To the Editor:

With Earth Day approaching, we often consider what we can do to save the planet. A few things might come to mind such as recycling, composting, or buying an electric vehicle. While all those things are important, have you ever thought about the environmental impact of what you choose to eat?

Animal agriculture is very energy-intensive. Approximately 83% of farmable land is used to produce meat, eggs, farmed fish, and dairy, yet they only provide 18% of our calories. Considering the amount of land required to produce animal products, it is unsurprising that they are accountable for 67% of the deforestation caused by agriculture. The destruction of ecosystems for farmland is the single largest contributing factor of species extinction. Approximately half of the land in the continental United States is used for livestock production — either for grazing or for growing grain and soybeans as feed. The amount of farmland that is needed to grow crops to feed animals could be reduced by 75%, which is equal to the landmass of the United States, China, Australia, and the EU combined. Wild animals often lose habitat through deforestation to make way for cattle ranches. Transitioning to plant-based diets has the potential to reduce diet-related land use by 76%.

Meat, fish, dairy, and egg production use the most energy, causing more greenhouse gas production than plant foods. From an emissions perspective, it is without doubt, significantly better for the environment to eat plant-based foods. In fact, in one year, animal husbandry creates as much carbon emissions as the entire transportation sector.

By reducing our animal-based food consumption, we would reduce our water use at least by half as animal husbandry utilizes more than 50% of fresh water. It is much more efficient to eat plant foods than animal foods; in a single month of being plant-based, you’d on average save about 600 lbs of CO2 emissions, 904 square feet of forest, and 33,021 gallons of water.

If every person gave up meat and dairy products on one or more days of the week — ideally, all days of the week — we would save the environment from thousands of tons of carbon emissions. We would be saving untouched habitats from being destroyed to produce livestock, and we would be creating less pollution in our waterways, streams, and oceans that indirectly threaten lives. It is time for people who value conservation to look at what is on their plate.

Lisa Shirk

Newtown