Philobiblon

I’ve kind of known I would take this step for a while, but the recent spurt of publicity about the carbon impacts of the meat industry (and reading Prashant Vaze’s The Economical Environmentalist) has finally driven me to a decision: I’m going to become an almost-vegetarian. Using the Guardian’s carbon output ready reckoner, I calculated that my annual carbon output is now about 10 tonnes, around two-thirds of that of the average Briton, but still more than we all need to get to soon.

I don’t drive except in France (and then no great distances, and I’m looking to cut that down), don’t fly, use little gas and electricity, have been trying hard to cut down on my usage of disposable plastic containers, so it is hard to see where I can make further cuts, except in diet.

So almost-vegetarian it is.

I can see the eyebrows: “Almost?”

There are three reasons for that: 1. I can’t eat gluten, and given that the vegetarian option in restaurants is often pasta, I will be left with no alternative. There will be times when making a fuss and demanding to go off-menu just won’t be practical. 2. If the point of this is cutting carbon, then the occasional fried rice (favourite comfort food), containing a tiny smattering of pork, shrimp and chicken (or similar dish), is going to have minimal impact. (And I’m certainly not going to fuss about a Thai dish containing a dash of fish sauce.) 3. I want to allow myself room to slip up occasionally and not then feel that I’ve failed (and yes, I am going to declare oysters “almost-vegetarian”. I only eat them three or four times a year, and I LIKE them.)

Ah, but I hear the purists cry, shouldn’t I be becoming an almost-vegan? Well, yes, on carbon grounds, but sorry, I just can’t do it. I can go without meat without too much difficulty, I think, but cheese, yoghurt, butter, no!

Maybe one day, but not now…

On the other side of the sceptics’ fence, you might say that individual action is irrelevant, that major societal and government action is the only thing that can deliver real cuts in emissions. True – but you’ve got to start somewhere, and through my work for the Green Party I’m working on that too.