If you believe that the climate crisis is real, then take charge of your beliefs, and don’t let UCSB act like it isn’t real! 

I spoke to the dining halls on campus about reducing (not eliminating) beef because raising cattle makes up the majority of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions (10% of US emissions), takes up almost half of land in the U.S., uses 83% of the plants and feeds grown in the US, using unbelievable amounts of water.

The dining halls responded to this with the belief that you should have to make the decision whether or not to eat beef with that information. Isn’t that weird? They claim that they know the information is true, but want to let you make the decision. In my experience, its significantly more difficult to take education seriously when my reality doesn’t line up with it. If DLG makes a delicious looking "Beef Birria taco", I assume that the education I am receiving about the negative impacts of beef must not be that serious.

They are that serious.

Let’s tell the dining hall that we want them to take us students and our education seriously! Otherwise, what is the point of doing research at all? Simply having chicken sandwiches every other day instead of burgers would prevent between 1.3 to over 2 million kg of CO2 from being released into our atmosphere in a school year. Let's benefit protein, plant, and animal lovers, and help UCSB's be a leader in mitigating the climate crisis!

Works Cited (Not in text for easy reading) 

“Chamberlin Beef - Regenerative Agriculture.” n.d. CHAMBERLIN BEEF. Accessed February 21, 2025. https://www.chamberlinbeef.com

Herrero, Mario, Benjamin Henderson, Petr Havlík, Philip K. Thornton, Richard T. Conant, Pete Smith, Stefan Wirsenius, et al. 2016. “Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Potentials in the Livestock Sector.” Nature Climate Change 6 (5): 452–61. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2925

Nuñez, Emily. 2021. “Wild Seafood Has a Lower Carbon Footprint than Red Meat, Cheese, and Chicken, According to Latest Data.” Oceana. September 16, 2021. https://oceana.org/blog/wild-seafood-has-lower-carbon-footprint-red-meat-cheese-and-chicken-according-latest-data/

“Publication : USDA ARS.” n.d. Accessed February 21, 2025. https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=402563

“Renewable Energy.” n.d. Hearst Ranch Beef (blog). Accessed February 21, 2025. https://www.hearstranch.com/renewable-energy/