No more McDonald’s!?
Why vegan?
As someone who is part of a family where our main source of protein comes from meat, I didn’t think too much of it. I knew my family and I were contributing to global warming but I did not think it was a substantial amount. Soon, in Ms. Riggen’s class, I learned that the animal agriculture industry is responsible for the biggest emission of greenhouse gases. Not only do cows produce enormous amounts of methane (a greenhouse gas far more damaging than CO2) through their digestive systems, the amount of land used for livestock in the US calls for a huge amount of deforestation, which then leads to even more CO2 emissions.
In class we learned a lot about the animal agriculture industry by watching Cowspiracy but I wanted to dive deeper so I looked up documentaries and videos about the industry and found Earthlings. I learned a lot from that as well, like how harmful animal agriculture is to animals. Those two documentaries pushed me to become vegan, rather than vegetarian, because they made me think if I, myself am not willing to kill an animal or hurt it, why would I pay someone to do it for me? It doesn’t seem very ethical to me. I also wondered If I could lead a perfectly healthy lifestyle being vegan and not contribute to the enhanced greenhouse effect, why wasn’t I doing so already? Pretty quickly I was set on becoming vegan.
What is the DOT project?
This is where the DOT project comes in. DOT stands for Do One Thing and at Oyster Adams we have to make a change in our lifestyle to live more sustainably and cut back on our carbon footprint. Many people have changed their diet, whether it be going pescatarian or vegetarian. However I decided that going vegan was going to make the biggest impact because animal agriculture is one of the biggest industries in the US and around the world so, I thought, what better way to help stop climate change and help the animals than to go vegan. I can only imagine that it’s going to be quite difficult coming from a standard American diet but it will improve my overall health and contribute to a greener planet so I think it will be worth it.
