Global Warming and Vegetarian
It was a regular discussion with my colleague after the office hour with a tea cup in hand sitting in a bike whose owner till date none of us knows. But today it was a bit interesting "GLOBAL WARMING", well many of us knows about this English word, or hear about it in the recent media activities on giving coverage of the Copenhagen summit where the developed and the developing nations meet to sort out a plan for this global warming situation, well I will not go into the summit details nor I will tell you about the media coverage rather let me stick to the discussion that I had.
The discussion was a regular one, worries about earth but the thing that interested me the most in the discussion was non-vegetarian diet is also responsible for this global warming, initially with a sip of tea I thought what the crap is my colleague talking about but the way he delivered his facts and some statistical data any dick and harry like me would have believed on that time. For the next few hours while returning from the discussion to my home I was a bit skeptical about his speech, ideas and facts so on the next day I surfed the net and really to my surprise my colleague was telling the truth.
On the next day I went through many sites and blogs and some study on the recent summit in Copenhagen. Well I found some alarming report of some of the scientist who was working on the "Kyoto Protocol" came out with some interesting fact list about the global warming. The list contains some various human activities which contributes to the global warming along with the traditional combustion of fossils fuel. The findings came to a definite conclusion that irregular unhealthy lifestyle of human beings is one of the definite cause of global warming. I discover that meat eating or non-vegetarian food habit played a key role in the global warming as well as polluting all components of the biosphere.
Well I thought immediately if I convert from non-vegetarian to veggie what the difference will it make, well my friend would you believe we all could be able to save so much carbon dioxide! Just like taking half a million autos off the roads.
Seriously speaking I didn't even know that my non-vegetarian diet was aggravating global warming by adding 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide! And I used to frown at poor smokers and autowalas because they were polluting the environment. Look at me, if I become a vegetarian, I could save 1.5 tons of CO2!
In the recent studies I read from a blog correct me if I am wrong in this, a report from the UN FAO(United Nation Food and Agriculture Organisation) in which they stated that more greenhouse gases were emitted by cattle than by cars. Cattle, reared for meat, don't just have a slightly larger carbon footprint, they produce a whooping 18% more CO2 then cars.
So does this mean when we eat meat, we are encouraging people to rear these cattle?
Along with the above also imagine how much massive amount of dust, bacteria from the animal faeces and feed. Faeces, which emits toxic gases such as hydrogen sulphide and ammonia into the air polluting the air too.
In the recent news on papers and television was so much disturbing, the Himalayan glaciers from which our holy rivers like Ganga, Yamuna and Brahmaputra which have a persistent source are receding due to global warming. The problem is rise in temperature which is real in India, I don't know about other countries but in India this will cause a irreversible damage in one way, you will find it difficult to believe in the contention of some ecologist that river Ganga will cease to be perennial in six to forty years of time this goes with the fate of other rivers which originate from Himalaya.
The meat lobby can do nothing if one decides to change. Promotion of vegetarian does not require any legal law nor can it be done forcefully. It does require a change of heart honestly speaking if I place myself with the above stated words I guess the heart is not changed. But I believe people reading might reduce consumption of non-veg items initially. This will be a great step.
I cannot appeal to the wild beast because they are programmed by Mother Nature, but a human has a free will and that will bring a change as I recollect a proverb from my school days "Prevention is better then Cure".
