Every scare story, as opposed to cool, rational science (most of which currently suggests – no stronger than that – that global warming is partly human induced), serves to worsen the problem. NO actual climate scientists are predicting venus on earth.

Every day there is a scare story about what people eat. One minute we need carbohydrates as health foods, then we don’t. One minute we need omega-3 oils, then we don’t. This food causes cancer, this one is good for you. Now people laugh and ignore all advice because they know the next study will say something different.

The same will (maybe has already?) happen with global warming. It’s psychology.

Surely the best thing environmentally is to buy organic from a local supplier. Eat meat (if you want to) only occasionally – once or twice a week at the most, eat lots of organic locally grown fruit and veg, and relying rather less on imported food (shipped, not airfreighted unless it’s by airship!).

Oh, and unused land should be compulsorily purchased by local authorities for allotments. Allotments for all who want them!

Animal products are horrible for the environment. Every calorie of animal product–be it eggs, milk, or meat–requires at least 10 calories of feed. Growing grain takes energy (fertilizer, tractors, harvesters, shipment), so producing meat takes way more energy.

Methane emissions from cows and chickens are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, as is the refrigeration necessary to ship meat.

The most important point, however, is that animal products are completely unnecessary. Balanced vegan diets tend to be healthier than omnivorous diets. Whine all you like about vitamin B12–supplements makes this point irrelevant.

Ironically, soymilk requires vastly less grain input than cow milk. It is typically made from organic soybeans, can be produced locally, and does not require refrigeration. Similar reasoning applies to vegan equivalents of all animal products.

If you drive a hybrid to protect the environment, you are being hypocritical if you aren’t vegan. I see no reason to sugar-coat this issue. In response to Leanne’s point about generating antipathy, no one will take veganism seriously if it’s not advocated rigorously. Limp-wristed pining for a bygone era will convince no one.

While I do believe that people generally need to make the connection between plate and planet, and need to recognise that the biggest change they can make to their own global footprint is by shifting towards a plant-centered diet, that doesn’t necessarily mean that veganism suits everyone (although I still can’t understand why not – losing 30 kg/70 pounds, and curing my lifelong eczema and asthma was enough to convince me!)

The connection between the livestock industry and its products, and climate change MUST become more wellknown. This issue was completely ignored in the most wellknown of the climate change documentaries, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, leading vegetarian activists to question whether it was simply ‘a truth too inconvenient for Al Gore’?

Gore’s “The Climate Project” similarly ignores this largest of factors in climate change. According to the 2006 UN report “Livestock’s Long Shadow”, the livestock industry (and its resultant products) is responsible for a greater share of greenhouse gases than the world’s entire transport sector – cars, buses, shipping, trucking etc. – combined.

So where do we stand? The aforementioned report recommends an immediate halving of the world’s herds, yet this issue remains unnoticed, while such small details as cloth versus disposable nappies (which are barely a blip on the climate change radar) make headline news.

There is an old saying among vegetarians that ‘there is no such thing as a meat eating environmentalist’. Although I find this wording a little too strong, and likely to create antipathy rather than positivity for reducing the consumption of animal-based foods, I can’t help but feel that it contains more than a few tonnes, not grains, of truth.

As I said, I am not advocating strict veganism for everyone. But when I hear my mother talk of how she grew up (in Hampshire, UK), and the only meat that was consumed was the weekly Sunday roast, perhaps the western world needs to shift back to a more moderate and sustainable appreciation of animal products, and save them for special occasions as our forebears did – the Sunday roast, the Christmas turkey, eggs for Easter etc.

In other words, it’s time to embrace real sustainability and moderation once more. And maybe the American forefathers were right in giving genuine thanks and being appreciative for the small amounts of meat they got, rather than stripping the world barren in our gluttony.