Dear wally #45 To Meat Or Not

Dear Wally
Is it better to be a vegetarian or is it better to be a meat eater? I’m a hardcore vegetarian but am beginning to wonder…
-Anonymous
Dear A:
If you love your Uncle Leo, and want him not to die, you’ll kick your selfish vegetarian habit to the curb and grab a juicy burger. Here’s why: When cows fart (sorry there’s no delicate way to state this stark bodily functioning) they release the greenhouse gas methane (CH4). And lots of it. (I grew up on a farm and followed one such cow around with a Ziplock bag for a week long science project in 6th grade, so trust me, I know). A typical 2,000 lb cow makes a 7,000lb GM Hummer H3 look like a 1,000 lb Prius, even though the 1,000 lb Prius kinda looks like a 2,000 lb cow. (And, as an aside, my 4,000 lb Honda Element looks like a 5,000 lb pot belly pig).
Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources.
Thus, if you eat a cow, you will be doing your part to reduce the methane emissions because if the cow is sideways on your plate with a order of fries, it won’t be walking around flatulating (and looking cute) (and ruining our earth). Conversely, if you don’t eat meat, uncontrollable amounts of methane will take over the atmosphere and cook all humanity.
But not before we drown.
The polar caps will continue to melt. As they do, the ocean sea level will increase to levels incompatible with human life. Never mind all the money we’ll have to spend to replace the signs along the road that say, for example, “elevation 300’ above sea level.” Never mind all the hip waders we’ll have to buy from Orvis. Never mind all of humanity clinging to the lonely windswept top of Mt Everest (which will probably be a beachy Club Med at that point).
Uncle Leo’s condo in Miami Beach will be under water and he doesn’t know how to swim. You are, in effect, sentencing Leo to death-by-drowning by not eating meat. (However on the bright side, with water covering 98% of the earth, I’ll probably be able to finally sell my 13’ boat).
To add insult to injury, by eating all those fresh leafy greens that you pick up at Davenport’s Farm market, you are effectively wiping out nature’s cleanest carbon scrubbin’ system as plants absorb atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis. So being a vegetarian is a double eye-poke whammy, environmentally speaking. More unrestricted methane from the cows and less plant ability to bind it in an inert, harmless state (because YOU ate all the broccoli). It’s a bad formula for humanity and recklessly selfish. And I’m not even talking about home-wrecking methane levels present after you eat the broccoli…
I’m sorry if this sounds strident. Global warming is too serious to not take seriously. And Uncle Leo still has a few good years in him despite his constant nagging.
Vegetarians will try to talk up the humane angle. They will tell you how ‘meat is murder’. Their scope is small, however. They are focused on one animal at a time which, while noble, is still myopic. You are focused on the entire universe and you may well politely remind them that in addition to Uncle Leo not knowing how to swim, the cows they purport to care about, ( the very same ones they are trying to ‘save’) are equally bad at swimming. So by hamburgering, you are just doing what has to be done to save them as well. Jees…
Look, it’s not always easy doing the right thing. And as the old expression goes, it’s the frontiersmen who get shot in the back with arrows. Try thinking of those ‘arrows’ as kabob-style grill skewers instead, and sally forth with a big bottle of BBQ sauce in hand (and juicy burger in the other). Feel good about it, too!
If you are having trouble making the switch back from, ummm, raw cabbage to meat, consider the taunting olfactorial effects of bacon. I have found that bacon is a gateway drug. Even the most formidable vegetarian can not, in the late night sanctuary of peerless solitude, resist the narcotic lure of wafting bacon. Start with the Facon’ Bacon (available in most stores’ embarrassingly tiny organic section) then ease on over to the real bacon aisle and from there it’s an easy step to the burger department and by extension, mankind’s salvation.
Good eating! (and thank you from me, the world and Uncle Leo)

- Wally
(Admission: I myself am one of those selfish, mostly-vegetarians. N.B. --The guy who looks just like me and who occasionally shows up at Red Lobster when his wife isn’t looking is a hypocritical imposter who should know butter.)

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