Eat more plants - environment will like it

Every so often I post stuff like this and I'll continue to do so because the research keeps coming in and the arguments still stack up: if we're serious about our environmental footprints, then we should reduce or remove meat in our diet. This time it's from the New Scientist: "Livestock are responsible for nearly a fifth of all greenhouse emissions, from the methane produced by their guts and manure, to nitrous oxide emissions from the fertilisers used to grow feed for them. Because it takes several kilograms of plant matter to grow a kilogram of meat, producing meat and animal products such as cheese usually greatly multiplies the environmental damage done by farming. The huge amounts of land required are driving the destruction of rainforests, for instance. Even small reductions in consumption, such as making Mondays meat-free, could make a big difference."
To me the argument is simple and I don't eat meat. I find myself how much of a sore spot this is with some people I talk with (when they ask me why I don't eat meat: I don't go around making myself objectionable). It's like I've suggested they give up sex with their spouse or suggested they live on a 50p a day! "I like my meat too much"; come on folks: surely you like your grandchildren more; enough to try to save them from the second dark ages? Enough to hope that when you're old they won't be reproaching you for not doing more? "What did you do in the climate talks times dad/mum/grampa/gramma?" "Oh, I just went on living in denial and expecting other people to make sacrifices." I hope that won't be the epitaph future generations will write for us -when they've managed to work out a way to be civilised again without cheap oil and in the thin strips of fertile land overlooking our drowned coastal cities.
Oh, and remember, this expectation of eating meat every day; it's recent, it hasn't killed anyone not to eat meat for a few days a week.
Better world: Eat more plants - environment - 18 September 2009 - New Scientist