Kudos to Richard York for encouraging his students to examine their individual roles in ecological conservation by adopting a vegan diet (“Environmental class studies human relations with nature,” ODE, Nov. 11).
The Worldwatch Institute, Union of Concerned Scientists, and National Audubon Society all recognize that raising animals for food depletes and pollutes our land, water, and air perhaps more than anything else we do. Quite simply: Raising massive quantities of crops to feed animals is grossly inefficient. Every meat-based calorie you eat represents 20 calories fed to the chicken, pig, or other animal whose flesh you’re consuming — it’s equivalent to throwing 20 plates of food into the trash for every plate you consume. And a meat-based diet uses up immeasurable amounts of ozone-depleting fossil fuels while poisoning the Earth with billions of tons of untreated animal waste.
Choosing vegetarian or vegan foods is the simplest and most practical way to reduce our resource use and fight pollution. And it also benefits animals, 10 billion of whom are horribly abused and violently slaughtered each year for their flesh.
Erica Meier
People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals