Green living can be more than the car you drive, recycling

Dec 17, 2008 2 min read

Editor:

I live green by not consuming any animals or animal products: meaning i do not kill an animal for food. One may ask “what does raising animals for food have to do with global warming?” According to the united nations, raising animals for food causes more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, planes, ships, trains, and SUVs in the world combined. “But how?” one may ask. The reason is very simple: producing 1 calorie of meat uses more than TEN times the amount of fossils fuel that it takes to produce 1 calorie of plant food. Animals raised for food drink more than half of ALL the water used in the United States. Every second, animals produce 89,000 pounds of waste – 130 times more than all the people: Thus causing massive pollution of rivers. An example would be seen in the lakes of North Carolina. An area equivalent to seven football fields is destroyed every minute to make way for grazing cattle. In conclusion, is the best way for a person to start a more environmentally friendly way of living, by buying a hybrid, lightbulbs and recycling? Or, quit consuming animals? We can’t suffer our tastebubs for the survival of the human race can we?

Troy Gustafson

Fort Myers Beach