( CNN ) -- For the sorcerers who practice the dark arts of politics , the hot summer months are generally known for their focus on triviality , hyperbole and petty posturing . This `` silly season '' is marked mostly by frivolous debates over manufactured controversies as voters tune out and cook out in parks and backyards across the country . So it comes as no surprise that the latest bit of feigned outrage to embroil the United States Department of Agriculture involves an interoffice newsletter recommending that employees consider taking a modest stab at common sense . Joining the ranks of thousands of companies , restaurants , schools , average Americans and Oprah , a recent newsletter from the USDA made a humble suggestion for its employees to reduce their environmental footprints : Consider eating a meat-free lunch once per week . The agency was referring to `` Meatless Monday , '' a project of Johns Hopkins , Columbia and Syracuse universities and supported by many other health-related organizations . After angry press releases from the meat industry and outraged tweets from Republicans in Congress , a USDA spokeswoman announced the agency does not endorse the `` Meatless Monday '' initiative and said the suggestion was posted on the agency 's website `` without proper clearance . '' Problem solved , I guess . But the rationale behind an idea like `` Meatless Monday '' is crystal clear . It 's exactly the kind of step USDA should be endorsing . The reality is that it takes massive amounts of land , water , fertilizer , oil and other resources to produce meat , significantly more than it requires to grow other nutritious and delicious kinds of food . Because meat production is so resource intensive , livestock farming actually accounts for 18 % of global greenhouse gas emissions . Cattle farming alone consumes nearly 8 % of global human water use . My own organization , Oxfam , an international relief and development organization , recently endorsed the idea of eating less meat and dairy as part of our GROW campaign to fight global hunger . We did a study and found that if a family of four decided to swap burgers or other beef for lentils just one meal a week , they could save about 12Â½ Olympic-size swimming pools of fresh water over the course of a year . If that seems like an astronomically large amount of water for such a small change , it 's because it is . Meatless Mondays might seem like an unlikely cause for a humanitarian organization to champion . But Oxfam is working on this issue because as diets around the world change and the population swells to 9 billion over the coming decades , our planet will need to produce up to 70 % more food even as we use fewer resources . If we do n't reduce our environmental footprints as we increase production , poor people , particularly women , will be the first to suffer . Eating less meat is a simple way to reduce the pressure on global resources and help ensure that everyone has enough to eat . To say it simply , eating less meat helps fight hunger . The meat industry would argue that eating less meat would damage the bottom line of American farmers . But farmers are already struggling just to keep up with the spiking global demand for meat , which experts predict could nearly double by 2050 . Eating less meat could help slow this unsustainable increase , but U.S. farms wo n't suffer as a result . Swapping out meat just once per week would also help reduce the emissions that are contributing to climate change and extreme weather . Farmers across the United States are facing the worst drought in a generation , leading the USDA to declare 1,369 counties in 31 states as disaster areas . The weather has caused massive crop failures , driving a significant spike in the price of corn . While it may be hard to know exactly what role climate change has played in causing the drought , there is no doubt that these kinds of events are exactly what we expect to experience more frequently and with greater severity because of the changing climate . Our study looked at what would happen if urban and suburban households in just four countries -- the United States , United Kingdom , Spain and Brazil -- decided to swap beef for lentils just once a week . We found that the emissions reductions from this tiny step alone would be the equivalent of taking 3.7 million cars off the road for a year . Sadly , facts like these are not enough to avoid the silly season altogether , or to persuade the USDA to ignore the self-serving indignation of the meat industry and keep a reasonable suggestion on its site . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ben Grossman-Cohen .
USDA 's newsletter suggesting employees forgo meat once a week caused uproar . Ben Grossman - author : Meat industry , people hate USDA , so it backs off . It takes huge amounts of land , water , coal , oil to produce meat , he writes . He says that less meat reduces use of resources and ensures everyone gets fed .