What do you think is the single best thing a person can do for the environment?

Question

A friend working for an environmental agency told that they believe the single best thing a person can do is to become vegetarian. What do you think about this and what is your best "green" tip?

Answer 1

Stop living.

You can be veggie, vegan or whatever, but each human being, in whatever part of the world they live, is using energy to cook, to eat and as heating. Let alone the use of clothing and any other consumer items you might think of. Each of which will consume resources and generate carbon dioxide.

Answer 2

Go back to the world before industrial revolution... just like living the way of Amish (no machines at home- whatsoever)... if every individual takes that living independently, it'll solve atleast a quater of the world's problem in less than 5 yrs.

Ofcourse, we have to have the central heating or airconditioning system, but we can do all we can, to go back to that kind of basic healthy living reducing the everyday trash...

To die or to commit sucide is like escaping the pressure, showing that we are afraid of facing our problem. That should not be an option. We'll ultimately die even if we don't do anything - why create shame on our parents, who shared their own blood and flesh for us to live, and on God who made us breathe.

Answer 3

I would say walk whenever you can, use a bike have a small car. The more veg I eat the more greenhouses I emit, honestly  I try to eat lots of fruit and veg, but not when I have to go into company, I feel I am giving off as much gas as any cow, certainly over the year or so it would take me to consume one.

Answer 4

Save paper,

using both sides of the loo paper, instead of just one, will immediately halve the amount used overnight.

Answer 5

Abstain from bringing any more people into an overcrowded world.  Population levels have multiplied things to crisis level which used to be easily absorbed.

Answer 6

I gave up driving. Walk to the store if I need supplies like salt. I grow my own food and food for my animals (except salt). My surplus food feeds many other people in my community, with whom I sell or barter my surplus. I make cheese from my goats and milk cows who produce more milk than their babies can drink. They eat grass from an area that is not suitible for cultivation... it is too rocky, and grass harvested from my lawn. I collect their manure, compost it (15 to 20 cubic yards per year) along with my garden refuse and use it to fertilize my gardens. I use no chemical ferterlizers, or insectisides what ever. I bag and sell the compost I do not use. I eat eggs from my chickens that free range for their feed. I have a wind mill for pumping water, I pump water from a pond up to my gardens from whence it flows back to the pond, after purculating through a series of marshy areas that filter it and also serve as home to many native song birds, rabbits, racoons, skunks and which grows wild food berriers of all sorts. I grow fish and ducks in the pond, which is also home to over a hundred wild geese, and serves as a watering hole for deer, mountain lions, coyotes, falcons, hawks and other wild game animals (even an occasional otter). I propagate, and cultivate, all sorts of native plants as well as fruit trees, berry bushes, and vegitable plants and sell them to people in my local community and encourage them to plant them. Twice a month I host plant sales, and produce sales on my property, where the people in my community can bring their extra plants,  fruit, and vegitables and sell or exchange them with others. I teach organic gardening, cheese making, soapmaking, and canning, as well as herbal medicine and wild food crafting... . I go to bed early, have no TV, use very little electricity, which is augmented by solar panels feeding back into the grid.   All on a small acreage. In short: I in live in harmony with nature by obeying nature and her rules. Living in harmony with nature, is the single most important thing a person can "do" for the environment.

Answer 7

I don't think eating more earth products would help reduce what the animals eat or change the fact that meat industries will continue their trade. We're all in this together, I think our waste needs to get under control, do we really need so much packaging to our stuff? Recycle, that's my answer.

Answer 8

Is it "cheating" if I say, "Live beneath your means"?  It's just "one thing," but it encompasses almost everything.

Americans especially live at or even go into debt to live above their means. Skipping the steak is just part of it.  Buy a house that suits your needs, but is not "everything you can afford to make payments on."  A larger house doesn't mean a better life.  It does ensure larger heating and cooling bills and the  associated impact on the environment, and more effort and material to maintain it. Unless you need to haul a horse trailer a couple of times a week, you could rent a pick-up when you need it, and save the gasoline the other 98% of the time when you don't.  Just because you can make payments on a Hummer doesn't mean you actually need one to get from point a to point b.  Buying used when practical is not only less expensive, but it keeps things out of the landfill, and conserves the materials that go into new.  Not only that, but antiques have a charm of their own, and "vintage" is often more sturdy than new.  Just because you can "afford" to run the air conditioner all spring doesn't mean that you have to.  In a dry climate, just open a window in evening, and leave it open until 10 or 11 AM, and you've reduced the need for "climate control."

One tip, one life choice, but many many positive  impacts.

Answer 9

Going vegetarian IS probably the best thing for the environment, along with going organic!

