...the Catholic Latinos or the Arab and African Muslims? Sorry, my culture is dying. I don't care about the condition of the world that Jose and Mohammad will inherit.

I will be eating grain feed steak tonight.

I give this post a 66% chance of being removed.

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Apocalypse indeed. The vast majority of us enjoy eating flesh. Figure out how to give us meat in a way that makes you happier. Alternet needs to stop these one note, vegetarian propaganda articles, and post some actual Alternetive views.

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This aspect of the global-warming situation is actually a combination of two things: meat-farming and its environmental effects, and the number of people consuming meat, which would be reduced whether they turned vegetarian or simply disappeared from the equation. And the other known issues of global warming are all directly related to human population growth and industrial activity, with energy consumption in the United States (and developing industrial nations following suit) as a prime culprit.

Personally, I think that moderation is better than fanaticism in regards to food (makes a more balanced diet, too), but I understand that not everyone shares that situational and compromising attitude. On the other hand, there is no practical or ethical way to force people into a vegan lifestyle, especially when people's nutritional needs are neither uniform nor simply filled by non-food supplements. So, I propose that all adult residents of top energy-consuming/gases-emitting nations be tested on their environmental intelligence and their capacity for self-discipline and moderation of consumption, and that those who fail be summarily executed and thereby removed from the situation. Because, as the saying goes, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

I anticipate that there will be significant resistance to this because of global capitalism's dependence on population numbers to maintain constant economic growth. But on the bright side for those remaining economic units, this will mean less crowding and competition for resources, as well as less of a deadweight of inadequate health and intelligence in top consumers.

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9 billion?! This planet obviously cannot support the 6.7 billion living on it now, no matter what they eat. For all of recorded human history, the population of the planet was under 1 billion, and nature supported us just fine, meat consumption and all.

We're out of clean fresh water, out of clean air, out of unspoiled arable land, out of fish in the oceans, and basically out of time and sh*t out of luck if we continue to breed at the current rate.

Why not talk about the real elephant in the room (to use one of earth's many endangered species as a metaphor), and that is OVERPOPULATION.

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.... eating them and all the other resources of the Earth.

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Gosh, I wish I had known when I was a child that we livestock farmers were the root of all evil. Pleeeease. I read your link---and your science is flawed concerning calories and protein. Take a nutrition course! It proves you are really just an animal rights zealot in pursuit of a back-door way to force others to your vegan lifestyle.

Your implications are outrageous, and even if true, your solution will not happen. Even if true, if you really care, you need to find ways to try to make production and distribution more efficient---not less---as you do insinuate in your comment about large vs small farm efficiency(small may be less eff.). Many of your fellow animal rightisits are promoting organic/pasture raised/ etc. There is a reason most of the owrld has gone away from that---it is ineffecient for monogastric animals anyway. Takes more energy(feed) to raise the same amount of protein(meat). As one commenter called us the "ignorant majority", will always eat meat. Accept it--and move on.

Perhaps, instead of feeding the starving people, we should let them all starve, thus cutting abuse of the earth. Sorry, my moral, rural upbringing and Christian faith won't allow that. It would however jump start the drastic reduction in human population which you also claim necessary?????????

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Despite the expected self-serving opposition from the various meat/dairy interests that appear on here, many of us deeply appreciate you helping to raise the awareness of more healthful, environmentally beneficial, and compassionate eating. Keep up the fantastic work!

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Don't like to hear the truth. There is no such thing as a compassionate conservative or a meat eating environmentalist. Only hippocrits that what to be free to hurt everyone else for their own short sighted gains. neither will realize the error of their ways until our world has crumbled around our ears.

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You have just proven my point that the Far left is as fanatical, unrealistic and Self Righteous as their neo con counterparts.But instead of proclaiming salvation can be guaranteed through religious conversion, it's through Veganism.
Don't get me wrong I am all for ending Big Ags reckless pure profit driven methods.But the 'holy grail' to mankinds Salvation is not merely converting to one form of dietary worship either.
"Methane Gas" is produced by any animal that uses fermentation to digest cellulose via microbial means, which then provide protein via the demise of these organisms. FYI Cattle are not the only multi 'stomached' fermentors on the planet.
What you also fail to conveniently mention is the fact that plant prodcution requries far more use of equipement (fuel) for planting,cultivating and harvesting.
Another Glaring Fact is that it is Plants which remove CO2 from the environment- so not only does producing it create a dilema, but the harvesting then rapidly removes those plants as 'cleaners' so that they may be consumed. Essentially akin to 'De Forestation' of Acres of other wise Carbon Cleaners every year.
What all your self righteous fanaticism also never mentions is that Everything we consume is a LIVING life form. Interesting when praising the virtues of Veganism none of you ever mention the research which has shown the that infact Vegatables React to being 'slaughtered' too. Further, one showed that they react even when another is being sliced & diced. Does your compassion for these other living beings not register solely because you can't Hear them Scream? They lack the 'Cute Factor'? As for concern over consuming animals being cruel- you realize the Animal Kingdom includes single celled organisms right? That even if you chose to eat Dirt, you would be eating a living creature- not to mention killing yourself due to lack of essential nutrients.
WE, as a species, are bilogically engineered to be Omnivores. We have only one Stoamch,nor do we possess a Cecum, so the ability to generate proteins independently is impossible. As for Plants being able to provide enough- that is questionable. consider the numerous poor communities who eat plenty of veggie matter, but no meat. They have numerous health problems esp when it comes to their immune systems. Ask a Pregant woman what she must consume at least 3 times a week to assure she is delivering enough iron for fetal development- Red Meat.
Heres where you can find common ground with those of us who understand and adhere to our meat eating design...
Ending the wasteful over production of meat products by Big Ag merely to stock Store shelves with any style of meat consumers could dream up. How many millions of pounds of meat is disgarded weekly by Grocery stores?
End the cruel and dangerous practice of overstocking of animals on small confined spaces (land or buildings).
Demand Trained/skilled/educated Supervisory staff be required to assure proper animals husbandry practices are used and health is kept to the optimum.
Require that Breeding Stock be evaluated and certified by Veterinarians to assure not only the best quality is being reproduced but that the animal is healthy enough to reproduce safely. Real Farmers want to have animals which yeild the most product for the least amount cost; most pounds, most eggs can be achieved through proper and diligent breeding. Far more cost effective to have one prolific egg layer than 10 substandard.
Your mantra to just convert to Veganism is as myopic and dishonest as 'Just believe in Jesus and you will be saved'.Theres more to it than that in both cases.If you are nature lover, then you must first accept what is natural for your own species.It's not what we eat, it's how we manage it.The Bushmen of Africa are not causing global Warming because they eat an antelope, nor are the free roaming antelope herds...So your point is mute

