Save the Planet, Eat Your Broccoli

"Animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends" ~ George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer (1856-1950)

By the time Bernard Shaw wrote down that thought I'm sure it never crossed his mind that not eating meat would not only save his animals-friends' lives but also his human-friends' existence. The last report on livestock and the environment published by the United Nations concludes that the farming industry (chickens, pigs, cattle and others) is "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global."

That's right, global warming. You've probably heard the story: Emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are changing our climate, and scientists warn of more extreme weather, coastal flooding, spreading disease and mass extinctions. It seems that when you step outside and wonder what happened to winter, you might want to think about what you had for dinner last night. The U.N. report says almost a fifth of global warming emissions come from livestock -- that's more emissions than from all of the world's transportation combined.

I was eight years old when I decided to become vegetarian. Like the Irish writer, I had no idea that we humans were in the process of destroying our planet and that one day international scientists would stir up a lot of controversy by admitting that that global warming is in fact "very likely caused by human intervention on the planet."

I was watching my favorite TV Program, an in-depth weekly news show (yes, I was a weird kid), when I witnessed the way cows and chickens were treated in the slaughterhouses. I was horrified. I couldn't believe that humans could be so cruel.