Check out this Washington Post article entitled Gut Check: The Meat of the Problem by Ezra Klein.
It discusses a 2006 United Nations report which finds that the production of meat is one of the worst sources of greenhouse gases, trumping even the global transport sector. It also says "a study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week."
While I am a biased vegetarian, I think the article (and the Carnegie Mellon study, which is readable by a layperson such as myself, although there are some econometrics that are above my head) is a fairly mild rebuke of meat eaters and meat production with the modest recommendation for people to cut back, not eliminate, their consumption of meat and dairy products.
So what do you carnivours think?