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according to the article, 2099 is the end point... how about population control worldwide??? this gives us 80 years or 2 generations to cut down the conception rate... now get it going pharma, better and more reliable birth control for all, men and women alike...

earth will always win in the end...

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Vegetarians are frequently challenged on why they are vegetarian. As a recent convert to vegetarianism, and after many such challenges (are we really THAT much of an oddity??)I have finally come up with my stock standard reply: "For 3 reasons: it's better for me, it's better for animals and it's better for the planet". This article certainly addresses the latter of the 3. On reading widely about nutrition-based successful non-conventional therapies for cancer (Gerson's, RAVE diet, Percy Weston's diet, alkalinizing diet, raw diet, etc) they are all almost entirely plant-based alkalinizing nutrient-dense unprocessed-food diets, full of antioxidants, enzymes, vitamins and minerals and trace elements. The huge China Study (Prof Colin Campbell) seems to confirm that view, showing a direct correlation between the amount of animal-based protein and cancer incidence. I have little doubt that humans are designed (on analyzing dentition, bowel structure etc) to function best when eating a plant-based diet and are at risk of developing many diseases and illnesses when they eat animal-based protein. So not only are you doing the environment a disservice eating meat, it also means that you are consuming an acidifying diet that increases your risk of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, chronic arthritis, etc.

I do not judge meat-eaters for their eating habits. I do wish they would not get so argumentative, challenging and feel threatened by my choice to go vegetarian and promote my own health based on what I have read about diet and nutrition. I will always defend my reasons as being good and rational as to why I have decided to turn vegetarian but, conversely I have never challenged meat-eaters as to why they are meat-eaters. Articles like this help do that job admirably!

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Sorry, one more jab......In the link you referenced, you stated that all these animals produce way more manure than the land needs? How can that be? You can't get more out than you put in! Since we export about 1/3 of our US grain production, and you need to subratct the nutrients removed in the animals when harpvested for food, we need to import commercial fertilizer.

If your statement(not enough land)were true, we need to figure out how to use these processes to power the world--as it implies(just like the still elusive fusion reactors that supposedly would produce energy and more fuel than they consume)that we can feed animals, consume them, and yet they produce more than enough manure to feed the following crops to produce more food and feed. Wish that were true.

Mother nature is one big cycle, the only difference is how the manure is collected and then returned to the earth for the plants to "enjoy" and then start the cycle all over again. Pasture/range---self deposited by the animals--often not very uniform or scientific. Confined---tested and spread in agronomic--uniform manner. More eco friendly.

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I wonder if articles like this are causing global warming denial? Sadly, I just read a study that finds more people are questioning the reality of global warming. There is a strong skeptic presence out there, backed not only by the oil companies, but fueled by those who distrust government. I am beginning to think that all these worst case scare studies are hurting more than helping. Especially when we see a slight reversal in the trend. (Most people do not have enough scientific background to realize temporary cooling can be part of the climate change phenomena.)

Now add guilt that there meat eating habits are ruining humanity. Especially in a time of economic hardship where people are lucky to have any food on the table. It is easier for them to turn off not only to the vegetarian argument, but question global warming as well.

Myself I am a flextarian who eats turkey once in awhile for its sleep inducing properties (major insomniac), but really have never cared for any type of red meat at all. I stopped reading the evangelical Alternet veggie articles because they made me want to go out and have a burger. However, I think Purple Girl has a point. I think there is a religious zeal to them so now it is out of sociological interests to read them and how people respond to them.

I am also strongly beginning to believe the most effective thing we can do to restore quality of life on the planet is population control.

p.s. If anyone out there has a veggie solution to insomnia that works as well as turkey I am willing to try it. (And I have tried just about everything. I find nothing works as well.)

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Why I'm healthier than you

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Why is it that we have a problem with too many people eating too much meat these days? When did people start eating meat? A long time ago, you say? Then the problem now is the too many people, not the meat, right?

What would happen if we stopped eating meat? Everyone would have plenty of food then, right? Has there ever been a time in history when everyone had plenty of food? Why don't we still have plenty of food? What happened?

Cutting back on meat can help. But having a single child undoes every environmentally helpful thing a parent can do over the course of their lifetime. That child will eat at least as much meat as the parent can possibly refuse to eat. Children born into countries where meat is scarce will still eat as much meat as they can find.

