How Can You Help?!

HOW CAN YOU HELP?!

            A couple of days ago my friend was telling me about how she went to the farmers market in Burlington. It made me wonder why I hadn’t thought to go there before. Most college students don’t think to go to a farmers market, especially when there are grocery stores so conveniently close. But why not? Students should take advantage of the local harvests right down the street. After hearing about it I was interested and wanted to know more, so I did some research. I found that it offers almost everything from honey to meat to fresh fruit and homemade preserves. I also looked into farmers markets near my hometown in Richmond, Va and found that there are several in my area. I’m sure that almost anyone reading this could find some in their area as well. It is an easy (and healthy) way to support locally grown goods and help the environment.

            After looking into farmers markets I started to realize there is a way each individual can help make a contribution to saving our environment. With this I wanted to know more ways I could contribute. After doing some digging around I found numerous articles on eating less meat to save the Earth. This grabbed my attention so I did some reading. In an article in “The Telegraph” Louise Gray made a good point saying “while the use of coal and oil could be gradually replaced by renewable energy sources like wind and solar, the world will always need to eat.” She continued to explain that as the population grows, food production will become the number one cause of climate change and “environmental degradation.”

The United Nations reported that in order to get a handle on the climate change is to switch to a more vegetarian diet. It is estimated by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization that “meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.” That being said, the world definitely needs to cut back on their meat consumption. This doesn’t mean that everyone needs to cut meat out of their diet completely, but maybe just set aside one or two days out of the week to have all vegetarian meals. Just as little of an effort as that could make a huge difference in the worlds environmental problems. It is not a hard adjustment to make, so everyone should start trying to cut back!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/07/food.foodanddrink

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7797594/Eat-less-meat-to-save-the-planet-UN.html