No. No, I would not.

A widely cited 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestock’s Long Shadow, estimates that 18 percent of annual worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributable to livestock….however recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang co-authors of “Livestock and Climate Change” in the latest issue of World Watch magazine found that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions!

http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf

The main sources of GHGs from animal agriculture are: (1) Deforestation of the rainforests to grow feed for livestock. (2) Methane from manure waste. – Methane is 72 times more potent as a global warming gas than CO2 (3) Refrigeration and transport of meat around the world. (4) Raising, processing and slaughtering of the animal.

Meat production also uses a massive amount of water and other resources which would be better used to feed the world’s hungry and provide water to those in need.

Based on their research, Goodland and Anhang conclude that replacing livestock products with soy-based and other alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change. They say “This approach would have far more rapid effects on GHG emissions and their atmospheric concentrations-and thus on the rate the climate is warming-than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.”

Animals can be an integral and useful part of sustainable agriculture rather than part of an industrial process that takes input and produces waste. Pollan often mentions a couple cattle operations
that work well to reduce weeds, chemicals, and disease. And if you like fish and veggies in a sustainable ecology check out aquaponics (as in backyardaquaponics.com). We just produce way, way too many critters for the planet or our health, even ignoring humane issues.

Just one simple example. #21 David posted some very helpful numbers. Note the levels of chemicals in breast milk. Consider how many toxins we are exposed to every day as americans, in our air, our water, and in our mass produced food. Consider how much of the ‘food’ one buys at the grocery store is full of chemicals. Now consider the increase in incidence of things like cancer and autism. Coincidence?

Now you could blame it on vaccines or homosexuals or whatever else you want to demonize, but it seems entirely more realistic that it’s caused our constant exposure to unnatural chemicals that our bodies aren’t prepared to handle. From birth to death we exist in a chemical soup and most people don’t give it a second thought.

But of course, it’s simpler to blame the problem on something inappropriate out of ignorance, or claim the problem doesn’t exist at all, than to do things like eat more responsibly, drive less, unplug electronics, and the countless other simple things one can do. After all, science is right about all the stuff that makes your modern world possible, but it’s wrong about climate change and evolution, right?

If climate change isn’t real you can go on about your life no problem. But if it is real, and complete economic and ecological collapse comes about and most of humanity dies, is that a gamble your willing to take just so you can have your meat and dairy centered diet? Just so you can drive that gas guzzler and leave your TV on all night? If your answer is yes, make sure to tell that to your grandchildren when they try to address the famine, disease, war and death that are coming if science is right and you are wrong.

This isn’t the black and white issue so many seem to make of it. I’m not a vegitarian yet I eat much less meat than your average american, and much of it is bought locally. My eggs and chicken are local, as is much of the beef I eat. Thanksgiving turkey is local. Having a large chest freezer makes it possible to buy half a cow at a time from a local farmer and get high quality meat for much less money than at the grocery store. Hunting and fishing provide the rest of the meat I consume. When some people might eat a huge steak, that same steak gets diced and put into an entire pot of soup or chilli or whatever. You don’t have to stop eating meat entirely to make a difference and be responsible.

And seriously vegans, get off your mountain and quit insulting and talking down to those who havn’t given up meat. If you want to change our culture for the better quit being so divisive and childish about it. If you’re a vegan so you can look down on the omnivores then you’re doing it for the wrong reason. And before you condemn anybody for hunting consider the very real fact that there are animals (deer, boar) that no longer have predators and human hunting of these animals in fact very good for the eco system. It’d be great if we could bring the predators back, but unless most of us humans die that’s not going to happen.

Every time I hear someone deny climate change, particularly if they deny it because God will save us, my hope for the future dies a little inside. Seriously, do some real homework and learn about the subject, and I don’t mean from christian websites, and please stop spewing your ignorant, politically motivated rhetoric. Partisan politics have lumped your stance on climate change in with your stance on abortion and countless other issues when in fact they are seperate. Just because you agree mostly with the political right doesn’t mean you need to be a sheep and accept anything they tell you. Think for yourself and learn something rather than getting your viewpoint handed down to you.

And please, please stop posting ignorance as though it is fact. You CANNOT get swine flu from eating pork. If you think karma causes meat eating and abortion to somehow be connected that’s all well and good, but please don’t present it as fact and don’t be suprised if people look at you like your bat$%(# insane.

Seeing yourself as being better than someone else because you don’t eat meat or do eat meat is rediculous, not to mention in violation of both Christian and Buddhist belief. This is troubling since most of the more divisive posts on this article are clearly from Christians and Buddhists. Humility, Right Speach, all dropped by the wayside in the face of your dietary superiority

Then the angry vegetarian may say we are in America we have no need to eat meat. True that, but I got community and a job. I am not going to look ridiculous when my audit group goes out to a steak house with clients or turn down an offering of turkey during family holidays. Vegetarians need to learn how to be social in such situations and not put down meat-eaters for their God given right. Maybe they will listen instead of looking at you as if you had swine-flu. Ooops did I mention that a lot of vaccines where developed on animals before humans? If you were a true vegetarian you would not take vaccines. From wikipedia: Vaccination (Latin: vacca—cow) is so named because the first vaccine was derived from a virus affecting cows—the relatively benign cowpox virus—which provides a degree of immunity to smallpox, a contagious and deadly disease

@39 Eugine – I often think of God’s covenant with Noah – at the time he placed the care of the world’s animals into our hands he also said that they would be afraid of us. This is intriguing; why would God create a situation in which he blessed fear – surely fear is not part of God’s blessed kingdom. I interpret this passage as a test – God is saying we have the choice to kill and eat animals, but my faith tells me that God’s servant would make the choice to end the neverending cycle of suffering and death.

Finally, at the great risk of ridicule from the non-self-critical carnivores, after some time being vegetarian the ferric smell of the meat aisle in the supermarket become truly stomach-turning; the revolting stench of putrefaction calls to mind not only the tortured lives and senseless deaths of the beings whose corpses lie under price per pound signs, but the rotten morals of those sentient beings who expend so much effort studiously ignoring the physical reality of the mortal pain of slaughter and bloody dismemberment of animals who were only recently shimmering with the precious spark of life.

I know what it’s like to shelter these rotten lies, and I can tell you that the choice to give up meat is utterly liberating! Go for it!

I’d rather get a job in an oil company and have real health benefits anyday – at least its legal – go eat acorns – they are not meat – but they sure help traffic it.

What will it take for people to start believing what God says?
___________

I’ll start believing what God says when He stops talking through right-wing Christian whackos whose political agendas primarily benefit the coal and oil industries.