My thoughts on veganism
A vegan is someone who doesn’t consume animals or animal products. This includes eggs, honey, milk, fish, meat, and other animal products. Many studies show that being vegan lowers the risk of chronic disease and heart disease. Emissions would decline by 70% if everyone went cold turkey on turkey, but that’s hard to do. I’ve thought that if the government could suggest to people to only eat meat 3 or 4 days a week that would still make a huge impact on the emissions. If we can lower a number of animal products being eaten each day by half there would be half the demand which leads to half the number of farms. With all this space forests and grasslands could be restored, reducing our carbon footprint.
You may think that a lot of people would lose jobs, and it would be a hard time. Moving to just agriculture would hurt many people in rural areas, but farmers could find careers in agriculture, bioenergy, and other things. Keeping livestock wouldn’t be completely taken away; keeping livestock to graze on plants is important for the ecology of some parts. The main reason people aren’t vegetarian or don’t eat many vegetables is the price. If there are more farmers doing agriculture that would lead to prices lowering.
Reading about veganism and how much of a carbon footprint we’re leaving right now really surprised me. I believe that making any difference whether it’s small or large is important and I think trying to limit the amount of red meat or fish I’m eating. I think I’m already doing well, my father has a rare red meat allergy that’s derived from ticks, therefore we eat less beef, but I encourage you to look at your own diet and see how you can make a difference.