NO FOOD DISTRIBUTION SOLUTION CAN POSSIBLY BE EFFECTIVE IN THE LONG RUN WITHOUT AT LEAST AS STRONG OF A SOLUTION TO EXCESSIVE PROCREATION practiced and promulgated simultaneously.

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The Bastards! (tm)
if only they hadn't been so, well, dirty, and, um, longhair, and, well -you know- hippies, maybe we could have listened to their logical, rational ideas about the environment, social hierarchies, population control, and all the rest of their commie propaganda bullshit that would have kept us out of this mess...
fuckers...
its their dog damn fault; if they had only taken a bath, cut their hair, worn wingtips, ties, etc, and joined mainstream korporate amerika, acted all authoritarian and expert and shit; and *THEN* presented their reasoned prescription to save the planet, i'm certain they would have been listened to and we would not be facing these problems...
selfish bastards...

art guerrilla
aka ann archy

art guerrilla@windstream.net

eof

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Just raise more animals, its all good!

Riff
Privacy Center

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later i will eat rice, beans and vegetables. afterwards a spaghetti meal.

no meat anywhere and i'm stuffed.

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It doesn't surprise me that there are those people who deny that factory farming is the worst polluter in the world even with mounting evidence from the USDA and other agencies both governmental and private. This is the same denial that I learned about 20 years ago working as a nurse with heart attack, stroke, diabetes, obesity patients. All the cutting-edge evidence pointed to the fact that saturated fat caused these diseases yet hospitals were serving meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In whose interest was this? Definitely not the patients. The denial about the impact of a meat-based diet ruining the planet for everyone the same concept. There are those who do not want to change and who want to eat animals no matter the consequences. Well that's just fine if one wants to ruin one's own health; but this issue is much more vast. Meat eaters are ruining the planet for all of us and that is a crime. I am confident that as time goes on, things will get worse and an environmentally-friendly diet will be mandated. Let's hope it isn't too late to adapt and change.

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You argued and lost lets move on please. Isn't there something more relevant to the core problem (overpopulation) such as other more practical solutions for this problem you could write about?

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If vegetarianism were the cure, then why are so many people in India starving to death?

When we were hunter-gatherers, eating meat and wild growing vegetables and fruit, the population was controlled.

Then farming developed and the population exploded. Civilization also changed, and many good things developed. However, wars and power require population growth, so any real attempts to spread birth control were limited by the rulers and the religious leaders who were dependent on each other to keep the population in control. As soon as people figured out that sex = babies, birth control methods were developed. However, fewer babies mean fewer soldiers and fewer workers.

We have a continuing situation where religious leaders and many secular rulers push for continued population growth, despite the fact that there is no way for them to support this growth.

We have passed peak water. No water means no people, no livestock, no farms. We have overpopulated and destroyed natural resources, many of which are either not replaceable or will never recover. We are paying the price for holding human life as specially valuable and worth more than anything on this planet, including the continuous of civilization.

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If you want a longer life with less diseases while you live that longer life, look no further than this article. Kathy is speaking the facts, and if you refuse to accept the facts, then you will lose in the end. Think long and hard about this issue, because scientific studies of human populations over decades prove that meat does tremendous harm to the human body.

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...they are meat eaters.

The problem with many of the vegans who post on this site is that they simply don't want to accept the argument that one could potentially eat much, much less meat - but still SOME meat - and raise it in a sustainable manner, the way people in developing countries do, and thereby make far less of a negative impact on the environment. After all, the carbon footprint of your average African villager is about a tenth that of your average American yuppie - yet the average African villager still eats meat, either raised in his backyard (chicken, goat) or obtained via hunting or fishing.

The real agenda of most of these posters, though often artfully concealed, is "animal welfare" - and consequently, nothing short of total renunciation of any and all consumption of animal products is required in order to be viewed as an Acceptable Moral Human Being. Those African villagers I mentioned, regardless of their relatively minimal impact on the global environment, are just as morally corrupt as the rest of us omnivorous Alternet commenters, because they, after all, don't accept the "It's Not Ethical to Slaughter Animals for Food" argument, either.

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Humans have eaten meat for all human history. I would daresay that there were many more methane producing animals on the earth in ancient/prehistoric times than there are now. I like meat, and I am going to eat meat. You want to eat rabbit food fine, just PLEASE STOP TRYING TO CONVERT ME IT WON'T HAPPEN!

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During 1986 - 1988, when I had access to USENET, a nationwide computer network linking corporations, military bases, think tanks, universities, etc., I paid close attention to the abortion debate. The subject of animal rights always came up, albeit indirectly.

The mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but rather some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights.

When a pro-lifer discussed the potential humanity of the unborn, a pro-choicer replied, "MY CAT has more potential than that!"

One pro-choicer said sarcastically, "Maybe the kid (the fetus) should be raised as a vegetarian. After all, don't cows have the right to life?"

Another pro-choicer, Oleg Kiselev, upon hearing the pro-life argument that brain waves can be detected in the unborn as early as six weeks, pointed out that animals also have brain waves. He then added, "Excuse me, while I eat my veal stew."

In the spring of 1988, Stephen Carrier, a grad student in Mathematics at UC Berkeley, pointed out that chimpanzees share 99 percent of their DNA with humans, and so, to argue that species membership alone makes life worth protecting "is to fetishize DNA."

A pro-lifer responded: "If it'll please you, I will agree to protect anything that is 99 percent human."

To this, Stephen responded: "Okay. How about 50 percent? That would probably bring quite a few species into the net."

Stephen Carrier admitted, "I don't know what makes it acceptable to kill animals for meat. Some people think it's wrong, and I have no logical answer for them. But it's not murder, and I believe abortions are analogous. Yes, it's killing--but it's not murder."

