Five Things You Can Do on Earth Day to Fight Global Warming

No. 4: Give Up Hamburgers

Continuing our countdown to Earth Day, the next small step you can take to fight global warming is to give up hamburgers.

Notice once again we're not going for the whole enchilada (so to speak, and we mean cheese only!). You don't have to give up red meat, although hopefully that's down the line a bit. You don't have to become a veggie head or vegan, although eliminating all meat is a good goal to have.

Why do we pick on hamburgers? Because in the name of constant expansion, burger chains keep stripping more and more land for bigger and bigger corporate farms. You've heard of win-win? This is lose-lose. We lose trees and natural flora, which are our biggest aid against carbonization of the atmosphere. We pollute the terrain with huge holding ponds of animal waste, poisoning water supplies and fouling the air. We then burn untold fossil fuel getting the animals to market, processing them and shipping the meat to consumer points.

Finally, as anyone who saw the film "Supersize Me!" knows, we wind up slowly poisoning our bodies with hormonally injected, antibiotically tainted, red meat. Oh, and it puts those extra pounds on our waistlines as well. (For more reasons, check out Vegan Porn's entry at http://www.veganporn.com/1052278746.html.

Lose-lose-lose-lose-lose. So this week, when you get the urge to have a Big Mac or whatever, eat an apple or orange instead. If for nothing else, to help make Earth Day 2006 meaningful.

— Paul Andrews, GreenforGood

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