I have come to the conclusion that denial is the number one cause of death on our planet(and to our planet). However, I encourage you to listen to my arguments and then come to your own conclusion on why so many people on our planet are sick and why climate change has become such a problem. We’ll start with common marketing scheme of companies with products to help people quit smoking, so you’ve probably all heard it. They begin telling the story of a long time smoker who is in the hospital for lung problems. The person continues to smoke, because for whatever reason, even if they know that it is the cause of their health problems, they simply can’t make themselves quit.
Many people are aware of the cruelty of the agriculture industry and yet somehow they continue to eat meat because they somehow disassociate from the problems going on. Maybe they think that they need meat in order to live a healthy life. I don’t blame them for believing this, they’ve probably been told this lie for years now. However, much like smoking, many people that continue to get sick because of their diet either don’t realize how beneficial a change could be or they simply can’t imagine any other way of life. Many people with type 2 diabetes are able to decrease medication after beginning a vegan diet yet the ADA does not recommend a vegan diet to their members.
As I began to make the switch to a vegan diet, people I knew would ask me why I felt it was important and I’d state my reasons including health benefits, the environment, the animals. Only later did I realize that they only asked me why I chose veganism in order to pick a fight. They didn’t really care about my personal diet choices, they just wanted to tell me I was wrong so that they could justify their own way of living. I’d cite facts I’d learned including the ridiculous amount of methane gas produced to raise cows and they would say that people need to drive less or shower quicker. They’d say that we just need to plant more trees, and that’ll save the planet. It was only as I heard myself explaining that more trees are being cut down just to raise more cows that I realized I had already lost before the conversation even started. Many addicts much reach rock bottom before realizing that they need to make a change.
I’m in no hurry to see our world crumble just to prove to people that they should consider a plant based diet. However, I’m beginning to think that might be the only way. They say that we should just plant more trees, but do they know that acid rain caused by methane gases will only continue to kill more and more plants. From the evidence I’ve seen, I’d say that veganism is the safest way to a sustainable future. However, before we can convince the whole world to be vegan, maybe it would be easier to significantly cut down amounts of meat consumed and produce it in a more sustainable way.
Currently around 50% of habitable land is used for agriculture. 77% of that land is used for livestock production while only 17% of caloric supply comes from meat and dairy. These statistics show that we really aren’t using the resources we have in the most effective way. And to the people that think that people are taking up too much space, only 1% of habitable land is urban space. But what does this mean? If we want to use less land for agriculture then we would need to develop a less land intensive diet. Huge amounts of land are taken to grow crops for the sole purpose of feeding livestock. Therefore, If people began to eat more plants instead of meat, we could cut down the amount of land we are using overall. Beef and mutton are currently the most problematic areas for land use, therefore even cutting down the amounts of these consumed and replacing them with chicken could reduce our land footprint overall.
This, however, is very much an individual choice. There is no way at the moment to make people who are not interest adopt a more plant based diet. However, I will still continue to ask myself if people are simply unaware of the problem, or are they living in denial that these statistics are very much a real problem.
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