Meat-based diets like driving SUVs

Think you can’t do anything to stop global warming? Think again! Scientists are reporting that changing from a meat based diet to a vegetable-based diet helps reduce global warming.

Why? Here is how the authors put it:

The energy consumption of animal- and plant-based diets and, more broadly, the range of energetic planetary footprints spanned by reasonable dietary choices are compared. It is demonstrated that the greenhouse gas emissions of various diets vary by as much as the difference between owning an average sedan versus a sport-utility vehicle under typical driving conditions.

So where do the emissions come from? The problem has biological and technological roots. Firstly, as energy moves up the food chain, from the sun, to plants, to animals, to humans, it gets wasted. Actually, only 10% makes it to the next step up in the food chain. Also, cows and animal waste are a source of methane. In addition, we need trucks and tractors and all the farming equipment to get the food at each step of the way. It all adds up.

End result? We can calculate how much a person’s diet produces greenhouse emissions each year and compare it to the amount produced by driving different types of cars. As the authors state, meat-based diets produce as much greenhouse gases as driving an SUV.

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