Joey Wagemans
Recently I made a change in my lifestyle to leave a smaller ecological footprint. I already don’t use a car. I always try to recycle and I can’t remember the last time I even turned my heater on and yet I felt the need to change something in my lifestyle.
First of all, why would I need this. All the sustainable actions previously mentioned have always been part of my life. I never had a car, so why would I use one? I feel perfectly comfortable with an extra sweater, so why should I turn up the heat? This time, however, I decided to change something. Change is noticeable. With this action I’m undertaking, I’m actually feeling different. Unlike the other sustainable actions I undertook, this one actually makes me feel better about myself. However, my lifestyle is also affected. I’m not in the same comfort as I have always been. Here’s what I did. I stopped eating meat.
Recent studies have shown livestock production may have a bigger impact on the planet than anything else. Forget the car industry or the nuclear energy plants, apparently eating meat is much more worse than driving a car. Shocking for a person like me, who always avoided the car, but easily gulped down a nice beef. The livestock industry produces more greenhouse gasses than cars, mopeds, boats, trains and airplanes combined.
And not only the greenhouse gasses are a problem. A regular steak needs 3000 liters of water, due to all the food production that is needed to feed the cow. That’s much more than the 120 liters a person uses over a day. Why should I save on using water, when the effect is much bigger when I’m not eating meat on that day? Thirdly, to produce all this food for the livestock, 2 million ha of African forests were chopped down in the last five years.
So, how does this vegetarian change influence my lifestyle? Hardly, since I’ve decided to only stop eating meat on Tuesdays. It may seem weird, but the sustainable effects are already noticeable when everyone just eats less meat. There’s no reason to stop eating meat altogether. This is also how I kept my old, comfortable lifestyle.