As a Brooklyn green contractor we are always looking for ways to save resources. The key ones are water, electricity, and raw materials. We don’t mind using up human energy. It’s good exercise and pretty much limitless.
But when you hear facts like the ones in the video below you realize how important it is to focus on the right places when saving energy.
Did you know that if you are a vegan you can leave your shower on all day for the entire year and still use less water than a meat eater would use up when you consider all the water needed to raise the meat?
That is a sobering thought. Here we are trying to save a couple thousand gallons each year per green brownstone through efficient toilets, gray water systems and green roofs. Yet it is just a drop in the bucket compared to how much water is used globally to support a household of meat eaters.
We bend over backwards to use non-toxic materials when renovating a brownstone. We use green paint stripper, natural oils for the floors, hypo allergenic compound to seal the drywall, milk paint for the walls, and non-voc cabinets.
Then a meat eating family moves in who will cause ten times more toxic and ecological damage by eating meat from animals that contaminate the rivers and oceans through waste and graze on clear cut land that was once lush forests.
I am not a vegan. I tried it for a year and either because I did not know how to eat well or because it did not suit me I felt like I was wasting away. Meat is a very easy way to make me feel strong and healthy. But what if I’m just ignorant? What if the proper vegan diet actually made me healthier? Carl Lewis is among the long list of successful vegan athletes.
As somebody who’s job as a green builder is to constantly seek smarter ways to restore the environment the benefits of a vegan diet on the world are in my opinion too powerful not to consider seriously. At the very least being a vegetarian. And this doesn’t even touch on the moral obligations of stopping the slaughter and abuse of fellow living creatures.
Check this video out. It’s a very positive, enlightening and informative video. They speak in the same language as many of the posts on this web site.
I got the video from the site www.veganvideo.org