Eating vegetarian (vegan even better) uses SIGNIFIGANTLY LESS resources than a meat based diet. It takes something like 20 lbs of grain and 30 gallons of water to produce around 1 pound of meat. That animal also needs a certain amount of space to roam (or are shoved in cruel factory farms where theyre abused...) and then anti-biotics are fed to them, as well harming your health, and billions of acres of land are used (around 90% of the United States farmland) is for growing grains/food for animals to produce meat.

Along with that need for that acreage of plants is the gas/diesal/petroleum used to run the machines used to farm these crops. Then theres the methane.....making global warming even worse....and the runoff from the pesticides used to keep the crops bug free.......

and on and on and on...

In fact...the animal agribusiness industry uses the MOSt petroleum products of ANY industry in the world......causing the MOST pollution! So...by simply going vegetarian, you are using up less resources/land/water/less pesticides and are responsible for less methane, and other toxic emissions.

Not to mention...its more PEACEFUL!

Going organic as well..is VERY important, and I think should be practiced by every vegetarian, within reason, and eating as locally as possible, for the seasons.

Answer 10

Assemble in protest, petition, and write your elected officals to bring forth change. You'd be amazed what are reps will do under a little pressure and when their job is at stake.

Answer 11

Recycle and conserve.  I am not 100% happy with the efforts I make to save the environment but I do recycle and carpool so I feel I am at least making and effort.

Answer 12

Look All these answer are correct. Everyone is right. Recycling more and reducing our waste, Vegan Diet or Vegetarian (the first most important step) Reducing fuel consumption and relying on petroleum products, Stop deforrestation, Clean our waters and land. Stop using pesticides, going organic. Stop consuming so much.

There is an endless list but VEGETARIAN DIET, GOING VEGAN are the best for your health, for your world and for all living creatures that we eat.

Answer 13

only buy products in glass containers this will increase jobs in the glassmaking industries and will make it easier to recycle, also bring your own bag when shopping to reduce the amount of plastic bags used. another thing you could do is to drive as little as possible, walk around take a strole don't feel as though your life is so important that you have to rush around

Answer 14

The single best thing the averaje Joe / Jane can do is to pick up 20 pieces of garbage a day each.  That, and walk on short trips to the store rather than taking the car.

Answer 15

Our existence could be the worst thing for the environment. Our fight  to save our environment is like, our fight to prevent terrorism, our fight in attaining peace and order amongst us, our fight for hunger, our fight to live healthy and fit, our fight to improve our well being and our fight to discover our full potential as human being. As long as we still are trying to question and fathom the very meaning of our corporeal existence, there will always be an unending answer to this very question. I am sure there will be more. We humans will just realize that we are after all a part of of this very environment that would somehow evolved with the consequences taking place within it. It's unstoppable. If ever one wants to stop it or change it, they are just there to basically contribute the the evolution of our environment. It will evolve and it will change somehow, with or without us.

Answer 16

Short Term:

The best short term thing that we can do for the environment is to conserve energy that we use. Most Americans pay no attention to the energy they consume, and could statistically reduce that energy consumption to more then half with very little effort.

Answer 17

Being Vegan is the best, next becoming Vegetarian, then reducing your meat consumption, particularly intensively factory farmed meats such as beef.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWNLvgU4...

My best green tip is:

Learn as much as you can about Permaculture (see my profile for links) and Deep Ecology.

Answer 18

Going veg is up there. Right up at the top of the list of things you can do to make a huge positive impact on the environment.

Other big ones would be to get rid of your car, and live in a place  where biking, walking, and public transit are options.

Also buying local is huge.

Not flying would be big.

And finally, removing yourself from the mindset of materialism and consumerism that are so predominant in Western culture. After all, "Love is not about the profits, nor the riches in your dreams."

Answer 19

Since a U.N. study determined that raising cattle produces more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation COMBINED, yes, the best thing you can do for the environment is to not eat meat.

My best "green" tip?  Buy secondhand.  Goodwill has cool T-shirts.

Answer 20

There are many things people can do for the environment. Such as recycling, Volunteering for cleanup, and much more. But if you want to make any difference at all you must be educated on the subject( the environment ) it is the root of understanding what the problems are and how to fix them.

Answer 21

vegetarian is pretty close to the top, but i think that the ultimate single thing that a person can do to save the environment is to commit suicide. that's one less person who emits CO2, one less person who polutes the air and waters..... it's sad but true.

Answer 22

Contraception first then becoming Vegan. Best green tip is Browse Permaculture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permacultur...

Answer 23

Oh I'm sooooo going to h**l for this...

According to the Oprah Winfrey show, CNN, treehugger.com, Long Island Power Authority, and The Green Campus initiative program of The University of Davis, California, the best, easiest, and most effective thing you can do is purchase and use a Smart Strip Power Strip.

