According to this fact ''An American saves more global warming pollution by going vegan than by switching their car to a hybrid Prius''. So, would you go vegan?

IF that is a fact, still no.
Going vegan is a MUCH more active switch than just buying a different car.
Cars are, essentially, all the same.
Living a lifestyle without meat, or other animal products, is quite different.

Where is this information from? Global warming is the product of too much use of fossil fuels.

Information

If this is hypothetical. Would I go vegan to help stop global warming? I cannot say for sure. I would, and absolutely do, whatever else in my power to play a part in helping the environment as a whole including stopping global warming. However our family are meat-eaters by culture and it would be more than just physically difficult for us to stop eating animal products. Although I’d jump on the bandwagon if it meant simply to stop eating commercial animal products. I can go for that and in fact we are trying to do just that as much as possible.

Edit to answer question: The best way to start is to talk with a few vegans themselves. If you don’t know anyone then go to natural foods stores and someone there is likely to be a vegan and able to help you out. I find people are pretty open about talking about their diet.

Stop eating meat is the first step. And then stop buying leather goods. And finally, get a good book on being vegan and read it to see where to start making changes. This one is very cost effective, and this one is precisely what you need (and will be published December 2009).

This is true in that the meat industry is what creates a huge portion of the pollution (and thus is responsible for a lot of the climate change) we’re dealing with. If humans could stop farming animals for meat, it would make an enormous positive impact – far more so than us all switching to hybrid cars, which still do pollute.

I wish I had the self-control to go vegan. I’ve cut a lot of meat out of my diet, and I pretty much never purchase meat at the grocery store anymore, but I have an inexplicably impossible time letting go of dairy and eggs.

No, but I ride a bicycle or skateboard around town, which I imagine trumps the diet.

I’ve more or less restricted my diet to fish, but as a food lover, I would never limit myself to a vegan diet. There is way too much great food, worldwide, that I would lose out on.

I was actually a vegan chef in Brooklyn for a stint. I’ve had and can make some great vegan dishes, but they ultimately get boring after a while, at least for me.

I have heard the argument that certain methods of meat raising and consumption are very inefficient and strenuous on the earth. This means that one should not consume a lot of meat unless they were sure the source was a good one. This makes a lot of sense. But what harm does leather do? or milk or eggs for that matter? I don’t see being an actual vegan as being that much healthier for the world.

I love (love) cheese. I could probably go without beef but I need chicken. I’m 32 and have only driven a few times so I think I am probably good in the carbon footprint thing.

Factory farming is actually worse for the environment than driving cars:

“Using a methodology that considers the entire commodity chain, [the UN] estimates that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport.” From the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

I think the quote has a flawed premise, though. Driving a Prius accomplishes basically nothing in terms of helping the environment. It has minimal fuel savings and a massive energetic investment to produce.

What if you just stop using a car and switch to public transportation, a bike, or at the very least, car-pooling?

@2late2be, I find the best way to change my diet is by making small changes that are easy to stick with. One way to do this would be to find a meat analogue that you think is tasty (i.e. tvp or seitan). Or you could simply reduce the amount of meat in your diet. (How much are meat/dairy/animal products part of your diet now?)

I find that going veggie or vegan is about making changes that you can live with.

I believe @nikipedia and suggest you start a garden and start composting!

(Homegrown veggies and fruits are often much tastier than storebought anyway.)

Find a CSA to be part of as a way to introduce more fruits and veggies to your diet with less impact.

I just found a couple links as well after @nikipedia gave me the term “factory farming”.

Link 1

Link 2

However this doesn’t mean we need to be vegans. It means we need to stop factory farming. There are other ways to consume meat and dairy products without support this practice.

nope, nope, nope. I’ll keep eating meat until they have to pry the fried chicken wings and medium rare steak out of my cold dead fingers. I don’t buy my meat from factory farmers, and the fast food places are the ones buying their meat from the factory farms. McDonalds’ is the world largest purchaser of cow eyeballs; guess where that cheap cut of meat ends up? Are you still lovin’ it?

I would say my carbon footprint is pretty damn small compared to the other people my age who have produced offspring, and those people now have offspring of their own. You want to reduce your carbon footprint? Do what I did and don’t have kids. Save resources for the rest of us. If you really need kids that bad; adopt, there are plenty of unloved kids out there waiting for the right parent to come along.

Sure, my opinions don’t make me popular, but popularity is over-rated.

When I lived in Eugene we had a bunch of chickens in the backyard that became dinner. Not much was spent on transporting them. They grow really fast and preferred to eat worms and bugs before the food we put out for them.

And we would buy a side of beef from a local butcher. Grass fed and only shipped 20 miles. It only cost a little bit more.

