One Million Acts of Green - Canada's Environmental Movement Says Eat Meatless

Posted by Jill Harris Oct 22, 2008

With more than 30,000 “acts” registered in the first day, I’d say he's been pretty persuasive.

What is an Act of Green? It's a small change that people can make that will cut their contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change. It's easy to figure out what counts - there are about 75 acts listed and the opportunity to submit your own.

What does this have to do with Vegetarianism? Well buried under the "Everyday Acts" icon (there are separate act categories like home, transportation and community) are two pictures of food. Vegetables, to be exact.

Hold your mouse cursor over the first and it encourages you eat locally grown foods. The second states simply

Eat a Vegetarian Meal Once a Week.

Once a week ? That’s pretty simple. Most people eat 21 meals per week, which means that going meatless less than 5% of the time can make a difference.

But imagine if we doubled that, encouraging people to eat two vegetarian dinners per week. We’d be saving double the greenhouse gases. And if we expanded outside of Canada? Well then, that would spell big changes.

And the numbers are big - according to the Acts of Green site, eating one meatless meal per week saves about 10 kg of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the same as recycling an old cell phone, but only 1/10th the savings of installing a low-flow shower head.

The bottom line is that every act - and every meal - can make a difference. Here are some extra ideas to boost your greenhouse gas-saving powers:

• cook a vegetarian recipe for meat-eating friends or family
• cook an extra-big meatless meal and bring leftovers for lunch
• bring meatless snacks or dishes to a potluck meal
• read more about how your diet impacts the environment