Pontificate

Vegan

As we all know, animal products have taken an extreme toll on our planet. The earth's health has been rapidly decreasing and yet we don't have proper ways to decrease the warming temperatures. Or there just aren't enough people giving in time and energy to help. 

It might not seem like animals are that bad for the earth but they have many negative effects when kept in mass amounts in factory farms. Cows, who are made to digest grass, are being fed corn since the government started paying farmers to plant cash crops which resulted in a large amount of corn. Farmers started feeding their cattle corn in order to save money and make more income at the same time. But due to being fed the wrong diet, the cows started to produce more greenhouse gases. Not only do they release vast amounts of methane and carbon dioxide, but almost a third of the world's freshwater is also used for animal products (for the plants needed to feed them). For comparison, a kilogram of beef needs 15,400 liters of water while plants need 300 liters a kilogram. 

There are many ways we could help such as sacrificing certain foods aka becoming a vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, etc. But these, especially vegans, have a well known bad reputation. There are extreme vegans who bash on non-vegans, force people to go vegan, or do inhumane things to "show what animals go through." 

This bad rep has essentially become a "meme" on the internet and causes people to not want to become vegan since they don't want to be made fun of. But making that sacrifice would do so much good for our planet. Even just becoming a flexitarian (not completely shunning out animal products, but majority of the diet is vegan) would make a huge impact.