@Psychedelic_Zebra not to be a douche but FYI

no, seeing that the prius isn’t that economical.
lot of clean diesel cars get better fuel economy than the prius.

@jaketheripper thanks for the correction, now I can put that particular rumor to bed forever. if you were being a douche, you’d have called me a foul name and ridiculed me. Been there, done that with someone else on here, not looking forward to doing that again. =)

Global warming is a bullshit cover story to impose a new globalized system of taxation and mask the military’s ability to influence and control the weather.

Not a chance. I like to be healthy and I have never seen a long term vegan who is truly healthy. They like to argue that they are but I have seen one consistent issue – their ability to recover from wounds without infection is very low. I have spent a lot of my life in the tropics and known a lot of vegans and they are invariably prone to Tropical Ulcers that won’t heal – to the extent that if you see many medical practitioners in the Coral Sea area with a bad ulcer the first question asked is “Are you vegetarian or vegan?” Human beings are omnivore, we need protein from both animal and vegetable sources. Very few top athletes are vegan, and those that are require enormous protein supplementation. They don’t have the endurance, and their muscles don’t recover as quickly after exercise.

@DarkScribe – While a vegan diet incorrectly formulated may not be the best for long-term health, perhaps other aspects of the vegan lifestyle would help us leave lighter footprints on the Earth.

Being a vegan means avoiding the use of animal products in any way, not just as food. From Wikipedia:

“The term “animal product” in a vegan context refers to any material derived from animals for human use. Notable animal products include meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products, honey, fur, leather, wool, and silk. Common animal by-products include gelatin, lanolin, rennet, whey, casein, beeswax, isinglass, and shellac.” Note: there are two types of isinglass. One is the mineral mica, and the other is made from fish gelatin.

So by avoiding wearing fur and leather, for example, you are still practicing aspects of the vegan lifestyle. Or by avoiding consuming meat but still consuming dairy products and unfertilized eggs you would be approaching aspects of a vegan lifestyle.

@Darwin Or by avoiding consuming meat but still consuming dairy products and unfertilized eggs you would be approaching aspects of a vegan lifestyle.

While I respect the right of yourself and others to live in any way that you wish, I am not remotely interested in a vegan lifestyle. I support humane treatment of livestock, and I see absolutely no point in not using leather from animals slaughtered for meat. I will continue to wear leather boots and shoes and hold my trousers up with leather belts.

There are some animals that I won’t consider eating – simply because I like them. Others because I don’t like the taste – lamb for instance. But I try to be healthy and my body was designed to use some animal protein in my diet. In the seventies I tried the vegan lifestyle for about eight months and I was constantly tired, lacking energy and didn’t heal quickly from small injuries. As soon as I went back to a “normal” diet I was fine. I do not eat much red meat, mostly seafood and chicken, but I do eat some. My diet is primarily vegetarian with a small amount of meat protein added. I eat eggs and dairy products – not milk – but a lot of yoghurt and cheese. I am pretty healthy – particularly for my age.
I have no wish to change.

@DarkScribe – No one is asking you to change. I am simply pointing out that there are degrees of adopting vegan principles that can exclude dietary changes. I do eat meat, but I prefer to buy meat that comes from free-range, antibiotic-free, and grass-fed animals. However, I don’t wear fur as most animals raised for fur are not also raised to be eaten, so boycotting fur may have some slight effect on the use of animals for that purpose alone.

While the American Vegan Society may not consider me fit for membership, I do try to modify my habits in ways that make sense ecologically.

No, I like meat and honey and eggs and cheese

@Darwin _I don’t wear fur as most animals _

Nor do I, but not so much a matter of principle as it is because I would look damn silly in it.

(I have never liked fur – not really sure why.)

@DarkScribe – I would look damn silly in it.

Maybe you would, but perhaps if you moved to Anchorage or Fargo or Novosibirsk or any one of a number of other Russian towns you might change your mind.

@Darwin if you moved to Anchorage or Fargo or Novosibirsk or any one of a number of other Russian towns you might change your mind.

I have lived in Canada and then I wore sheepskin. Very warm. I simply don’t like fur. Maybe because I like a number of furry animals.

I would treat fish and meat as an occasional luxury.

@DarkScribe I wore sheepskin

See? You did change your mind based on your environment.

This is an immensely hard question. Now please, understand my bias, I am a vegan. This question is way to black and white. The subject of veganism is an extremely personal one, since it has to do with people’s ethics. I have used the environmental aspect of veganism as one of it’s major merits.
I believe that it is the simple things that we do that really make the difference. If that means cutting meat twice a week, then more power to you. The ultimate goal can be veganism, but when we take little actions towards a bigger goal, it increases the success rate so much!

I am a vegan for many reasons and the impact of the factory farming and meat industries on the environment is only one of the reasons.