Stephen admitted his argument was "not a mathematical proof, but there is no mathematical proof that will resolve the abortion debate."

In the fall of 1986, pro-life student John Morrow of Rutgers University compared abortion to slavery: Roe v. Wade denied rights to an entire class of humans merely on account of their age and developmental status, just as the Dred Scott decision of 1857 denied rights to an entire class of humans based on the color of their skin.

Dave Butler of Tektronix in Oregon responded: "Abortion and slavery? Not even close. A fetus isn't human. If you believe it's wrong to eat meat, should your morality be imposed upon everyone else?"

"Not even close" has become a popular slogan with pro-choicers. It even appeared on the headlines of most San Francisco Bay Area newspapers in November 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected.

"Not even close" is not a new slogan. Peter Singer writes in Animal Liberation that when Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of today’s feminists, published A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, "her views were widely regarded as absurd."

Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher, tried to refute Mary Wollstonecraft by demonstrating that if women could be given liberation, then animals could be given liberation, too. And since this is "absurd" it must be equally "absurd" to give women liberation. Taylor called his parody, "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes."

"Not even close" is the "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes" of the late 20th and early 21st century, because it takes for granted the invincible prejudice that other animals couldn't possibly have rights. It is this prejudice which we in the animal rights movement are struggling to overcome.

Again, the mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights. This led me to conclude that if there's any group out there which ought to be sympathetic to animal rights, it's pro-lifers.

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"A diet that can lead to heart attacks, cancer, and numerous other diseases cannot be a natural diet," writes Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook. "A diet that pillages our resources of land, water, forests, and energy cannot be a natural diet. A diet that causes the unnecessary suffering and death of billions of animals each year cannot be a natural diet."

I understand there are conservative Christians who fear vegetarianism...which is kind of like being afraid of nonsmoking, nondrinking, or recycling. Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain fed to livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

A pamphlet put out by Compassion Over Killing says raising animals for food is one of the leading causes of both pollution and resource depletion today. According to a recent United Nations report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and other forms of transportation combined. Researchers from the University of Chicago similarly concluded that a vegetarian diet is the most energy efficient, and the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by not eating animal products than by switching to a hybrid car.

A 2007 journal published by the American Dietetic Association found "meat protein production required 26 times more water than vegetable protein on rain-fed lands." The journal further states that dieticians "can encourage eating that is both healthful and conserving of soil, water, and energy by emphasizing plant sources of protein and foods that have been produced with fewer agricultural inputs."

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."

---Union Nations' Food and Agriculture Association

A single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to that of 20 to 40 humans.

70% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are used by the meat industry. (Audubon Society)

On average 990 liters of water are required to produce one liter of milk. (United Nations)

Over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock. (Greenpeace)

It takes nearly one gallon of fossil fuel and 5,200 gallons of water to produce just one pound of conventionally fed beef. (Mother Jones)

Farmed animals produce an estimated 1.4 billion tons of fecal waste each year in the U.S. Much of this untreated waste pollutes the land and water.

The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.

“If anyone wants to save the planet,” says Paul McCartney in a PETA interview, “all they have to do is stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. Let’s do it! Linda was right. Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century.”

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A vegetarian since 1982, I attended my first anti-vivisection protest in the spring of 1985, as anti-apartheid demonstrations rocked the UC San Diego campus. I first got interested in promoting vegetarianism in mainstream society after reading John Robbins' Diet for a New America (1987). Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it makes veganism seem as reasonable and mainstream as recycling.

Half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock. Huge amounts of water wash away their excrement. U.S. livestock produce 20 times as much excrement as does the entire human population; creating sewage which is 10 to several hundred times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage. Animal wastes cause 10 times more water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes three times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined. Meat producers, the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contribute to half the water pollution in the United States.

Joanna Macy, author of Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, depicts the advantages of America moving towards a vegan diet in her foreword to Diet for a New America:

"The effects on our physical health are immediate. The incidence of cancer and heart attack, the nation's biggest killers, drops precipitously. So do many other diseases now demonstrably and causally linked to consumption of animal proteins and fats, such as osteoporosis...

"The social, ecological, and economic consequences, as we Americans turn away from animal food products, are equally remarkable. We find that the grain we previously fed to fatten livestock can now feed five times the U.S. population; so we have become able to alleviate malnutrition and hunger on a worldwide scale...

"The great forests of the world, that we had been decimating for grazing purposes, begin to grow again. Oxygen-producing trees are no longer sacrificed for cholesterol-producing steaks.

"The water crisis eases. As we stop raising and grinding up cattle for hamburgers, we discover that ranching and farm factories had been the major drain on our water resources. The amount now available for irrigation and hydroelectric power doubles. Meanwhile, the change in diet frees over 90% of the fossil fuel previously used to produce food. With this liberation of water energy and fossil fuel energy, our reliance on oil imports declines, as does the rationale for building nuclear power plants..."

Joanna Macy admits, "This scenario is wildly, absurdly utopian. It is also clearly the way we are meant to live, built to live." What could possibly make it a reality? "It is this very book!"

Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights similarly says:

"Merely by ceasing to eat meat
Merely by practicing restraint
We have the power to end a painful industry

"We do not have to bear arms to end this evil
We do not have to contribute money
We do not have to sit in jail or go to
meetings or demonstrations or
engage in acts of civil disobedience

"Most often, the act of repairing the world,
of healing mortal wounds,
is left to heroes and tzaddikim (holy people)
Saints and people of unusual discipline

"But here is an action every mortal can
perform--surely it is not too difficult!"

