Less Meat = Less Heat

After seeing my results of the Nature Conservancy’s carbon footprint survey, it is clear that I am not anywhere near as environmentally aware as I should be. My personal greenhouse gas emission is a whopping 27 tons of carbon dioxide yearly, which is well above the U.S. national average. I have a much heavier carbon footprint than the average American. It was extremely disappointing to see that my percentages of home energy (22.5%), driving and flying (63.7%), recycling and waste (3.4%), and food and diet (10.4%) carbon emissions were generally worse than the U.S.’s national percentages. After seeing this, I made a permanent decision to make drastic changes to fix this environmental disaster our planet is now faced with.

Although I claim to be environmentally aware by trying to recycle as much as I can, I know that there are times where, based on my surrounding resources, I do not go above and beyond to do so. If there is not a recycling bin directly in sight, then I just throw my waste into the trash. I should be taking the extra moment to seek a blue bin labeled R. Also, although I try to shut my lights off as soon as I leave my room, I constantly leave my electronics plugged in an outlet throughout the day and overnight. In addition, my family and I do entirely too much traveling by airplane which is also extremely unhealthy for our climate. The amount of fuel that planes burn as they fly is absolutely horrifying. Aside from the main sustainable behavior change I chose, I will do little things, such as unplugging all electronics when I go to sleep or when I leave my room, along with convincing my parents to limit our flying milage.

My main sustainable behavior change is to decrease meat consumption. I will go meat-less two days each week. I always assumed that vegetarians didn’t eat meat because they were against the slaughtering of animals or were animal rights activists, and although this may be true for some people, it turns out that ethane emissions from cows have 21 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. At least to me, thinking about that is enough to stop eating meat. This alarming fact opened up to my eyes to why it is so environmentally effective to be a vegetarian. I am determined to make a change and eliminate my meat consumption for two days out of the week. After reading that livestock generates more greenhouse gasses than all of the planes, trains, and automobiles on the planet combined, I decided to cut a sufficient amount of meat out of my diet, because that would make a greater difference than most other changes in sustainable behaviors.

Although it is intimidating and may be challenging, I am only going to go meat-less two days which is not an extreme change, based on the fact I don’t eat a tremendous amount anyways. Actions such as turning off the light when leaving a room and unplugging electronics are such small tasks that should be of no concern; they should be second nature. I am excited to focus on eating more greens and vegetables, and bettering our environment.