My commute to and from work in New Haven takes me about 45 minutes each way—if there’s no traffic.

Last week, I found myself driving home in my not-terribly-fuel-efficient Volvo station wagon listening to an NPR special on climate change and feeling very guilty about the emissions I was spewing into the environment. How would I ever offset this?

At home, we already make little efforts, like unplugging our computers and television when they’re not in use, and turning down the heat overnight. Of course, we recycle and we bring our own reusable tote bag to the grocery store (when we remember) so as not to accumulate a million plastic bags.

But it turns out that the commitment to vegetarianism is probably the most important thing we do to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

Here are some interesting articles about the impact meat-eating habits have on the environment.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug97/livestock.hrs.html

http://www.time.com/time/reports/v21/health/meat_mag.html

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/why-the-no-impa.html

A summary of points I found interesting from them (these are copied directly from the articles, I take no credit for them):

Water

• U.S. agriculture accounts for 87 percent of all the fresh water consumed each year. Livestock directly use only 1.3 percent of that water. But when the water required for forage and grain production is included, livestock's water usage rises dramatically. Every kilogram of beef produced takes 100,000 liters of water. Some 900 liters of water go into producing a kilogram of wheat. Potatoes are even less "thirsty," at 500 liters per kilogram.
• To produce 1 lb. of feedlot beef requires 7 lbs. of feed grain, which takes 7,000 lbs. of water to grow. Pass up one hamburger, and you'll save as much water as you save by taking 40 showers with a low-flow nozzle.
• The livestock sector accounts for over 8 percent of global human water use, while 64 percent of the world’s population will live in water-stressed areas by 2025.

Land

• More than 302 million hectares of land are devoted to producing feed for the U.S. livestock population -- about 272 million hectares in pasture and about 30 million hectares for cultivated feed grains.

(I looked it up, 1 hectare equals 10,000 square meters, 107,639 square feet or roughly 2.5 acres.)

• About 90 percent of U.S. cropland is losing soil -- to wind and water erosion -- at 13 times above the sustainable rate. Soil loss is most severe in some of the richest farming areas; Iowa loses topsoil at 30 times the rate of soil formation. Iowa has lost one-half its topsoil in only 150 years of farming -- soil that took thousands of years to form.

• Agriculture is the world's biggest cause of deforestation, and increasing demand for meat is the biggest force in the expansion of agriculture.

Pollution

• Two-thirds (64 percent) of anthropogenic ammonia emissions, which contribute significantly to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems, come from cattle.
• In the United States, livestock are responsible for a third of the loads of nitrogen and phosphorus into freshwater resources.
• The world’s largest source of water pollution is believed to be the livestock sector.
• In recent years livestock waste has been implicated in massive fish kills and outbreaks of such diseases as pfiesteria, which causes memory loss, confusion and acute skin burning in people exposed to contaminated water.
• In the U.S., livestock now produce 130 times as much waste as people do. Just one hog farm in Utah, for example, produces more sewage than the city of Los Angeles.

Food

• The 7 billion livestock animals in the United States consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire American population.