When I first read Diet for a New America, I thought it could have the same kind of impact on mainstream American society that Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet had in the '70s.

John Robbins spoke before the United Nations in 1994, where he received a standing ovation.

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Gotta love all the people who justify eating meat with lame excuses when it's a fact vegans live longest, vegetarians next, and then meat-eaters. Meat is convenience. The agra-farming of it harms the planet. All facts.

But what I'd like to see is one of these people who so vehemently justify murdering other animals for meat when they don't have to smooshed up in a cage for their entire lives only to be led to a painful death as they hear the ones in front of them being murdered.

Paul McCartney said it well: If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.

I work for an animal rights group so I get to see the horrid cruelty these animals endure. I think what horrified me most was the genetically engineered pigs that can't live over 2 years because they have been bred to get so huge they can no longer walk by then. I met one, rescued off a meat truck that got in a wreck.

You can justify it 'til the cows come home (pun intended) but in the end, needless killing is wrong. And it is all needless because we don't NEED to eat meat.

With regard to vegans or animal rights people or whoever being too preachy - I sure don't know many of them that are (me included) w/out being given a forum. I think complaining about that is probably just guilty feelings borne from cognitive dissonance and the realization that playing a part in the horrible killing and suffering of another being trying to find an outlet.

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All the facts of animal production, consumption and cruelty have been demonstrated in the film "Eating" recently shown on Free Speech TV and the sound track played on Pacifica Radio stations fund drives. I highly recommend this film for all those who are in denial about the effect of animal production on the planet and on your own health. You don't like animal sourced virus'? Swine, Avian, all of them find their origins in this unconscionable animal production cycle. If you still eat dead animals, watch this film. The focus is on a gradual shift in diet beginning with not eating animals once a week - or for those who eat them 3 times a day to have a vegan or vegetarian meal once a day or even once a week. Each effort will make a difference. To those who are so defensive, think about why you have such an emotional reaction when the truth about animal consumption is revealed. Remember, this is not about the way animals were consumed and raised in the distant past. This is about corporate farming methods that are destroying the thread of life as we depend on it.

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Yes!...our eating meat is causing the freaking ice to melt...what about all those lions eating all those deer....every God-damn time I hear this shit its from a vegan....I had the dis-pleasure of knowing a vegan...through my wife...they were animal rights activists,..cat's dogs being mistreated...you ever eat toafurkey? or toeriblets? if you're against eating animal than why call the dish an animal name!....soymilk?....soys don't have teets its soy juice,..soy liquid,...I eat ,meat ,foul and fish,and I love every vegetable grown....I think!...so meateaters ,...it's just more crap reasons madeup by your local vegan....besides if all the people stopped eating meat....who's going to take care of all the extra cows,chickens,turkeys,etc,etc,bad enough that most folks don't spay/neuter their pets!!

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Compared to the fantastic wealth transferred to the ruling elite from us citizens this past 6 months all other issues take last place to deal with.
How many acres of farm fresh produce could have been grown on with the purchase by only one CEOs bonus package?
This bleeding heart liberal crap in this article falls in last place. Furthermore 2050 is a long way off. Lets get back the stolen money first from Bof A and the rest of the Wall street gang of thieves.That should be all of our first mission.

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Methane is 24 times as powerful as a greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide and rice paddies are major contributors.

Another few pertinent facts that are not being stressed:

Carbon dioxide is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect. right? wrong! Scientists are unable to measure the principle greenhouse gas over time and presume it is a constant in spite of the fact that we each probably put our own weight of this gas into the atmosphere each day.

Gore's principle diagram showing CO2 and temperature over a long time demonstrated that CO2 drives temperature. right? wrong! If he plotted the two as would usually be done we would have seen that over this long time period temperature drove CO2 levels (by reducing solubility in the sea)

If we stopped all human CO2 emmisions the planet would cool. right? wrong! How could it when we are already seeing massive positive feedback with CO2 at present levels. (from soil, tundra, rain forests and the sea floor) Please note you can find numerous scientists saying we must reduce CO2 but you won't find any scientists who say how the temperature can be turned around. The CO2 is already there and will be there in 2100.

But the scientists have models that duplicate the past changes and can be used to predict the future. don't they? don't think so - I have asked several if they could duplicate the major turns up and down in the distant past as illustrated on Gore's diagram. There must have been positive feedback during each of the other inter-glacial periods but something external turned it around. They aren't sure what this was and haven't got it in their models. There models are set to go up forever and obviously cannot predict the real future.

And what are we working on? malaria suppression which will increase population and pressures on the environment
same for schistosomiasis, chaga's disease etc and no training that with greater survivability families should be smaller
And if we succeed in the 'war on poverty' that can double the effect of each. And aren't we wonderful to feed those in refugee camps - heard an interview with a Somali in a refugee camp in Kenya who has had 4 children since he arrived there. And allowing immigration is a wonderful humanitarian gesture but when a million leave a poor country they breed up another 5 million.

There was an interesting documentary on rats in eastern Bangledesh who quintuple their population almost overnight when a particular bamboo comes into flower only to then starve.

Malthus warned us 200 years ago and he picked a rather good number as the 'carrying capacity' of earth. But we are no more capable of planning than are the rats.

I've gone somewhat more vegetarian, I don't drive a lot and my wife and I only had one child but nothing will save humanity in a decent situation so enjoy it while you may. My son would be happier with siblings. How about every tenth woman to have 4 children?

