There’s an old joke:
“How do you know if someone’s a vegan?”
“Oh, they’ll tell you.”
Well, it turns out early adopters of veganism were ahead of their time. Whatever your ethical considerations for not eating animal products, producing meat for human consumption produces a huge amount of avoidable greenhouse gases.
In the European Union, 86% of greenhouse gases from food production are from dairy, meat and eggs alone (source: ”The carbon footprint of EU diets: where do emissions come from?” at Our World In Data).
Beef is the biggest culprit. Per kilogram, it produces 10 times as many greenhouse gases than poultry like chicken or turkey (source: ”Environmental Impacts of Food Production” at Our World in Data).
So if you’re not ready to stop eating meat altogether, start with beef.
And if you’ve already stopped, tell someone about it (again). Better yet, organize Meatless Monday lunches with your coworkers, family or friends.