It’s Earth Day today, so if you haven’t already been thinking about greening your life, there’s no better time to start. One of the most staggering things we’ve seen lately is Kathy Freston’s HuffPo piece about the environmental impact we can make with the slightest change in our daily eating habits. “If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of US roads,” she reports. After the jump, more astounding statistics and Earth Day info.
Among the other stats on offer, Freston reveals that if every American forsook meat for a single day (like Earth Day, for example), America would save 100 billion gallons of water, 1.5 billion pounds of crops, 70 million gallons of gas, and three million acres of land. It’s enough to feed New Mexico, fuel all of Mexico and Canada, supply water to New England, conserve an area the size of a US state. Additionally, it would prevent greenhouse-gas emissions equivalent to those of an entire European nation.
Read the full article, learn about the numerous Earth Day events taking place this week, and read an interview with Earth Day founder Denis Hayes on The Rumpus. Then tell us what you’re doing to help the Earth in the comments.
Could you give up meat for one day a week? What else would you sacrifice for Mother Nature?