Meat: The Single Worst Thing Humans Can Do To The Environment

by Mike Smith · 2009-10-15 09:30:00 UTC
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In the spirit of Blog Action Day for Climate Change, let's talk about meat. In the New York Times, Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything Is Illuminated, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, explained how he has gradually slipped in and out of vegetarianism, but now that he has kids, he's taking responsibility and kicking the habit entirely. He really got my attention with this:

Factory farming has made animal agriculture the No. 1 contributor to global warming ... Eating factory-farmed animals — which is to say virtually every piece of meat sold in supermarkets and prepared in restaurants — is almost certainly the single worst thing that humans do to the environment.

I have had a similar experience to Jonathan, having cut meat out entirely, but I slipped back into the habit. Yet, at the same time, I've cut back significantly. Meat, if it's eaten at all, shouldn't be an everyday thing. I'm cutting down more and more. But everytime I eat it, I'm doing the worst possible thing to the environment, and it's inexusable considering how easy it would be for me to quit it entirely. I'd like half of my "cut 10% of your personal emissions in 2010" to come from quitting meat. I'd like to take more personal responsibility and not contribute further to a terrible problem solely because I kind of like hamburgers. I can live without hamburgers.

Photo credit: Chichacha

Mike Smith
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