Preview

Stop Eating Meat And Save The Environment Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1100 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Stop Eating Meat And Save The Environment Analysis
Due to recent innovations in advertising and technology, information is more accessible than ever before. With the simple touch of a button, a plethora of information can instantaneously appear at one’s fingertips. Though this may be true, consumers are still not properly educated about the vast amounts of chemicals and antibiotics that reside in day-to-day food products. For example, to prevent illness animals are often fed antibiotics that could be potentially harmful to humans. As these animals make the trip from the ranch to the dinner table, a significant portion of these chemicals still remain and are then consumed by the oblivious consumer. For precisely this reason, people are beginning to turn to healthier, plant-based diets that …show more content…
In the article, “Stop Eating Meat and Save the Environment,” the author, James Kanter, argues that the gas methane, which is released by cows and other livestock in large quantities, is one of the most potent planet-warming gases (Kanter). This issue is addressed several times throughout the article, for the author is trying to show that as these animals are slaughtered, this detrimental gas, along with many others, is simultaneously diminishing the polar caps of our planet. Likewise, this is not the only problem associated with the meat industry. Deforestation for the sake of cattle or other livestock ranching is also something that has enraged environmental activist in recent years. As the demand for meat becomes more apparent, the need for land has also drastically increased. Forests all across the United States have been recklessly destroyed so that enough meat can be raised to satisfy consumers. But, often times, these consumer are oblivious to the fact that they are inflicting detrimental actions upon the environment. Thankfully, all of these problems come with an easy solution. If one would just consume less meat and eat more fresh, organic produce, mankind could slowly begin to wipe out this problem, for people all across the world would be subconsciously saving the environment with …show more content…
Thankfully, there is a way to combat this growing problem and help diminish the amount of chemicals one is taking in. If a person would remove meat from his or her diet, one could eliminate a large portion of hidden chemicals and antibiotics while also achieving so much more. A newly-proclaimed vegetarian would experience health benefits such as that of a healthy heart and life while also saving the environment and one’s financial situation in the process. Therefore, for the sake of a healthier life, planet, and wallet, all people should attempt a vegetarian diet and enjoy the lasting benefits that accompany

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In Lisa Hamilton’s “Unconventional Farmers; Let Them Eat Meat”, she justifies the issue of raising livestock for food causing greenhouse gas emissions. Should we be eating less meat or actually eating more? Hamilton’s research found many interesting points that would interest any human beings that consume meat or any other type of consumable goods.…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    THESIS: “Today the most serious environmental harm associated with the cattle industry takes place on the feedlot.” (70).…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Everyday millions of people are consuming hazardous rations. Meat is consumed in huge amounts every year. The nutritional benefit of consuming less meat, body systems that are improved, and the horrors that are not discussed when meat production occurs will enlighten one and change lifelong choices. Vegetarianism contrary to popular belief is the healthier life style choice and one that will not be regretted.…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    • 884 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The author starts off strong with logos, which appeals to logic. In response to the comments about animals in our food production, she writes, “the studies show only that the prevailing methods of producing meat — that is, crowding animals together in factory farms, storing their waste in giant lagoons and cutting down forests to grow crops to feed them — cause substantial greenhouse gases” (Niman), meaning that small farms and farms can cut down on greenhouse gases if, “they keep their animals outdoors on pasture and make little use of machinery.” (Niman) She points out, “In contrast to traditional farms, industrial livestock and poultry facilities keep animals in buildings with mechanized systems for feeding, lighting, sewage flushing, ventilation, heating and cooling, all of which generate emissions,” which are what most statistics pointing the guilt finger at meat production are referring to. The author, being a “rancher…who raises cattle, goats and turkeys the traditional way (on grass)” (Niman), neatly brushes off relations of “meat (especially beef) is closely linked to global warming” (Niman), to her own farm. Meat and dairy would certainly win the greenhouse gas competition if not…

    • 884 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The article, “Vegetarian is the New Prius”, written by Kathy Freston, discusses the amount of contribution that livestock actively plays in the most crucial and serious environmental problem, from a local scale to global scale. Freston writes that the amount of livestock raised in United States soil is the main cause of air pollution, land degradation, water shortage, water pollution, biodiversity, and especially aids to global warming. This article attempts to convince readers to cut meat out of their diet and to become vegetarians, so that less livestock would be raised to feed the people and environmental issues would be cut down. Although it is true that Freston provides the audience with solid, legitimate factual arguments concerning the brutal slaughtering and consumption of livestock by humans, she fails to address the opposing argument. Although I am a personal fan of vegetarian foods, I disagree with Freston, primarily because my family has raised me on chicken and other meats. I believe that there will be livestock whether a lot of people change their diets and become vegetarians or not. At the University of Chicago, researches concluded that feeding animals for the production of meat, eggs, and dairy products requires growing upwards of ten times as many crops needed than if we just went without livestock. According to a report done by the United Nations animal agriculture takes up 70% of all agricultural land, and 30% of the total land surface of the planet. Upon seeing these disturbing facts, I do not believe that society will never 100% convert to a vegetarian lifestyle. Even if they do, there will still be millions of wild animals producing all of the same gases that are so harmful to our environment.…

    • 314 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Cowspiracy documentary explores the connections that animal agriculture has to greenhouse gasses, water, land, waste, oceans, rainforest, wildlife, and humanity. Correspondingly, it dispels the myths that attribute the majority of the declines in bio-diversity and deprivations of the ecosystem to the transportation industry instead of the animal agriculture industry. Additionally, it exposes environmentalists’ vast avoidance in the acknowledgement of the effects that cattle production inflicts on the earth. Considering the passionate natures of the central narrators, Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, the film is provocative, conscious, and awfully inspiring.…

