Saving the Planet....requires more on the side of Emissions from automobiles..being a meat eater does allow one to accomplish heavy work loads..I myself could not live w/o the EGG..I have backed away from Cheese these past months..and have eaten one steak this year(past)..

Carbon Emmisions are very high..the Wild Fires on the (USA)west coast harm alot of the world's populations..

The Consumer Auto needs to be FIXED....its 200+ HP Engine needs to go/

The replacemnt of a 65-HP motor is a much better solution until the Auto Industry FOOT-draggers can concede to the truth..

Attempting to come up with a FOOD MENU that saves the planet is absurd.

I don't believe the discussion is complete without looking at biodiversity. The V/V folks I have known often present a holier than thou attitude, and use extreme examples, albeit true. I think it useful to compare a soybean field and a pasture, to see what else lives there. Better yet, a soybean field and state game lands. Small-minded me can only see soybeans in the field, and lots of things in a pasture. The more land we use for veggies, the less is available for the rest of the life forms on this planet.

According to United Nations scientists, even if you stopped driving COMPLETELY, you wouldn't reduce your greenhouse emissions as much, as if you eliminated meat from your diet: <link> "Attempting to come up with a FOOD MENU that saves the planet is absurd." WRONG.

"biodiversity... I think it useful to compare a soybean field and a pasture, to see what else lives there. The more land we use for veggies, the less is available for the rest of the life forms on this planet." Then according to your own argument, you should go vegan because... HOW MUCH SOY (AND OTHER CROPS) DO YOU THINK WE FEED TO FARMED ANIMALS? IT'S A LOT: Energy (and other nutrients) is wasted each step you go up the foodchain. AAAS, the world's largest group of scientists, says that the average American meat-eater needs about 7 TIMES more farmland than a vegan because a vegan would eat the crops directly, but you farm some crops (or the guy you buy meat from does it for you...) then feed vegetables and grains to your animals, THEN eat the animals. And there simply isn't enough pasture-land to feed the farm-animals that 6 billion Americans would slaughter and eat: Synthetic fertilizers -- intensive farming that destroys the biodiversity you're talking about -- is the only way we even feed most of the world today, despite most Indians (1/6 of the world) and many others being vegetarians. Bottom line: There would be even more pasture-land if more people were vegan (or even reducing their meat/dairy intake) -- and this isn't even to mention that: (A) those "pastures" you speak of are often government land stripped BARE by over-grazing -- at taxpayer expense -- and of course that leaves little of the biodiversity you claim to be superior in a pasture: Once tall-grasses are stripped bare by cows, many species that depend on the tall-grasses die too), (B) actually cows aren't even native to North America and our grasses never evolved for this type of over-grazing: i.e. cows are an "invasive species," (C)most farm-animal DUNG winds up polluting groundwater and eutrofying lakes, both of which cause a huge cost to society... (D) LEATHER factories are currently the majority of Superfund clean-up sites (yet another way taxpayers subsidize the farm-animal industry, not just the fact that we let them over-graze on *government* land and then pollute lakes which are publicly-owned), and (E) meat even takes more petroleum to produce the same amount of nutrients (according to AAAS, the world's largest scientific org). To sum up: there are a lot of hidden costs to producing meat.

I'm a civil engineer who specialized in bioscience, ecology, and epidemiology -- and I live in Texas and cows are one of the least efficient species out there, 90% of the energy you feed them (i.e. 90% of the soy, etc.) winds up in their dung.

"The V/V folks I have known often present a holier than thou attitude" I bet a lot of the abolitionists did too, and the people who volunteer at soup kitchens. But as Muhammed Ali said, "It aint braggin if it's true".

I think you will find that most of the beef meant for your table is raised in feedlots, and fed grain to make them fatten up faster. Putting cattle in fed lots has allowed much of our pasture land to plowed under for the growing of corn that is turn going into our cars as fuel.

As an aside, corn uses up much more water then cattle.

Clyde in Sitka:

As an aside, corn uses up much more water then cattle.

If you are feeding your animals grain (and corn is likely a large part of the feed), then you are using up water growing grain AND raising cattle, see? Most factory raised meat--which is nearly all of the meat in your grocery store--is fed grain, so your claim falls apart.

Grass fed meat (and dairy) doesn't require nearly the water that grain fed meat does, but it does require a whole heck of a lot of pasture. Some conscientious omnivores eat only grass fed meat and dairy.

The more land we use for veggies, the less we'll have to use for cattle to supply the Big Macs so many Americans seem to be enthralled with. And it takes a lot more land and water to produce a cow than it does bushels of veggies. Feed lots are usually used in the end stage of the "process," when cattle are rounded up from grazing lands and taken there for final fattening up before going to slaughter. And have you seen feed lots close up and in full use? The poor dumb animals have to stand in their own excrement and just eat and drink and get fat. And because they're standing in their own crap with bugs and parasites abundant, they usually have antibiotics going into their feed, as well as extra female hormones and even pesticides. And, of course, they're fed grain. Most of the grain grown in this country goes to feeding cattle for making steaks, not to feed people or provide nourishment for the poor and starving of the world. And that's often what's happening in Brazil, where the rain forests are being burned to the ground so grain can be grown to feed to cows. Burning rain forests adds CO2 to the atmosphere, and depletes the oxygen that's generated therein. So people who say there's no environmental impact to beef-eating are ignoring a whole lot of unpleasant facts that have to do with producing their pounds of meat.