Enjoy - the world is a wonderful place right now and so accessible. And anything you do from going vegan to riding your bike will have about as much effect as piss in the ocean! (I'm off to Africa again).

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Her articles just try to encourage, threaten or scare readers to her diet:

Our Appetite for Animals Is Taking Us Toward Apolcalypse

13 Breathtaking Effects of Cutting Back on Meat

Red Meat or Chicken? Why It's Wise to Stay Away from Both

The Startling Effects of Going Vegetarian for Just One Day

The Weight Loss Hype: Why Counting Calories Never Works

The Danger of Meat-Heavy Diets

Getting Past the 'Protein Myth' That Keeps People from Quitting Meat and Dairy

Eating Vegetarian Is Taking Global Warming Personally

You Call Yourself a Progressive -- But You Still Eat Meat?

One Bite at a Time: A Beginner's Guide to Vegetarianism

How to become vegetarian -- and help save the environment -- in six easy steps.

Vegetarian Is the New Prius

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why did he make animals so tasty?

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Many readers to this column have made claims that eating a meat-based diet in fact has no additional deleterious effect upon the environment or our natural resource base.
This claim is abjectly false due to inefficiencies in the assimilation of biomass as one moves up the food chain. All animal rights, dietary, and ethical arguments aside, it is a proven scientific fact that every animal consumes approximately 4-20 times the quantity of resources as the amount of biomass it actually accumulates in the form of growth. On average, for every 100 calories of plant (food) energy that a cow consumes, that cow will assimilate only 10 calories worth of meat for a human to consume. The remaining 90 calories are lost to respiration, body maintenance, and excretion. So whenever you grow or consume 10 calories of meat, you are making a conscious choice to starve the world of 90 calories worth of plant-based food (i.e., those 10 calories of meat were grown using 100 calories of plants). Meat also requires more than 10 times the water and energy to produce than plant foods as well, on a per calorie basis, meaning that a meat-based diet has a significantly greater contribution to climate change and water insecurity than a plant-based diet. In general, you can either feed 1 person on a meat-based diet, or 10 people on the plants that could have been grown from the same resources necessary to produce the amount of meat to feed one person (sunlight, water, soil, nutrients, CO2). The choice is yours.

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I'm enjoying this full-slab of baby-back ribs.

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This author wants to plow up the rest of the native grasslands that used to produce bison (which belch as much as cows) to grow crops in highly erodible soil with low fertility. This will last a few years until the soil washes into the ocean and we all die from starvation. Eat beef, keep slim!!! Or you can follow this author.

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She's an ex-model and wife to the president of MTV. She goes around advertising herself as a "self-improvement" adviser (whatever the hell that is).

Just what we need--some high falutin' rich bitch going around and telling all of us proles what wasteful pigs we are and that the world would be better off if we would just die.

Sadly, if you read many of the comments on this article, you can see that many on the Left share her nihilist views. Which are creepily similar to that of the Khmer Rouge.

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They are endangering all life by their slovenly, greedy ideology. Notice how all hard-core carnivores are--without exception--also hard core right-wing zealots.

Vegan cuisine is quite capable of creating the tastiest dishes that rival the best meat-based courses. We need to educate people on preparing delicious and inexpensive vegan meals that do not lack any nutrients necessary for good health.

We could have regional and nationwide contests on new vegan recipes that are not only delicious, but healthy and pleasing to the eye, as well. They would be held often, and the prizes admirable...in order to motivate people ASAP to make this vital change to 100% vegan.

The small percentage of the world population that must continue to eat animals by necessity (meaning those cultures of the northenmost clime), will be allowed to do so until said time they can be provided with reliable and healthy vegan sources.

As you've noted by certain meat-eater comments: they don't give a f*ck about saving this planet. They are demonic souls, who also perpetrate hatred in many other directions: homophobia especially, also racism, misogyny, child abuse, poverty, famine, pollution, and (of course) war!

One cannot appeal to these troglodytes, for they have no compassion, they are not willing to sacrifice their flesh-gluttony in order to save the world from great horrors. Indeed, they are the very *cause* of such horror! They always have been, and always will...until enough of us decent folks take up arms against them! Vegan arms, of course.

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I'm pretty sure the Rapture is coming soon, so we probably won't be needing this planet too much longer anyway.

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Kathleen Marquardt, founded Putting People First, an anti-animal rights group. In her 1993 book, Animal Scam: The Beastly Abuse of Human Rights, she says:

"The real agenda of this movement is not to give rights to animals, but to take rights from people—to dictate our food, clothing, work, recreation, and whether we will discover new medications or die."

Identical assertions could have been made about the abolition of human slavery, the crusade to end child labor, the liberation of concentration camp prisoners from Nazi physicians or an end to the experimentation upon black humans by white humans.

Marquardt writes that the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) "now encourages vegetarianism, the banning of fur, and the eventual end to all animal research, not just ‘cruel’ animal research." Marquardt writes that the Humane Society now supports vegetarianism.

According to Marquardt, "The typical animal rights activist is a white woman making about $30,000 a year. She is most likely a schoolteacher, nurse, or government worker. She usually has a college degree or even an advanced degree, is in her thirties or forties, and lives in a city."

Marquardt cites studies indicating that animal rights activists tend to identify with liberal causes such as feminism and environmentalism. "Every year," writes the Reverend Andrew Linzey, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so." It is not surprising, therefore, that Marquardt reports that "Most activists share a bias against Western civilization and its Judeo-Christian foundations."

According to Marquardt, the "political clout" of the animal rights movement "is surprisingly bipartisan. But most of the leading politicians working with the animal rights movement are liberal Democrats." Marquardt mentions Senator Barbara Boxer of California, Nevada Congressman Jim Bilbray, Charlie Rose of North Carolina, Tom Lantos and Gerry Studds.

