Essay on Global Warming in Relation to Vegetarians

Introduction

Global warming in the society has become a controversial and phenomenal issue hitting the headlines globally. Research shows that global warming is rising because of the increase in human activities that consequently lead to the degradation of the ecological system in the modern society. As a result, the gradual change of temperature in the planet earth has been caused by an increase in the volume of carbon dioxide in the air and other gases introduced to the atmosphere through greenhouses and other human activities, for instance, burning fossil fuels, agricultural activities, grazing, and encroachment of forests. Further, the human diet is a part of human activity that causes global warming. This has orchestrated a debate to encourage consumption of green food as a countermeasure to mitigate global warming. I support the proposal people to adopt a vegetarian diet due to some reasons:

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One of the reasons to support vegetarian diet is because green matter decomposes readily unlike meat. To clarify the point, vegetables have less emission of gases to the environment as compared to other substances like meat. Therefore, vegetarians will reduce gas emission that propagates global warming. Am a measure to mitigate global warming, there is a likelihood the rate of global warming will decrease exponentially. Arguably, changing diet to vegetarian will reduce the rate of global warming as there would be less consumption of meat so does the amount of gas emitted to the atmosphere. This is achieved by reducing the rate of consuming meat that translates to the reduction of the rate of gases released to the atmosphere. According to statistics, food production accounts for one-third of all the gases emitted into the atmosphere. Since meat produces large quantities of gas, it is prudent to reduce the quantity of its consumption. According to Danger (2009), global warming is in many cases affected by food that human beings take. To curb these, meat consumptions should be reduced and vegetables to be taken and grown in large amount.

Another reason is food especially meat from livestock takes up a lot of room and is a source of toxic gas emission. To reduce these, people would convert some part of the land and plant vegetables. Growing vegetables in large lands would help capture the carbon gas and other gases in the air thus reducing the influence of the gases on the climate. Therefore, it is crucial to convert some land into native habitats. The expansion of native habitats will enhance the purification cycle thus curbing global warming. The measure will ensure large herbivorous such as buffalos will be eliminated leaving a free land for crops to grow (McMichael, 2007). The other parts of land used to produce pasture for livestock will be taken, and crops for consumption by human beings will be grown there to supplement food supply.

Feeding a large number of cattle with grains and then killing them, transporting and processing them is extremely energy intensive. Trees are cut down to find space for keeping the cattle's and grow pasture for the animal; these trees are the one that absorbs greenhouse gases. Burning fossil fuels release carbon dioxide into the environment. Since it takes about eleven times as much fossil fuel to produce a calorie of animal protein compared to plant protein, thus more carbon dioxide is realized in the air (Powles, 2007). This shows that it is more important to produce protein from vegetable source compared to that of an animal source. These have made some organization come out with the support of the movement of being a vegan to reduce the climate change situation.

Arguably, ruminants such as cows, sheep, and goats produce many gases while digesting food. Some gases are also produced through there feces. Billions of animals produce methane gas. Methane is one of the effective gases produced in the air compared to carbon dioxide. Thus, animals should be reduced and focus mostly on vegetable production and consumption. Nitrous oxide is another gas that is more dangerous in the air compared to carbon dioxide. These gases produced from dairy products such as eggs, meat, and dairy industries (Qureshi, 2010). Therefore, animal and meat affect in large the climate of the atmosphere compared to vegetables thus creating a campaign of people to focus on eating mostly vegetables.

Researchers have found out that most people who take meat produce more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere compared to the vegetarians. These push the scientist and researchers to advocate more in eating vegetables and reduce the amount of meat consumption. Plants require fewer resources to produce, and they release less emission of other harmful environmental gases (Butler, 2007). Most of the plants are grown in a resource-intensive system. Researchers show that vegetables are satisfied with a delay in inevitable via industrial or traditional agriculture that less pollutes the environment compared to the meat that takes long in the industries and produces many gases that cause global warming

Conclusion

In conclusion, the world should change to a vegetarian diet to curb the crisis of global warming because meat emits large quantities of toxic gas in various forms that propagate global warming. Therefore, people should be less dependent on meat. For the obvious reason, meat emits a toxic combination of gases that affect the environment. Moreover, meat produces large quantities of gas as compared to vegetables. In addition, dairy products release a significant amount of nitrous oxide gas that is more harmful to the atmosphere. People should increase taking vegetables. Ruminants should also be reared in a small amount as they also produce methane that is harmful to the atmosphere. Landowners should create a large space of land to grow vegetables as vegetable proteins produce less carbon dioxide in the air compared to animal protein. Trees should be planted, and the herbivorous animals kept being eliminated creating an ample space of land that will be covered with grains and vegetables.

References

McMichael, A.J., Powles, J.W., Butler, C.D. and Uauy, R., 2007. Food, livestock production, energy, climate change, and health. The lancet, 370(9594), pp.1253-1263.

Hanjra, M.A. and Qureshi, M.E., 2010. Global water crisis and future food security in an era of climate change. Food Policy, 35(5), pp.365-377.

Friel, S., Danger, A.D., Garnett, T., Lock, K., Chalabi, Z., Roberts, I., Butler, A., Butler, C.D., Waage, J., McMichael, A.J. and Haines, A., 2009. Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: food and agriculture. The Lancet, 374(9706), pp.2016-2025.