Another reason

"Another reason to cut down on eating beef!" This was the reaction of a friend as we came across this scene at Sunol Regional Wilderness.

A group of us went camping this weekend, and while hiking along the Canyon View and McCorkle trails, we saw this mother and her baby calf having brunch while herds of cattle freely roamed and grazed on the hillsides.

Strolling carefully so to avoid the cows and cow patties on the trail, we had opportunity to reflect and talk about our meat consumption, other vegans my friends know, my reasons for consuming a plant-based diet, and some facts I am learning about the meat industry.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, a single dairy cow produces about 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to the waste produced by 20–40 people. That means California’s 1.4 million dairy cows produce as much waste as 28–56 million people!

"Unlike human waste," Eric Schlosser writes in Fast Food Nation, "the manure is not sent to a treatment plant. It is dumped into pits, huge pools of excrement that the industry calls 'lagoons.' The amount of waste left by the cattle that pass through Weld County (the home of ConAgra, the nation's biggest meatpacking complex) is staggering." (p. 150)

While CO2 gets most of the press for being the cause of global warming, according to EarthSave, many other greenhouse gases trap heat far more powerfully than CO2, with methane from cows and their manure responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together.

Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2, and the number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture. The United Nations agrees reporting in 2006 that cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases than transportation.

In the last 50 years, beef consumption world-wide has dramatically increased, and is today one leading cause of global warming. Thus, one less steak consumed will eventually lead to one less cow raised and killed, and ultimately less methane released into the air helping to save the changing climate of our little planet called earth.

EarthSave concludes: "arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal products." To which, I agree.

"And besides that," my friend replied, "cows are cute!"