Vegans For The Win?

In her article "Adopt A Lower Carbon Diet And Help Curb Further Global Climate Change" Heather Havey states that one of the key factors of global warming is our diet. She suggests that the corporations that run the food industry are neglectful of the environment, that agriculture and farming use too many resources and that we are living an unsustainable life filled with waste. Many of Havey's suggestions on improving this seem to be based towards a more sustainable lifestyle.
Havey first mentions the agricultural industry and corporations when she states "Our diet is one of the largest causes of green house gas emissions... estimates predict that one third of our green house gas emissions come from our food and agriculture industries." (Havey, 2009) Havey believes that the companies that run the food industry care more about growth and profit than the well being of the earth and its inhabitants. Havey says "...care for human and earth wellness falls second to the corporations own need for continual profit and growth.... the result of this competitive behavior and also, quite often, harmful choices that do not consider long-term health costs for people, animals, or the planet." (Havey, 2009) Havey suggests many very plausible solutions to the problem of corporate greed. Havey urges people to buy locally and not buy food that has been "imported from 1000's of miles away". She also suggests buying natural foods such as fruits and vegetables rather than packaged products to try and avoid the packaging factories and shipping implications.
Havey places a lot of the blame of climate change on the agricultural systems when she says things such as "...erosion or destruction of the soil... is the result of both the current methods of production but also often the inherent nature of required resources used to complete production process" (Havey, 2009) I don't believe this is entirely fair however, I believe it is unfair to assume that the agricultural system is insignificant. Havey suggests alternatives such as growing your own food or shopping locally at a farmers market. These seem like good suggestions in principle but prove quite impractical when you think on a larger scale. Not many people have access to gardens where they can grow their own food. The agricultural system is needed to assure that people who cant grow their own crops still have access to food and the demand is high. It is naive of Havey to prosecute the food industry for using large amounts of land and resources; after all, this industry is needed to feed large amounts of people. Perhaps a better alternative to the wastes of agriculture would be to try and develop new, more earth friendly methods of harvesting and farming rather than to remove many peoples access to vegetables and fruit completely.
Along with the inherent waste of land and resources that comes with farming and production, Havey also claims that the agricultural industry is intoxicating us all with pesticides and poison. Havey says "Conventional farming practices fill our landscape, our food and our bodies with toxic chemical residues." (Havey, 2009) Havey provides the example of studies that were done regarding breast milk. The article (NYT Magazine, January 9, 2005, "Toxic Breast Milk?" by Florence Williams) claims that some womens breast milk contained DDT (a banned pesticide which nearly wiped out the bald eagle, PCB's, dioxin, trichloroethylene, perchlorate, mercury, lead, benzene and arsenic. Havey claims that the practices which use pesticides are "transforming our bodies into toxic waste dumps" (Havey, 2009) This paints a grim picture of humanity's future.
The sustainable life is one which many people in todays society seem to have trouble obtaining. Havey touches on this aspect of life when she talks about the large amount of waste that people create every day. Havey says "Commercial restaurants throw away at least 54 billion pounds of food each year." (Havey, 2009) While the act of throwing food out does not, technically lead to global warming, it's consequences certainly do. The more waste there is means that more companies produce more products, only to be wasted again. This turns into a vicious cycle which many people find hard to resist. Havey suggests that the solution to waste is to simply compost our food and to not litter. This once again seems very naive to me. While it is depressing to think that recycling and composting are pointless, on the large scale, they both (composting especially) become very difficult. For example someone living in a city might not have access to a recycling facility or composting facility. Havey does make a good suggestion when she says to buy bulk foods and things such as fruits and vegetables to avoid the unnatural wastes such as plastic and metal.
Havey does provide solutions to the problems she brings forth, but I found her approach naive and I believe that many of her suggestions were not directly related to our diets but rather our life style. The problem of climate change, being a global one, cannot be fixed merely with a change in one person's life, nor a city's, nor a country's. We will only see change when the changes made are global. Havey provides solutions to the problems in a manner which I feel is naive and much too simple to be effective.

References
Havey, Heather (2009). Adopt a low carbon diet and help curb further global climate change. www.naturalnews.com, 31 July 2009. http://www.naturalnews.com/026737_food_carbon_heal th.html. Accessed 30 September 2009.