HOW VEGETARIANISM COULD SAVE THE PLANET

How Vegetarianism Could Save the Planet

Emily Massiel Pisco Anchundia
Agricultural Pan-American School Zamorano

HOW VEGETARIANISM COULD SAVE THE PLANET

To begin with, I am currently a student of Engineering in Environment and

Development, I feel it is necessary to say this because of my academic training I know the
subject that I write this essay, plus it helps form the critical thinking that I have now. In my
point of view, I always thought that the origin of environmental problems is not be able to
use the resources that has our planet and think that they will renew themselves and have us
forever. Since the industrial revolution, the production of all things increased along with the
size of the population due to increased availability of medical care, medicine and food. For
example, before eating meat was a luxury that only kings and people of high rank they could
be. According Adela Acosta Ph.d, in Zamorano people consume an average of 111 kg of any
kind of meat per year. This is more than you really need because you need to eat only two
servings of meat per week, equivalent to a quarter of your plate each, to supply protein to
your body. If people consume more meat, more meat is produced and exploitation of the
resources used in this process has some consequences on the environment. Further, livestock
production releases greenhouse gases, such as methane, influencing the climate change that
we are currently going on. In conclusion, climate change has been largely influenced by
the exploitation of resources, we have to forget consumerism and learn that being
vegetarian is not to stop eating.
For example, I thought that exploitation of resources has consequences in climate
change because does not allow natural regeneration thereof. We only focus in consum
and consum, and this causes large industries want to produce more and more, and to do this
they need only one thing: Raw material. This raw material usually comes natural resources
like trees, rivers, mountains, soils, sand, etc. And pitifully, the human did not learn to stop, so
every day million trees are cut down, million hectares of land is constantly deteriorating and
water is becoming less volume than in the beginning, the planet had. All this constant abuse
for nature has not left the planet to regenerate. Floods, drought, frost, heat waves,

HOW VEGETARIANISM COULD SAVE THE PLANET

earthquakes and all natural disasters it is just a protection method of the planet against the
damage we are causing. Because that is their nature and I imagine that millions years ago the
way to regenerate it was not the same.
Furthermore, we have to forget consumerism and learn to live with what we
really need. We do not need to cultivate all soils in the world to eat just enough, we do not
need the water for use in water parks when we have the sea, we do not need to exploit
animals to consume if our body does not need more than one pound per person a week of
meat (Shils, 2006). We must learn to appreciate what we have, learn nothing helps us produce
a lot of food if half of these are discarded in the process of post - harvest and industrialization
process. It is not just that there is so much poverty and malnutrition, world powers continue
to exploit resources and wasting food that children in other countries may need. For this, we
need to create a balance which allows everyone to have the food they need, each country
concerned to meet their needs and produce no more. I think this will help the planet and give
time to regenerate its resources while we promote food security and sustainable development.
If you ask me, being a vegetarian is not to stop eating meat, is learning to meet
the needs of your body through grains, vegetables, fruits and other foods to collaborate
with the decrease of meat production and therefore, methane emissions. And this is just
one example than eating less meat cause. Another example, it is already proven that milk,
which is a product of livestock, causes more damage to human health than good. Although it
is popularly known as a source of calcium, the truth is that the fats it contains are not very
beneficial for us because it can cause problems such as gastritis which makes us to buy more
drugs and that the industries are producing more and more and becoming millionaires. If only
you had stop drinking milk not only decrease the number of sick people, but decrease the
number of compacted soil by livestock, reduces the emission of methane, decrease thousands
of liters of water used to clean milking barns and produce milk. We will be keeping millions

HOW VEGETARIANISM COULD SAVE THE PLANET

of hectares of land to produce more vegetables, which provide us with fiber, saving millions
of gallons of water needed for consumption or for our personal hygiene and we will not
contribute to climate change.
To conclude, I think that leaving to eat meat decreases animal abuse, the deterioration
of agricultural land for grazing, methane emissions, increased temperature and we can give
another use to the land used for grazing and increase the availability of healthy foods for the
entire population, making a conscious use of resources. People need to change their mentality
and show open for other options greener consumption.