    • 90 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Thich Nhat Hanh Argument

    • 1901 Words
    • 8 Pages

    In The World We Have, Thich Nhat Hanh suggests having a mindful diet, such as consuming less or being a vegetarian, will save many hungry people in the world and can improve our environment of the earth (23). He claims that because of the unmindful consumption, the earth has a bad situation now and may continue if we don’t make a change. Then he advocates us to eat mindfully, and practice the “Four Kinds of Nutriments” so that we can limit our unlimited consumptions. In his point of view, we are eating and destroying the earth by ourselves because eating meat from animals can create many bad influences in climate change, global warming and even greenhouse gases (25). He deeply believes that by cutting down the meat of our meal or even being a vegetarian will finally solve the hungry problems in other countries and save the environment of our planet. For many people,…

    • 1901 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Meat vs. Vegan

    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Sunaura and Andrew Taylor’s “Is It Possible to Be a Conscientious Meat Eater?” is an informative essay about the dirty side of the meat industry. They speak out of the physical abuse and poor living conditions endured by animals raised solely for the purpose of consumption. Because of the inhumane treatment towards animals, Taylor talks about a vegan solution and the many benefits associated with it. Animal cruelty is a sensitive topic that readers can easily be persuaded to either side. But, for the purpose of this essay, the reader can be swayed towards being a conscientious consumer. As mentioned already, animal rights and veganism will be discussed.…

    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This August, a friend of mine who is passionate about climate change and food justice recommended to me the documentary Cowspiracy because it played a huge role in her becoming a vegan. I watched it with my mom, and both of us immediately became vegetarians. The documentary discussed, analyzed, and brought to light animal agriculture’s significant role in climate change. I used to love meat—particularly hamburgers and bacon—but the evidence that the film presented on animal agriculture’s impact on the environment, was terrifying. In this weekly post, I decided to look more into the role of animal agriculture on the environment through Alexandra Clark’s, a sustainable-food campaigner at Humane Society International, article “As the World Tackles Climate Change, is Meat Off the Table” in LiveScience.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Animal Agriculture Satire

    • 309 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Animal agriculture is ruining our planet. Scientists say that animal agriculture is responsible for more than 18 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than the combined exhaust gases from all transportation in the world. Therefore, this means that riding your bike, walking or taking the bus will not help if you want to be kind to our earth. Although I do understand that some people might enjoy eating meat and that they might not feel complete without it the consequences of it has no mercy.…

    • 309 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Even though one of the main reasons for having pollution in our atmosphere is carbon dioxide emissions, studies have shown that there are many other culprits. One of these many culprits is the production of meats as well as maintaining the livestock itself. Scientists found out recently that “raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined” (Top 10 Reasons Why It's Green to Go Veggie). Livestock also contributes to global climate change due to the fact that they cause the destruction of the land and the pollution of water…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the major issues in animal agriculture is greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the fact that seventy percent of meat is made under the fair trade agreement(Grandin) animal agriculture brings about more greenhouse gases than transport. It also generates sixty five percent of human related nitrous oxide . Nitrous oxide has two hundred sixty five the global warming potential as co2(matthews).…

    • 937 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Paleo Diet Research

    • 1622 Words
    • 7 Pages

    We are not in the stone ages anymore; we know the implications of meat and dairy industry on the environment. “Animal agriculture is responsible for 80-90% (34-76 trillion gallons annually) of US water consumption” (Anderson). The statistics to produce 1 pound of meat, 1 lb eggs, 1 lb cheese, 1 gallon milk, are 2,500, 477, 900, 1,000 gallons respectively (Anderson). A criticism of plant-based diets is that they are extreme, but what we are doing to animals and our planet is extreme. A severe change needs to be made in order to help reverse the damage we have done to the planet, and it is as simple as changing how we eat. Dr. Jennifer Rooke shuts down a common criticism of plant-based eating, that vitamins such as B12 are not being ingested from plant products. “Cattle no longer feed on grass and chickens do not peck in the dirt on factory farms”, so animals do not naturally absorb B12 (Rooke). Pesticides often kill B12 producing bacteria and insects in the soil, and heavy antibiotics kill B12 producing bacteria in animal’s stomachs (Rooke). Essentially the meat industry now gives a B12 vitamin to animals, so when a human eats the meat they get B12. “90% of B12 supplements produced in the world are fed to farm animals” (Rooke). Instead of murdering animals for food and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and species extinction, why…

    • 1622 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bill McKibben’s essay “The Only Way to Have a Cow” establishes a sense of comfort as his approach to the meat eating controversy is superbly logical. The current industrial approach to livestock has birthed an issue pertaining to the sustainability and healthy feeding of our lives. Yet there is another problem in relation to our consumption, which tends to be overlooked. If the pricing of meat reflected in the damage done to our environments, feedlot beef would cost more than grass-fed beef both financially and environmentally. It is the rapid, inhumane dietary feeding of the cow which is insulting, not the consumption of it, and taking no responsibility for the run-off is an offense to the earth and it’s inhabitants. These costs alone are part of the reasoning for the current system which is inefficient and uneconomically feasible. The…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many people are worried about the environment but don’t how they can help, eating less meat is a good way to start. The process of producing meat uses huge amounts of land and water. In the supermarket the meat is quite cheap but we are not paying the real cost, the cost of the…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays