I feel like this would just brood animosity towards the green movement on the part of city counsel, which is definitely something we wish to avoid.

We should be encouraging agroecosystems as well as human diets based on entirely pasture-raised ruminant animals such as cows, sheep and goats for their dairy and meat products. They are naturally equipped to digest grass, which is arguably the only renewable agricultural resource. Grass-fed animals ACTUALLY BUILD SOIL rather than deplete it. Additional nutrition should be derived from perennial plantings of nuts and fruits. Small, controlled harvests from the sea may be sustainable, depending on the scale of demand. A small amount of market-scale gardening for vegetables, close to the point of consumption, is also potentially sustainable, as long as great effort is put into making sure that what is taken from the soil is returned in the form of mature compost. That means not flushing it down the toilet, which besides wasting soil nutrients and organic matter and ruining any chance of true "zero waste" also contaminates vast quantities of potable water, wastes energy, and contributes to ecological damage when it is finally released into the ocean or applied agriculturally along with toxic heavy metals and hospital waste, as well as personal pharmaceuticals, all of which are also flushed away and collected in the most insane invention of civilization, the all-in-one sewage collection and treatment system.

A vegan diet is radically destructive to the environment, the human body, and to society. Viz. eating only from plant sources requires massive topsoil depletion and dependence of fossil fuel-driven agriculture. It also means massive displacement of other forms of life for the sake of human sustenance. Eg, the entire North American prairie ecosystem has now been totally colonized (and is also being destroyed) by humans growing corn, wheat, and other grains, leaving no room for the vast biodiversity that used to inhabit that ecosystem; rainforests cut for soybeans and corn, destroying the habitat for countless species. Without animals, including humans, incorporated into agricultural production systems, there is NO RENEWABLE SOURCE OF SOIL FERTILITY and soil CAN NOT BE SUSTAINED but is instead mined of nutrients and other life giving properties, turning it from a sink for atmospheric carbon into a source, among other catastrophic consequences. Our current agricultural paradigm of monocropped annual grains, from which a vegan diet is mostly derived, IS NOT SUSTAINABLE and is actively destructive to entire ecosystems, up to and including the very soil from which all terrestrial life comes.

In terms of human health, there are few if any plant sources for a number of essential nutrients including saturated fats, some vitamins, and complete proteins. They can only be supplied by animal products.

Socially: just ask the 2% (down from more than 30% 60 or 70 years ago) of the Canadian and US populations who still consider themselves farm folk how their communities are doing. Or ask peasants and/or wage slaves in the third-world "agricultural debtor nations"/"banana republics" who provide your out-of-season fruit, chocolate, sugar, coffee, tea, rice, etc, how they are doing. They aren't happy, and a vegan diet is doing nothing to solve their problems; it's probably worsening them.

Read the book called "The Vegetarian Myth," by Lierre Keith. It's well worth it.

Thanks for putting this up as a recommendation.
Animals have feelings too. They are highly intelligent.
We show our ignorance when we eat them.
We should show our compassion for them and our love for them. Animals are not food. We should treat them like friends.
No wonder lions will sometimes attack people and eat them. They are showing us what it feels like to be treated like we treat animals.

Thanks for putting this up as a recommendation.
Animals have feelings too. They are highly intelligent.
We show our ignorance when we eat them.
We should show our compassion for them and our love for them. Animals are not food. We should treat them like friends.
No wonder lions will sometimes attack people and eat them. They are showing us what it feels like to be treated like we treat animals.

I eat my greens... but I like my meat (real protein) too.
It is sad that there are those that wish to impose this idea on others.
I don't dispute that vegetables are good for you ONLY I believe that they should next to my steak and shrimp or chicken on my plate.

Smart idea...makes robust economic sense too: more produce on the shelves, higher employment. greener space, better air to breathe, zero-emissions, no karma...what have we got to loose?

this is a very good idea, it's good for our health and our environment, and people can benefit.

Wonderful suggestion! UN and EU already urged a global shift to animal-free diet to curb global warming and protect the environment (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet). Let Vancouver be the first city to lead this noble trend - a vegan city!
Vegan Vancouver - the coolest city, the greenest city...

Yes, why not? Vegan foods are healthy, nutritious, tasty, scrumptious and give you lots or energy and better mind clarity. Nowadays, almost anyone knows the great benefits of vegan foods.

We gotta practice what we preach. And if the Head of the UN's IPCC is saying being Vegetarian or Vegan is the single best thing we can do to curb Climate Change.... then our 'Green' City team should be standing up and saying "I will eat only Vegan meals. Why? Because it is the Greenest thing an individual can do, and am walk the talk of Green"

Otherwise..... Hypocrites. yes no? Really, everyone who is anyone in the Climate Change roll of experts is saying be vegetarian. Head of Nasa's Climate Change, Head of IPCC, UN's VP, Al Gore now even says we all gotta cut down, and he is "trying my best"