• VVOC.org

  • A Resource For Vegan And Vegetarian Orthodox Christians

Sustainable Living

What does “Sustainable Living” mean? Wikipedia describes it in this way: Sustainable living refers to a specific lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individual’s or society’s use of the Earth’s natural resources. Practitioners of sustainable living often attempt to reduce their carbon footprints by altering methods of transportation, energy consumption and diet. Proponents of sustainable and ecological living aim to conduct their lives in manners that are consistent with , in natural balance and respectful of humanity’s symbiotic relationship with the Earth’s natural ecology and cycles. The practice and general philosophy of ecological living is highly interrelated with the overall principles of sustainable development. By minimizing their “ecological footprints” — the extent to which they create an environmental impact — proponents of ecological living hope to preserve the Earth for future generations of human beings and other life. So diet choice: How can it make a difference? Steven Boyan puts it very nicely (kindly taken from www.earthsave.org/environment/foodchoices.htm): By not eating beef – and other farm animals as well – you:

  • save massive amounts of water – 3 000 to 5 000 gallons of water for every pound of beef you avoid (that equals as much as 20 000 litres of water per kilogram of beef),
  • avoid polluting our streams and rivers better than any other single recycling effort you do,
  • avoid the destruction of topsoil,
  • avoid the destruction of tropical forest,
  • avoid the production of carbon dioxide. (Your average car produces 3 kg/day of CO2. To clear rainforest to produce beef for one hamburger produces 75 kg of CO2. Eating one kilogram of minced meat does the same damage as driving your car for more than 6 weeks),
  • reduce the amount of methane gas produced. (I imagine the next bumper sticker: stop farts, don’t eat beef),
  • reduce the destruction of wildlife habitat, and
  • help to save endangered species