Veganism has been widely publicized in recent years and those who rest clueless and curious on the topic may ask why. There are many reasons for vegans, including diet restrictions, love for animals, or no appeal, but the truth is, it is becoming environmentally necessary to cut daily meat consumption. Grazing cows and livestock are extensive processes. More land is needed for animals, and extra landed is needed to produce food for that animal to eat. Growing 20 pounds of corn for direct human consumption would feed people for weeks. Growing 20 pounds of corn to feed to an animal for human consumption will produce a fraction of the food and feed a family for only a few days. Larger land size, less food, and global dilapidation are factors to the excessive meat that humans are consuming. Cows release methane from daily bodily functions that trap heat in the air and affect the global temperature. The land that is deforested for the grazing animals increases atmospheric CO2, as the trees hold this chemical and release it when they fall. The factories, machinery, and forms of transportation needed for the production of meat all combust fossil fuel energy. Methane, CO2, and the combustion of fossil fuels all contribute to the greenhouse effect, which causes higher atmospheric temperatures.

“Why Does it Matter?”

The theory of global warming is crucial to human’s lasting existence on this planet. When global temperatures rise, as always, a chain reaction occurs. Slight global temperatures that humans do not even notice, such as 0.5 degrees, is a massive increase in ocean temperatures to the Earth and to the environmentalists studying this pattern. A continual increase of this size has the power to melt glaciers within the century. The beautiful, ice wonderland known as Greenland has become, in recent years, an “I wonder where the ice went” land. The layer of ice over Greenland has fragmented, melted, and evaporated over the past century and is continuing to do so. While warm temperatures and melting snow may mean summer and fun for humans, global warmth and melting glaciers could prove fatal to all species. The oceans will flood over from the melted tons of ice that are slowly melting away. Unexpected weather patterns will erupt, such as hurricanes and forest fires. Aquatic animals with the inability to adjust to the warming water will die off.  When these animals die off, land animals, as well as other aquatic species, who feed off those animals will also die off. This chain reaction is catastrophic  and humans are at the beginning of it. Humans are running out of time to continue cheap, degrading practices. It is the next generation and the generations beyond who will suffer from the current actions of people. Humans are not only responsible for themselves, but for every species around them.

A change, drastic or minimal, will only help the world, our world. The over consumption of meat has fatal outcome for generations to come. Apathy comes from ignorance. Climate change is being exacerbated with our actions. The chain reaction starts with us. Let us change the change.