Weeks back, in a friend's blog, I had commented about reasons why I prefer being a vegetarian, though I do consume non-vegetarian food once in a while, much like social drinking :).
Till now, I had been convinced in favour of vegetarianism, purely on health and palette reasons. It was a personal lifestyle choice, in a way. Today I found yet another compelling reason to be and remain, vegetarian or even, vegan.
Did you know that at 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, livestock are responsible for a bigger share of global warming than transportation ? The measurement approach used to arrive at this value considered the entire commodity chain - from feed production (which includes chemical fertilizer production, deforestation for pasture and feed crops, and pasture degradation), through to animal production (including fermentation and nitrous oxide emissions from manure) to the carbon dioxide emitted during processing and transportation of animal products.
I guess the values for India might be somewhat different, since the type of fertilizer used, as well as transportation distances involved, would be different. There is greater reliance here on local meat shops, rather than packed and processed meat, thereby reducing fuel consumption on transport. Furthermore, animal husbandry in India is often done in conjunction with agriculture. In spite of all this, I guess, the carbon footprint would be more for non-veg food, especially with the Indian consumer too moving in the same direction as their counterparts in the US.
Check out this link for more reasons why you should be vegetarian !
