When it comes to Global warming, being a vegetarian should be turned to as a first resort rather than going more toward the Prius, a car that has been made to cut vehicle emissions in half in an attempt to fight against global warming. Kathy Freston’s article “Vegetarian is the new Prius” caught my eye immediately when choosing an essay for the very fact that, I want Toyota Prius, and also because I’ve tried going vegetarian.
Although I see nothing wrong with being a vegetarian, the lifestyle just didn’t work for me. I do to a certain extent agree with her argument because ever since I took ecology in high school, the environment has been very important to me, and I do what I can to help preserve it. Freston wrote that President Herbert Hoover promised a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage”. She argued that with global warming being an issue, we shouldn’t be focused on the cars but more on the chickens.
As Freston notes, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius. She followed this statement up with a quote from the United Nations report on livestock that states “the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every scale from local to global”. This statement I feel was meant to scare her audience. Almost any person who reads that will automatically feel some sense of fear.
Saying things like “… what we’re seeing is just the beginning” strikes fear into the audience which is an excellent use of ethos. It is almost a hopeless feeling, because the reality of the situation is one person going vegetarian won’t help, it has to be almost everyone in order to have some control over global warming, which can ultimately push others to push everyone else to be vegetarians as well. The author also uses a logical approach when stating facts and percentages from the UN report.
For example, she states that “animal agriculture takes up 70% of all agricultural land and 30% of the total land surface of the planet”. She also states “almost a fifth of global warming emissions come from livestock…that’s more emissions then from all the worlds transportation combined”. Freston somewhat combined her logic with an emotional approach. Although, her argument is a good one it still makes me wonder, if it takes all this machinery to process meat, it would be elpful to know what machinery or products will people have to use to produce and grow a lot more vegetables and fruits?. My guess is that it would be somewhat the same. Also, without protein from meat, how healthy will the people in our world be while deprived of that natural protein that meat produces for our bodies, and what steps will we take to keep ourselves healthy without that protein?. I feel that more health facts would have been helpful in this argument.
Although Freston does not say in her work, it is obvious that she feels a certain way about being a vegetarian, not to mention the fact that she is a conscious Living counselor. Without even trying, it is easy to tell where she stands with this argument. The purpose of her writing this was to inform people that if they want to help with global warming, we may be taking the wrong steps to doing it and she wants to explain what she feels are the right steps to take.
She also offered resources in which people can get info on going vegetarian which is helpful. Her audience seems to be anyone who cares about the environment and perhaps anyone who may own a Prius. This wouldn’t work so well for those who are farmers and also for those who may eat and like meat. I feel that she is on the right track with her argument but health facts and maybe even a study of how healthy a body is with and without meat would be helpful so people can make a healthy decision for themselves.
Global warming is problem that needs to be solved I agree, but there are other steps and other things we can do to save our world besides depriving ourselves from eating meat. Works Cited Freston, Kathy. “Vegetarian is the New Prius”. ”Everything’s an argument”. Andrea A. Lunsford. John J. Ruszkiewicz. Keith Walters. Bedford/St. Martins. 2010. 800-803. Print.
