I have previously addressed our use of fossil fuels and their resultant emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas, which leads to global warming.
Now, I’m going to talk about methane.
Methane is more lethal as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. I have seen studies that say it’s 20, 25, 35 and even 80 times more lethal to the atmosphere than CO2. Unfortunately, 51 percent of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is methane, most of it from the cattle industry. There are many reasons to give up eating meat, or at least, to cut down on it significantly, and this is certainly one of them.
We can’t expect to change the chemical composition of the atmosphere and not have untoward things happen to our very finely balanced, life-supporting system. However, if we all gave up our meat-eating habits, since methane clears from the atmosphere in about 10 years, as carbon dioxide does not, we would have some time to figure out how to reduce, or even eliminate, our fossil fuel emissions.
And so, I urge you all to give up or reduce the quantity of meat you consume for the environment, for the starving peoples of the world, for the factory-farmed animals and for your own health.
More on those at another time.
By the way, there is plenty of protein in vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and whole grains. Please, read “Diet For A New America” by John Robbins.
JAHNN
SWANKER-GIBSON
Johnstown