It is a surge protector with a 'Control Outlet,' and a series of 'switched outlets, and also a few that are 'always hot.'

Anyway, you plug, say, your computer into the control outlet, and all your peripherals (monitor, speakers, lamp, printer, yadda yadda) into the switched outlets.  The switched outlets get NO POWER (eliminating standby current, completely) until the device in the control outlet is switched on.  The strip detects the change in power draw, and supplies power to the switched outlets.

Depending on how you set the sensitivity, when your computer goes to standby or shuts off, the strip detects the change in power draw through the control outlet, and shuts down power to the switched outlets.

Energy Star did a study and said that if every home and office computer setup utilized a Smart Strip in tandem with standby/sleep mode, the drop in standby power consumption equals knocking down 12, yes, I said 12 power stations!

The Smart Strip's sensitivity is adjustable, so it works well with home entertainment centers, shop setups and machinery, really any application where you have appliances drawing idle or standby current, and one appliance that the use of the others will depend on.

Any electronic appliance that has a standby light is drawing power when it isn't on!  Usually, they draw AT LEAST HALF of their maximum operating current when you aren't using the d**n thing!

Why burn electricity nobody needs to create?  Electric production is based on  peak and average loads.  Reduce your full time load, and the power company can reduce the amount of power they must supply all the time.  And the darn thing pays for itself in three months, in electric savings.

The single BEST thing you could do is drop out of modern society and join a commune, environmentally speaking.  Or, have your whole house converted to solar powered, electrolysis-created hydrogen, but both measures require are extreme or expensive.

Answer 24

how exactly is becoming a vegetarian suppose to help the environment? That is ridiculous... animals were put on this planet to eat, evidence? Look at the food chain... most animals thrive off the killing and eating of other animals. And if everyone in the world did go vegetarian there wouldn't be near enough land to support the demands of farming and the animal's population  we didn't eat would continue to grow and over populate taking up more space and wasting grain and other food for their useless existence.

Answer 25

I can't seem to find the better effect of becoming a vegetarian than eating meat in saving the environment. What's best is to love it by planting trees and in places where reforestation is not possible, it's best not to contribute to carbon dioxide emission by not burning garbage among other things or avoiding the use of  fossil fuel.

Answer 26

It's been said for years, and now more recently than ever, that it's a scientifically proven FACT if everyone in the world, changed just 1 lightbulb in their house to the energy efficient ones you find at the store for a mere .50 cents more then we would save 17 YEARS worth of energy.

Also, last month in sadly, only a few cities worldwide...they had a voluntary blackout, shutting off all the buildings lights only, in the government buildings for 1 hour (of course this is after hours when the buildings were not being used) and that handful of cities who participated saved more than 1 Year worth of energy... all from shutting off lights that are left on, just to make buildings look nicer and such from the exterior.

The single BEST thing to do could be so many things, but the single easiest and quickest way to help, would be for EVERYONE to get just 1 energy efficient lightbulb.

It seems so simple... but people want that extra .50 cents I guess.

The less energy we use, the less money our power bill is as well... some people don't stop and realize it will save them money too.

Answer 27

Becoming a vegetarian will not necessarily help the environment, it may help your conscience about the state of the planet but remember most vegetable are still grown using chemical fertilisers and these types of fertiliser are detrimental to the soil and the waterways.

Your best bet if your really concerned is to become involved in a local group which can put pressure on your local authority or even Government to take responsibility for there own back yard and stop trying to fob it of onto the shoulders of the developing countries. We do not need your carbon points.

Answer 28

Recycle. Paper. Plastic. Glass. Clothes. Tires. Water. Pretty much everything can be recycled. Heck, about a week ago I saw a bookmark that looked like paper that was made from elephant p**p!!

Recycle everything you can, people!!!

Answer 29

Becoming a vegetarian is helpful towards animals, obviously, but as for the environment, well if everyone stopped eating meat we would soon run out of grass. lol.

In my opinion, the best thing one person can do for the environment is to get through to just one person that we need to protect our planet and its wildlife not destroy it.

If we all got through to just one person it would make a massive difference.

Answer 30

We all ppl shld losse the show off we do, thats the worst thing i have a bigger car than urs , makeup , everysingel thing, if we try use wat is imp in life we will save hundred times the things we need today its all materialistic and we shld give it up and live simply tats all i can say

Answer 31

Reduce/Eliminate plastic use in your own environment.  Might be impossible to eliminate......but why do we use plastic, which almost lasts FOREVER, for items that we use for a few minutes (plastic water bottles, for example)??  Use plastic for things that LAST rather than disposable.  Recycle!!