Blog Action Day: Climate Change

This year's Blog Action Day is all about climate change, so naturally, there's only one thing I could write about today: The one thing that's the best way for you to help curb global climate change. You must know it by now, so I'll keep it simple.

Livestock production generates 18% of all global warming-causing greenhouse gases--nearly a fifth of the world’s total--which is more than the entire transportation sector.

So what would it mean if Americans left meat off their plates for just one day a week? Or two?...

1. If Americans didn't eat meat for one day a week, this would be the equivalent of removing 46 million round trip flights between L.A. and New York, or taking 19.2 million cars off the road for a full year.

2. Two days a week would be equal to replacing ALL household appliances in the US with energy efficient ones.

3. Three days a week would have a greater impact on the climate than replacing all US cars with Toyota Priuses.

4. Four days a week would have the carbon savings equivalent of cutting the use of all electricity, gas, oil, petroleum, and kerosene in the US in half.

5. Five days a week would have the carbon savings equivalent of planting 13 billion trees and letting them grow for 10 years.

6. Six days a week would be the equivalent of eliminating the total electricity use of all households in the US.

7. And finally, if everyone in the U.S. ate a vegetarian diet for seven days a week, this would be the same as removing all the cars off the roads in the US.

Your fork is a powerful tool. Please use it wisely.