Veggieworld: Why eating greens won't save the planet

Hiya all
Here's some food for thought, almost literally so.

Thank you to David Hitchin for sending in the New Scientist's cover story about the "veggieworld" by Bob Holmes (20 July 2010). For enlarged viewing, just click on the image.

  

Excerpt from http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727691.200-veggieworld-why-eating-greens-wont-save-the-planet.html :

"IF YOU'RE a typical westerner, you ate nearly 100 kilograms of meat last year. This was almost certainly the costliest part of your diet, especially in environmental terms. The clamour for people to eat less meat to save the planet is growing ever louder. "Less meat = less heat", proclaimed Paul McCartney in the run-up to last December's conference on global warming in Copenhagen. "And this magazine recently recommended eating less meat as a way to reduce our environmental footprint.
If less is good, wouldn't none be better? You might think so. "In the developed world, the most effective way to reduce the environmental impact of diet, on a personal basis, is to become vegetarian or vegan," says Annette Pinner, chief executive of the Vegetarian Society in the UK.
"It seems like a no-brainer, but is it really that simple? […]"

(To read the whole article in greater comfort than here, you might want to sign up on the New Scientist website.)