Environmentalism and the Food Supply

Elizabeth Eckhardt writes:

If our goal is to decrease our energy demand through increasing efficiencies throughout all aspects of our lives, there is an obvious, simple, safe, sane, and humane way to do this: stop eating animals. Animal agriculture in the United States consumes 1/3 of our fossil fuels produced, and contributes more to global greenhouse gas emissions than all the world’s cars and SUV’s combined.

She continues in a very well written and compelling comment to my piece about the renewable energy’s tough realities — here.

Though I’m not a vegetarian, I try to eat as low on the food chain as possible (I go through a heck of a lot of fish) – and for the precise reasons you name. It’s better for me, better for the planet, and better for the cow.

Having said that, it’s not a sacrifice for me, because I really like fish. My point here is that few people make sacrifices for the good of the planet alone.

I was listening to a radio show recently in which I was reminded that Paul McCartney (a vegan) makes it easy for people to modify their eating habits. He asks them to experiment with giving up meat one day a week. “How about meatless Monday?” he might ask. I find this interesting, because you’ll travel a long way to find someone who knows more about connecting to people than McCartney.