficient car and use fluorescent lightbulbs but if you really want to make a change then please reduce your meat and dairy consumption. “According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off U.S. roads” (1).

If that isn’t enough, consider these facts:
“Researchers at the University of Chicago concluded that switching from a standard American diet to a vegan diet is more effective in the fight against global warming than switching from a standard American car to a hybrid” (2).
“Livestock production is responsible for 70% of Amazon deforestation” (3).
And if human rights is your thing:
“Globally, we feed 756 million tons of grain to farmed animals. As Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer notes in his new book, if we fed that grain to the 1.4 billion people who are living in abject poverty, each of them would be provided more than half a ton of grain, or about 3 pounds of grain/day — that’s twice the grain they would need to survive. And that doesn’t even include the 225 million tons of soy that are produced every year, almost all of which is fed to farmed animals” (2).

There are many more statistics I can put in, but my basic point is that by at least reducing your meat consumption, you will be doing the planet a favor.

Sources:
1) http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/meat-and-environment.aspx
2) http://www.alternet.org/environment/134650/the_startling_effects/
3) http://www.vegsoc.org/page.aspx?pid=520

For the beauty of the planet.

The song is Don’t Panic by Coldplay

For the content of this post.One of my favorite punk bands – Rise Against. The song is Ready to Fall

By the way, two of the band members are vegetarian and the other two are vegan. Awesome.
This is the quote at the end of the video in case you missed it.
“Every action has a reaction. We’ve got one planet. One chance.” – Tim McIlrath of Rise Against