What did you have to eat on Monday? I hope it was tasty, green and animal friendly ;)

I'm happy to say that the people of San Francisco and Washington DC are being encouraged to eat green every Monday! The city councils of both these US cities have decided to beef up their environmental stance, by cutting out the cow (and chicken, and pig... you get the idea), and promoting Meat Free Mondays.

The problem is that most people don't realise that eating meat is about as green as hunting wildlife in an SUV! If you've watched Meat the Truth then you know that raising livestock produces more greenhouse gases than all the world's transport combined. Not to mention being a major contributor to species extinction, scarcity of water and all sorts of pollution. I mean, run off fertilisers and excrement from animal industries was killing plenty of wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico well before BP botched things up. (ever heard of a dead zone?)

So it's exciting to see cities encouraging their citizens to eat for a healthier planet every Monday. San Fran and Washington join the Baltimore school system, the original Hard Rock Cafe (in London) and the Belgian city of Ghent in promoting a meat free day once a week to save the planet. Sydney City Council also gave the campaign a plug last year (fingers crossed they'll join these others in officially adopting the initiative).

UPDATE: And now Cape Town has become the first African city to promote a meat-free day each week as well. Yay!

So, what are you gonna have for dinner on Monday? I think I might try this vegan shepherd's pie :)

It's time to whip out your Australian flag and chant 'Aussie Aussie Aussie!', cause we're number one! Actually... you might want to just sit on that flag when you hear this...

"Our region has the notorious distinction of having possibly the worst extinction record on earth," said Richard Kingsford, one of the authors of a new study on extinction. The study highlighted the fact that the earth is currently expreriencing its 6th greatest extinction, and guess what... Australia and the Pacific top the list of culprits.

According to the report, land clearing and overlogging are amonst the biggest threats to Aussie plants and animals. So who's cutting down all our trees? According to the UN the livestock industry is the number 1 cause of deforestation worldwide. When you connect the dots it's just obvious: eat less meat - save more planet!

And so on that note, it's time for another installment of "Spot the Difference"!

Meat and Livestock Australia have launched a new green-washing campaign to 'keep it real' and highlight the environmental contributions made by livestock producers. This campaign hopes to counter all these concerns about about deforestation, methane emissions (the livestock industry also produce 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions), and all that crap (Literally! - livestock produce 130 times the waste of the entire human population.).

The first image below is the ... ahem ... crap that MLA are trying to feed us. The second is the crap that they're polluting our land with.

Who wants to move to Belgium? I have to admit the thought crossed my mind when I heard that last month the Belgian city of Ghent declared Thursday a vegetarian day for the entire city!

In an effort to combat the impact of the livestock industry on global warming, the city has invited its 230,000 inhabitants to help the planet by eating green every Thursday. The city will be providing free veggie lunch snacks, vegetarian cooking classes and general info on healthy eating. And best of all they will be distributing 90,000 free veggie street maps to guide people to Ghent's vegetarian restaurants. Woo!

According to the UN the livestock industry is responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That's more than all the planes, trains and automobiles in the world combined! To me, that sounds like reason enough to join Ghent in making Thursday (and every other day) a vegetarian day.

If you think Ghent are on a winning idea you might want to write to your local council and suggest they follow Ghent's lead.

I think I've just found my new favourite cartoon! This brilliant illustration was sent to us by the insightful and very talented Donn Pattenden (thanks Donn!).

This is one issue that really stirs me up. The meat and dairy industries are huge water guzzlers. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that one glass of milk takes roughly 200 litres of water to produce. That's almost 3 days worth of showers! But that's nothing compared to the 100,000 litres of water that David Pimentel, a water resource specialist, says is required to produce just 1 kilo of beef!

In a country as dry as Australia, this sort of squandering of water just doesn't make sense. I live in Brisbane, where water shortages are a real threat (just like many of our other cities). We've been told to keep our domestic water usage below 140L of water per person per day...

I'm all for water conservation at home. In fact, we've just installed a new rain water tank :-) ... but when 70% of global water usage is for agriculture, it seems like what we eat and drink would be a smart place for us to start looking at how we can save water.