Marquardt admits, however, that "some Republicans are animal rightists, too. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas often supports animal rights causes—except, of course, those pertaining to cattle, a major business in Kansas. Senator Robert Smith of New Hampshire was a founder of the Congressional Friends of Animals. Bob Dornan of California, one of the most conservative House members, is an animal rights advocate—he cosponsored legislation banning the use of animals in testing cosmetics and received a PETA award. And Manhattan Congressman Bill Green promoted legislation that would have shut down over 90 million acres of federal land to hunting, fishing, and trapping."

Marquardt states further that "Although he’s not an elected official, a conservative political figure who, surprisingly, is on the other side is G. Gordon Liddy, author Will and a key figure in the 1972 Watergate uproar. When I went on Liddy’s radio show, he and PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk greeted each other with hugs and kisses and lots of warm words.

"With allies in both political parties and across the ideological spectrum," concludes Marquardt, "the animal rights movement has been able to score some great successes, regardless of which party controls the White House or Capitol Hill."

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The following quotes, facts, figures, and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

"A reduction in beef and other meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources. Our choices do matter: What's healthiest for each of us personally is also healthiest for the life support system of our precious, but wounded planet."

---John Robbins, author, Diet for a New America, and President, EarthSave Foundation

One study puts animal waste in the United States to between 2.4 trillion to 3.9 trillion pounds per year. The United states produces 15,000 pounds of manure per person. This is 130 times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population of the United States.

A 1,000-cow dairy can produce approximately 120,000 pounds of waste per day. This is the functional equivalent of the amount of sanitary waste produced by a city of 20,000 people.

A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year. Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.

One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total. One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.

Factory farm pollution is the primary source of damage to coastal waters in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Scientists report that over sixty percent of the coastal waters in the United States are moderately to severely degraded from factory farm nutrient pollution. This pollution creates oxygen-depleted dead zones, which are huge areas of ocean devoid of aquatic life.

Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then. By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.

"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."

---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York

Agricultural meat production generates air pollution. As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health. Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain. Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia. Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.

The World Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic.

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The following quotes, facts, figures, and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture. While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it. It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.

Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals. By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom. Meat production consumes the world's land resources.

Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock. Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.

The United States government spends $10 million each year to kill an estimated 100,000 wild animals, including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears, and mountain lions just to placate ranchers who don't want these animals killing their livestock. The cost far outweighs the damage to livestock that these predators cause.

The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.

33 percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only 2 percent of our resources will go to the production of food.

"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."

---Jeremy Rifkin, author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

Lester Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.

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If she eats my meat?

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Oh my was it ever tasty.

I did have a salad with it though, and you know what? Organic feta cheese was included!

Doing my part to save the planet from destruction, hehe..

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If anyone wants to make the case for going vegetarian, it would be appreciated if these authors discuss lentils, flax, and hemp which contain digestible protein unlike meat where the protein is not absorbed as well in the blood stream. I will make one note of exception. There used to be pasture raised meat which does not involve all that excessive processing from the machinary that guzzles resources and pollutes heavy. These authors who want to make the case for vegetarians are going about this the wrong way.

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about this article and the comments that follow is that not one person who came to read it had their mind changed by the article or the counterpoints one iota...

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I give the human species a one percent chance of cooperating on saving the planet.

The planet will be saved by the few survivors of the apocalypse.

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I would like to see organized religion take up the struggle for animal rights. Religion has been wrong before. It has often been said that on issues such as women's rights and human slavery, religion has impeded social and moral progress. It was a Spanish Catholic priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who first proposed enslaving black Africans in place of the Native Americans who were dying off in great numbers.

The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states here in the U.S. actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.

Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a moral relation," "God's institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right." The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."

New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of slaves (Titus 2:9-10; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-25; I Peter 2:18-25) and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2; Ephesians 6:5-9) were often cited in order to justify human slavery. Some of Jesus' parables refer to human slaves. Paul's epistle to Philemon concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.

The Quakers were one of the earliest religious denominations to condemn human slavery. "Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word of God," says contemporary Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik. "Without a doubt, the American slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold slaves.

"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-Biblical sources to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle Paul. Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his efforts to free the slaves. 'You shall not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you.' (Deuteronomy 23:15) What a pittance of material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of God."

In 1852, Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867: "the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast...the negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah's family, he must have been a beast. Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast, and "consequently, he has no soul to be saved."

The status of animals in contemporary human society is not unlike that of human slaves in centuries past. Quoting Luke 4:18, Colossians 3:11, Galatians 3:28 or any other biblical passages in favor of liberty, equality and an end to human slavery in the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the same kind of response animal rights activists receive today if they quote Bible verses in favor of ethical vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.

Someone once pointed out that while Hitler may have claimed to be a Christian, he imprisoned Christian clergy who opposed the Nazi regime, and even Christian churches were subject to the terror of the Nazis. Thinking along these lines, I realize that while I would like to see organized religion support animal liberation (e.g., as was the case with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement) rather than simply remain an obstacle to social and moral progress (e.g., 19th century southern churches upheld human slavery on biblical grounds), this support must come freely and voluntarily.

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Our actions and words today define what human beings are today and tomorrow.

Civilization is currently in process, we have not yet reached an ideal. The objective of any nation is building an ideal civilization. The problem seems to be building an ideal for whom? Everyone or a few?

