Saturday, 30 May 2009
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"How Do Vegetarians Help Global Warming?"
There was an interesting search engine hit that we thought we'd ask our audience, "how do vegetarians help global warming?"
Does anyone have an answer?
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Comments (32)
Because we're magical. That's how.
They fart oxygen after eating plants.
they're made of lime, they absorb carbon dioxide
vegetarians have the power to photosynthesize, duh
raising livestock for food accounts for about 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. not eating meat helps reduce the amount released, even if by very little.
this is my topic for my senior paper, haha.
The meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, ships, planes and trains put together.
http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0612sp1.htm
I guess that's what that person ahead of me just said. Whoops.
Vegetarians don't do shit for the environment.
All of you saying "omg we lyk dun halp teh meet endustrie. so we lyk halp outz" are full of shit. No matter what you eat, they'll be producing the same amount. Its not like they're going to go "Oh well Sally totally ate a salad today so were going to make a few pounds less of meat."
Vegetarians fart 300% less than non vegetarians. Emitting less green house gases. They use less toilet paper and don't have to flush as many times to keep the toilet from clogging. up. Therefore saving water.
Cow, chicken, and a host of other animals produce great amounts of crap. That crap is the best natural fertilizer known to man kind. We spread it in our gardens to grow our vegetables. Therefore we are replentishing the soils nutrients. Thanks to vegetarians who eat vegitables nutrient rich in stuff that seeps out of animal crap, they have somewhere to get rid of all this crap.
Wow! Vegitarians are unwittingly useful in the food chain.
Acres of precious rainforest land are cleared out just to grow wheat and small grass fields for livestock to feed on. Biodiversity ultimately decreases and at the same time livestock release methane emissions which, if im correct contribute to about 18% of greenhouse gases. Those are the two main reasons I remember from my biology paper.
@lovechartreuse@xanga - The demand for meat isn't higher, which is nice on the greenhouse gases. You know what it's like to have a country full of people willing to eat meat? China. It may be my own home country, but I'll still make fun of every bit of it. The smog in China is far worse than it is here. Plus veggies are easier on the digestive track than meat is. My grandmother turned vegetarian for health purposes during her later years and was able to live until 98. Her ashes were pure white. Normally a person's ashes would be slightly grey due to the grease from their meat consumption.
@husbandofawife@xanga - Funny thing is that I've known vegetarians that fart just as much and arguably make it smell more than meat eaters. Note: fart contests in a car with closed windows really sucks. But it does seem like we'd never run into a food problem if we all turned vegetarian. Too bad we'd all find difficulties with getting enough amino acids then. Soy may be great as a source, but when it comes down to it, chicken is just a better source of protein as your body breaks it down even slower and absorbs more of it.
@lovechartreuse@xanga - If there is less demand for meat there will be less supply.
Also, animal protein isnt all that great.
When it is heated to a certain degree (we cant eat raw animal meat), it is denatured making it unuseful.factory farming is actually completely destroying the environment. whoever said up there that HUMAN farts are what is being saved had it a little mixed up..that may be true to an extent but its the methane from the burps and farts from the 10 billion animals a year is directly responsible and linked to global warming. the urine and feces are polluting/contaminating soil and water all over the U.S As well on a side note, the amount of land, water food and energy used to raise the 10 billion animals a year for slaughter could be used to grow food for all of the starving people int he world!
I'm not even SURE about this, lol.
Livestock is inefficient. It needs tons of room to graze, requires more food than humans do (e.g., it can take 6 pounds of corn to make one pound of beef), and uses a lot of water. Livestock also pollutes the air (with greenhouse gases) and the soil and water (with diseases). It's not just global warming people should be concerned about when talking about eating meat.
If there is less demand, there will eventually be less production of meat. We saw that here in Canada when there was a case of mad cow disease. Farmers stopped buying and selling cows and meat production dropped... because the market had shrunk. Unfortunately, it would probably take a huge drop in demand to make a dent in the pollution problem.
If you've ever learned anything about the energy pyramids or transfers, vegetarians eat the producers (plants). It is much more efficient.
Livestock, poop, pee, and take up a lot of space and pollute the world. It's better to eat plants because they take in CO2 and produce oxygen.
The livestock industry is the largest producer of greenhouse gases. The majority of deforestation in the Amazon is to provide room for animals to graze or to plant feed for animals.
And like Lady_Libellule said, it isn't just global warming we should be concerned about when it comes to eating meat. Antibiotics given to livestock shows up in the water and fruits and vegetables that everyone eats. 30-40% of pesticide and herbicide use is for crops to feed livestock. Runoff from livestock agriculture damages our oceans. Fishing techniques that we use destroy the ocean floor (trawling), kill birds and turtles (bycatch from long-line fishing and other fishing techniques), and overfishing is depleting fish populations.
@TheAsianCleric@xanga - Quinoa has all the amino acids and tastes really good. (I think hemp seeds are also s'pose to be complete proteins). Even if you're not a vegetarian you should eat quinoa! The thought of people having a hard time getting amino acids with a vegetarian diet is really funny. As I said before, as long as you're not eating boca burgers and oreos everyday you'll be fine. Just mix your grains, seeds, nuts, and liguemes up a bit and viola, complete protein! Besides, on the protein scale, eggs are the closest thing to a "perfact" protein, not meat.
@NatalieTheSaint@xanga - Yes, that's correct it's magic, but that's s'pose to be a secret.
@TheAsianCleric@xanga - Depends on how much unsprouted beans a vegetarian eats.
But really the amount of methane released through human fartsmakes a negligible difference on the environment.
@happy_go_skinny@xanga - The amino acids are still there. You can still hydrolyze the denatured proteins to get the amino acids you need.
@LadyLibellule@xanga - Livestock SHOULD have the room to graze, but they're usually deprived of that freedom in the feedlots that the majority of them are forced into.
It's the loss of energy from going up each level on the food chain from producing heat, respiration, reproduction, etc. Instead of sun (let's say 1.7 million Joules of energy)-->producers (plants, 8800J)-->primary consumers (humans, 3300J)
it becomes:
sun (let's say 1.7 million Joules of energy)-->producers (plants, 8800J)-->primary consumers (cows, 3300J) -->secondary consumers (humans, 400J)
So imagine how much energy we could save by not eating beef!
@adept_of_chaos@xanga - I never said that vegetarians don't get all the protein they need. It's more difficult to absorb all the protein from soy, which is one of the best sources for all 21 essential amino acids. Also, eggs are high in cholesterol unless you get rid of the yolk. It's just more difficult for vegetarians to get the quality protein. I personally prefer chicken as a protein source because my body will digest is slower and therefore absorbs the protein more thoroughly. Your body absorbs approximately 20 grams of protein per every 3 hours. Problem lies in the fact that it can't absorb any excess of that unless you're doing hardcore workouts or else you'll end up with a stomachache that will lead to crapping out liquid with tiny chunks in it.
@adept_of_chaos@xanga - Whoops. I just can't keep our coolness secret sometimes.
@antimony_demon@xanga - I was thinking of the razing of the rainforests for cattle grazing land when I posted. But you're right... most of North America's beef is raised in pretty awful conditions.
@happy_go_skinny@xanga - Reality doesn't fit so perfectly into a formula, I'm afraid.
@TheAsianCleric@xanga - The reason China is ever so environmentally unfriendly is because it smokes 1/3 of the WORLD's cigarettes.
No idea.