Can “Meatless Mondays” Really Help With Climate Change?
Happy Monday!
Now, I know that’s a saying you don’t hear very often. It’s no secret - most people dread Mondays. They’re known for being the start of a long work or school week ahead, the furthest weekday away from the cherished weekend full of leisure, relaxation, and flexibility. Unless a holiday falls on a Monday, there aren’t many positive attributes to this melancholy first day of the week. But I’m here to tell you about one simple routine you can get in the habit of to make your Mondays more meaningful, turning the mundane energy of the start of your week into something that excites you to make an impact on the world for the greater good.
You may have heard of the concept of “Meatless Mondays” before, but what you may not be aware if is just how much of a difference it can make for your carbon footprint. Started in 2003 by Sid Lerner (Founder of the Monday Campaigns) in association with the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, “Meatless Mondays” is a movement with the simple message to “skip meat once a week.” The campaign itself offers free resources for people looking to practice Meatless Mondays, including how-to guides, recipes, and marketing materials so they can help spread the word to friends and family. All of this information can be found on the Monday Campaigns website at https://www.mondaycampaigns.org/meatless-monday/about
By avoiding meat for one day a week, not only are you prioritizing nutritious fruits and veggies which will help you feel better overall, but you will be significantly helping our environment as a whole. Excluding meat from your diet on just one day a week will help reduce the nation’s demand, which notably releases an alarming amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Mass farming animals for meat like cows and sheep require deforestation, energy use, and produce significant methane emissions through the animals’ digestion process that contribute to the release of harmful greenhouse gasses in the environment. The less meat you consume weekly, the more you can contribute to keeping our earth healthier. It all starts with one meal at a time, making Meatless Mondays the perfect habit to adopt to do your part.
I’m not telling you to become a vegan. (This is LA after all, and I’m sure plenty of your other friends and neighbors try to convince you of that every day already.) However, there are clear benefits to cutting out meat just once a week that simultaneously include massive nutritional and environmental benefits. It may seem small – but just think: when 8 billion people ask themselves “I’m just one person, what can I do?” nothing will ever get done to save our planet from the harmful methods we employ daily. You can make a difference, one meatless meal at a time.
To learn more about the movement, check out this video below:
