Where’s the Beef?!!?
An exploration of the vegetarian lifestyle
In science this year we started learning about climate change and global warming. Ms. Riggen, our teacher, made sure that we understood how we play a large part in releasing emissions into our atmosphere and that we need to change something about our daily lives in order to help decrease our impact on our planet. This is why we, as a grade, are doing the Do One Thing — or DOT — project. I have decided to go vegetarian, which a few months ago would have seemed ridiculous. As a half Puerto Rican, half Panamanian child who eats some form of meat every single day, I could barely imagine giving up meat for four weeks! After watching three documentaries in science about how we are impacting the planet negatively, I decided it was time for a change. I’m interested in the challenges that vegetarianism poses, especially because I will have to keep up a healthy diet since I’m playing volleyball and running track.
The main reasons I decided on this for my project are environmental; even though we only hear about how carbon dioxide is killing our planet thanks to our cars, factories and every day use of fossil fuels, the truth is much harsher than that. The sad reality is that methane, another greenhouse gas, is having a much larger impact on our world than CO2 itself. In a documentary we watched last week in class called Cowspiracy, and again on this Stanford webpage, I learned that a single molecule of methane equals to 25 carbon dioxide molecules.
….methane is a far more active greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but also one which is much less abundant in the atmosphere. — NASA
What is the leading cause of methane being released? Cattle.
It is estimated that there are between 1.3 and 1.5 billion cows on Earth. Just cows. This isn’t counting sheep, pigs, chickens, roosters, turkeys, and all of the other meat and poultry that we consume on a daily basis.
All of these animals are releasing 150 billion tons of methane per day. At the current rate, we might have 50 years. Like a very wise woman said in our class today, “The Earth will be okay. It will always find a way to be okay, the question is whether or not humans and other species are still here.” Another impact that raising huge amounts of cattle has on Earth is related to our resources. A football field worth of forest land is cleared every second. Since it took me about 15 seconds to type the last two sentences, that’s 15 football fields worth of plants, trees and species being destroyed and having their ecosystems destroyed. This is an enormous amount of forest and green space, which is already destroying any chance of those resources ever being used. But also, since trees absorb CO2, this is horrible because there is nothing to stop the enormous amounts of CO2 that are being emitted into our atmosphere. Although it is significantly less effective at trapping heat than a methane atom, it still is having an impact that is pushing us over the okay amount of gases to have in our atmosphere.
Who doesn’t like chicken in their rice? Or some beef in their soup? But with this in mind, there have to be changes made to our lives in order to better this situation. According to BBC Future, “If the world went vegan instead, emissions declines would be around 70%.” However, you don’t have to go vegan tomorrow. You can make small changes but stick to those changes and try, try to reduce your impact on our planet. You can start today. You can follow my progress through this month on this spreadsheet. Wish me luck with my journey and start thinking, what will your journey be?
