The way to make the world a better place, through your eating, is

Hear now the words of Tyler Cowen, spoken not with thunder, but with the calm voice of reason: “The way to make the world a better place, through your eating, is simply to eat a bit less meat. Local is sometimes good, sometimes bad. But even when it's good, its environmental impact is relatively small compared to other possible improvements.” This is not the call of a prophet demanding impossible sacrifice, but the counsel of one who sees clearly that even small steps, taken by many, can alter the course of the world.

The meaning of this teaching is plain yet profound. Many seek to change the world with sweeping gestures, imagining that only the grandest sacrifices matter. Yet Cowen points to a simple truth: to eat less meat is among the most powerful and practical ways for ordinary people to lessen their burden upon the earth. While much has been said of eating local, the true weight of our choices rests not in the miles food has traveled, but in the nature of the food itself. A single portion of beef carries with it the shadow of deforestation, the drain of water, and the fumes of greenhouse gases. To eat less is to lighten that shadow, to choose mercy not only for animals, but for the soil, the forests, and the generations to come.

Consider the story of the Dust Bowl in America during the 1930s. It was not distance that doomed the land, but misuse. Cattle overgrazed the plains, and farmers plowed too greedily, leaving the soil naked before the winds. The result was devastation—skies blackened with dust, families uprooted, crops withered. The lesson then, as Cowen reminds us now, is that the kind of food we produce and consume shapes the fate of the land far more than how far it travels. It is not the cart’s journey that destroys the earth, but the hunger it carries when untempered by wisdom.

So too, in our present age, we see rainforests felled for pasture, rivers poisoned by run-off, and the air itself thickened by methane rising from herds too vast for nature to bear. To eat local is a kindness, yet to eat less meat is a greater mercy. For while the cart that carries the apple leaves only a faint trace of smoke, the herd that feeds the appetite leaves scars upon the very fabric of the planet. Cowen’s teaching strips away illusion and points us toward the true fulcrum of change: not distance, but substance.

Mark this well, O listener: the path of wisdom is not always the path of extremes. One need not renounce all meat, nor retreat into monastic diet. To simply eat less is enough to begin. The power lies not in purity, but in numbers—in millions who choose moderation, whose collective choices reshape the demand, the markets, and the future of the earth. This is the hidden strength of small acts multiplied across nations.

Let this be the lesson: do not be deceived by gestures that feel noble but change little. Choose instead the acts that carry true weight. If you wish to heal the earth with your eating, take less from her bounty of beasts, and more from her grains, her fruits, her vegetables. Remember that local food is good when it strengthens community, but know that its effect upon the climate is but a drop compared to the river of change that flows from reducing meat.

Therefore, O child of tomorrow, walk with mindfulness in your eating. Do not scorn those who take great vows of vegetarianism, nor boast of your own purity. Instead, embrace the simple, steady path: eat less meat, and by so doing, lighten the earth’s burden. Teach others this wisdom, not with pride, but with patience, until moderation becomes the custom of the many. For in the end, it is not the distance of our food, but the nature of it, that will decide whether the earth remains fertile or falls into ruin.

Thus Tyler Cowen’s words become not only counsel, but commandment: to change the world, change the plate. And let every meal be not only nourishment for the body, but a quiet pledge of mercy to the earth. Eat less meat, and you will give more life.