The problem with the people who comment that they just don't care and will eat whatever they want is one of selfishness. And in that vein of thought are many, all of whom in essence are struggling for personal gain, to be one of the few. In that attempt, they fight legions of families that already control much of the wealth and resources on the planet so what they are actually expressing in their selfish "I'll do and eat whatever gratifies my senses and f* anyone who says otherwise" is the mindless barking of dogma programmed into them from the existing selfish class they vie for.

Like any post-hypnotic control the "thinking" mind of those barkers will come up with any thought to explain why they "think" or "feel" the way they do, but in actuality it is merely response to the programmed dogma which rules them through their id. That's likely where the word "idiot" comes from, this same relation.

For the modern "Christians", do any of you really believe that "heaven on Earth" our ideal civilization includes slaughterhouses?

Again, for the modern "Christians"; how much vanity is in you to declare that Christ is just for Earth? Life thrives wherever it can, meaning life exists throughout Universe. The King James version is ONLY a "version". No magical mystical power has declared this version as the Word of God, you're being fooled. In order to gain a better understanding don't you think it wise to review the whole story as outlined in all those books referenced by and yet not included in the Bible? Seems obvious to investigate the whole story before deciding you "understand" what you're talking about.

But the reactive mind will of course refute any idea that their actions are incorrect and their ineffable infallibility to discern fact from lie can not be wrong. These vain people will even declare they "know" what God wants.

Now, if considering that life exists on many planets, and considering our flat teeth, long intestinal tracts and sweating through our pores, how well do human beings currently fit in with a living system?

For the modern "Christians" again, how well do you and your "habits" fit in with a Living system? Even within the context of the widely popular anthropomorphic version, Jesus said Heaven is at hand. It's not after the grave but a living system. What was it the Bible says about when humans were first created? What was the beginning so that we may know the end?

The old philosophical question arises, why are we here and what are we attempting to build? We seem to define the answer through our deeds. If one would consider first their personal death, and then consider that life exists on most planets, and then consider the technology factor, a thinking mind would eventually come to the conclusion that a vegetarian diet is the only way to integrate into a sustainable, living system; especially important for any species using technology.

How is it that so many have put themselves first before the entire lot of humanity? That attitude seems to explain precisely why some that already hold power feel the need to kill off so many of the "useless eaters" as some like to put it. But if people would actually care about something other than their short little life here on this planet they would choose a vegetarian diet at least. It's a small step towards recovery, but a foundational one.

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your consideration.

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I am a non-vegan vegetarian. I make no claims to being perfect.

I believe that if more people ate less meat, it would give us more time. Meat eating is not the only thing that is making the planet less habitable. I also do most of my shopping by bicycle.

That said, I would rather see 10 million people reduce their consumption of meat by 50% than I would see 100,000 become vegans. It would have a greater effect. I'd still rather see both.

The big nutritional questions I've seen usually boil down to the B12 and Omega fatty acids issues. B12 is easy to manufacture and is available in supplements or in fortified vegetarian products. Many people can get their omega fatty acids from walnuts and flax. Not every one is the same and I accept that there are probably people that don't convert the type of omega fatty acids in these as well as others. For those people, one serving of fish per week would benefit them more than a dozen steaks.

Those of us in western countries are in a better position than those in third world countries to reduce our meat consumption. I would not think of telling someone who isn't getting enough calories period to not eat meat on those few occasions when they can get it. We in the West are hurting the planet far more than they are.

In the end it will come down to reducing our population, but in the mean time there are things that we can do to help.

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Give it a rest! We all are very, very, very aware about how Kathy feels about eating meat. Do we have to be bombarded with it every week?

I love Alternet, and I know perfectly well that I don't have to read these incessant articles that all basically say the same thing. I seem to be attracted to them the way one is to a car wreck. I know I'll be unhappy that I looked, but I can't seem to help myself.

This is like having a hard core Christian fundamentalist on the Alternet crew, damning the rest of us for not being on board. It's tedious and irritating. What makes this woman such a favorite of this site? Aren't there other subjects that haven't been driven into the ground yet?

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...or overconsumption on AlterNet?

Is this site just driven by extreme, one-sided ideological agendas instead of the search for truth, solving real problems, healthy skepticism, and critical thinking.

I do not subscribe to the belief that "progressivism" means far left, vegan, Democrat, liberal, atheist, and/or anti-(fill in the blank). Actually, I tend to agree with this description of progressivism by wikipedia.

"Progressivism is a political and social term that refers to ideologies and movements favoring or advocating progress, changes, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are."

I will add that these progresses, changes, improvements, or reforms should be helpful, reasonable, rational, logical, intelligent, sensible, and empathetic.

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I appreciate campaigners' efforts to promote vegetarianism through environmental and health concerns, but even if these did not exist, we should not eat meat because it means killing a sentient being who values his or her life.

This is what it's about. It's not about vegetarians/vegans feeling superior, as is frequently suggested. Even if we did the animals would still benefit more from our policy than from that of a spiritually humble meat-eater.

Some commenters have accused AlterNet of being biased in favour of vegetarianism. Well, someone's got to be, considering the great bias towards meat-eating that dominates our culture, and the billions of animals killed as a result.

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The connection between cutting meat consumption and reducing carbon footprint is becoming increasingly important, which you discussed during your recent appearance on Richard Greene’s radio show. This inextricable link is part of the reason I work as an intern for Meatless Monday, a nonprofit initiative with Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health that encourage cutting meat consumption to improve physical health as well as environmental health. I like your concept of ‘leaning into’ vegetarianism and think you may find to your interest the Meatless Monday Youtube video which explains the history and science behind the campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpnKeYmR1NM.

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