Is vegetarianism the solution of global issues?

After start this essay, I thought that thinking about why someone could become vegetarian, that searching on internet pros and cons about being vegetarian and even, asking some friends that actually, are vegetarian, I would have solid arguments for defending a reason for not become vegetarian but now, I have to admit that I was a little wrong...

Is well know that some of the main reason for becoming vegetarian are been against the intensive animal husbandry or be against the way that animals live on our farms. There’s no doubt that we have become the domestic animal in a product, we enjoy the food completely alien (and we are alien to our own will) to their origin and processing. So in that way, vegetarianism could become a good way and option of protest until the meat production model reinvents or retrieve the values of responsible and sustainable livestock that produce less and keeps animals in large areas outdoor and does not alter the ecosystem which states. In this cases, we can accept typical arguments as “I don’t eat meat because I feel sorry for the animal”… Even so and as a counterpart, it’s important to remind that eat meat has helped us to become humans; without the proteins of the animal meat we would not have developed the intelligence that differentiates us from the other species and although nowadays and unfortunately, this food is not available to everyone (what contributes to highlight social inequalities), is still and important element in our diet.

Despite this, I think that the best reason for become vegetarian is to believe that vegetarianism could solve global issues and in fact, it can! Apparently, we all say that we have an ecological awareness and we become extremist with the recycling, but I don’t know till which point we are conscious that the meat production and consumption are one of the biggest factors of pollution in the world and, at the same time, is the main destination of the increasingly scarce land resources. Giving an example for proving this: 50,000 liters of water are needed to produce only a kilo of meat.

So not eating meat is a good way to fight against climate change. The breeding and feeding of the livestock, the methane and nitrous oxide realised during this processes or the industrial livestock produce and emit large amounts of gasses that pollute our atmosphere, our lands and our water. In fact, is estimated that  a vegan world, that is to say, a world were any livestock derivate were consumed, would reduce carbon emissions by 17%, methane emissions by 24% and nitrous oxide emissions by 21%. So yes, quitting meat can reduce your carbon footprint significantly and more than quitting driving.

As Albert Einstein said, “nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” And if you’re not willing to go vegetarian or vegan, even just significantly reducing the amount of meat in your diet can have an important impact. Besides, if we don’t stop and reverse climate change, all we’ll have left to eat, if we’re lucky, is fish…whoops, looks like we’re running out of fish, too.