Question

1. Why do you think you think meat consumption has a higher ecological impact than plant consumption?
2. How does food packaging and the location of where food comes from having an ecological impact?
3. What type of housing do you think would have a lower ecological impact, a single-family home development on large lots or a condominium building of the same square footage of living space? Describe your reasoning. (no wrong answer, just add your reasoning)
4. If you were in charge of building a large condominium building, what are three things you could do to lower the ecological impact (besides adding solar panels)? (think materials, water, building practices, access to transportation, etc.)
5. Describe your quiz results? What is your Earth Overshoot Day and what does it mean? Why do you think you got the score you did? (No judgment here. My score is way too high.)
6. Describe one thing you could realistically commit to, starting today, to improve your impact. (For example, last year I committed to riding my bike to work one day a week. I mostly succeeded last summer and fall. This year, I am committing to reducing my meat consumption.)

Answer 1

Livestock production accounts for 83% of global farmland and produces 57% of the greenhouse gas emissions from food. Environmental effects that have been associated with meat production are pollution through fossil fuel usage, water and land consumption, animal methane, effluent waste. Water bodies are negatively affected by livestock grazing. This results in increased phosphates, nitrates, eutrophication and reduced dissolved oxygen and species diversity. These are the reasons why meat consumption has higher ecological impacts than plants consumption.