Going Pollo Vegetarian

My journey begins

Hello, my name is Chris Velasquez. I currently attend Oyster-Adams Bilingual Middle school. I’m in the 8th grade. In science class, our final project is to change something about our normal life to be more sustainable. This is called Do One Thing (DOT) project. As you can tell from the image, I’m going Pollo Vegetarian. The point of this project is to show others that just because we’re little we can still help out. Society has created a mold in our head that only the government can do big things to help the world. But they’re wrong. We can do little things and then grow from there.

During school, we watched three documentaries about how we as a human race are negatively affecting Earth. As we watched all of them, it shocked me how awful these things were and how we did not really prioritize this subject. The more people don't know, the more we damage Earth. To learn more go watch Cowspiracy, Before the Flood and Plastic Paradise.

The reason why I chose to be Pollo Vegetarian was that meat is a huge factor in greenhouse gases increasing. Did you know that one-quarter pound of hamburger requires 660 gallons of water? Also that a cow, on average, releases between 70 and 120 kg of methane per year? That is a lot of methane for only one cow and then you need to compare this to how many cows are actually being farmed today. Finally, global production of livestock contributes 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Check out the Los Angeles Times, Time for Change, and MetaFact for more information.

The world is changing quickly and so are we. We have to stand up to make a change together. It may seem impossible to change something that feels out of our hands but I know we all can do something to help each other and the future generations. Please continue to follow me in this adventure. Till then, bye.