At a 2008 press conference in Paris, the head of the United Nation's Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Rajendra Pachauri said that producing 2.2 pounds of meat causes the emissions equivalent of 36.4 kilos (80 pounds) of carbon dioxide. In addition, raising and transporting that amount of beef, lamb or pork consumes the same energy as keeping a 100-watt bulb lit for three weeks.
Pauchauri, an Indian economist and vegetarian, said, "Please eat less meat -- meat is a very carbon intensive commodity." Indeed, Pauchauri is one of a growing number of experts who see that the switch to a plant-based diet is the single most important behavioral change that humans can do to help save the planet.
"In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity," he said. Pachauri advised the world's omnivores to "give up meat for one day [per week] initially, and decrease it from there."
A Harris Interactive Service Bureau survey conducted in 2008 found that 11.9 million people are "definitely interested" in pursuing a vegetarian diet in the future. They could be joining the ranks of the over 7 million Americans who are vegetarians, according to a study by Vegetarian Times, including former president Bill Clinton, who recently changed his diet to near-vegan.
According to a 2005-2006 survey by Bon Appà ©tit (a dining facilities firm that manages more than 4,000 corporate, college and university accounts), 8 percent of college students said that they were vegetarian, and less than 1 percent identified themselves as vegan. The same survey, taken again in 2009-2010 survey, showed that 12 percent identified as vegetarian and 2 percent said that they follow a vegan diet. Great Britain saw a 50% increase in top-range vegetarian restaurants from 2007 to 2010.
October 31, 2010, marked the last day of the 5th annual World Go Vegan Week. Now, forty years later, humans wish that more people had switched their diets back then. The year is 2050. And though things look bleak, the world is emerging from the new Dark Age into a new "Eco-moral Age," led by ethically-minded, biodiversity-supporting plant eaters. Carnivorism -- long proven to be unsustainable, unhealthy and immoral -- is quickly dying out. The daunting task of re-greening planet Earth has begun.
The Victorian author Samuel Butler once said, "Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them." In 2050, that is no longer true, as the rise of the herbivores marks the next evolutionary step in the history of mankind.
Non-human animals are now humans' friends -- for life.
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