veganism

Animal agriculture is a terribly inefficient and pollution-filled way to feed people. Eating less meat is the second most important positive environmental decision – second only to the choice of transportation – that a consumer can make. Raising animals for food consumes vast quantities of natural resources, including water, land and oil. It also destroys habitats, causes the extinction of a variety of species, and generates a tremendous amount of water and air pollution. Meat production causes 20 percent of the common water pollution related to consumer expenditures. And it uses a large share of our country’s land— about 860 million acres in the United States alone!
But we all have to eat, right? You get a clear picture of how inefficient meat production is when you compare it to the production of fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. Compared to pasta, red meat uses 20 times the land, and causes seven times the common water pollution, five times the toxic water pollution and water use, and three times the greenhouse gas emissions.

Skipping that hamburger does make a difference. Producing 1 pound of feedlot beef requires 7 pounds of feed grain, which takes 7000 pounds of water to grow. And one hamburger causes 55 square feet of rain forest destruction (for tropically raised beef) and 12 pounds of livestock feces and other pollutants. Plus, that one hamburger uses more water than you would use by taking 40 showers with a low-flow showerhead. Livestock now produce 130 times as much waste as people do. Un-fortunately, that waste doesn’t just disappear into t h i n a i r. I t has been responsible for massive fish kills and out-breaks of disease such as pfisteria. Almost 80% of all U.S. farms drain into one single body of water—the Mississippi River.
The disposal of animal waste often goes unregulated. And that’s no small matter when you consider the magnitude of some of our country’s factory farms. One farm in Utah produces as much waste as the entire city of Los Angeles!

Normally, the earth has lost 10 to 25 species per year. But in the billions of years of life on this earth, we have had 5 periods of major extinctions; the last one was 67 million years ago, when, possibly because of a meteor colliding with the earth, we lost the dinosaurs. But now there's a sixth extinction, and it is not caused by a meteor, but by human beings. We are losing several thousand species per year, and maybe tens of thousands. We think of mammals that are endangered, and 25% of mammalian species are endangered. But what's much more endangered, or wiped out already, are the plants, including varieties of plankton, fungi, bacteria, and insects, that are fundamental to all so-called higher forms of life. All life will unravel if these creatures are wiped out.
The driving force behind all these extinctions is the destruction of wildlife habitat, especially the rainforests of the world. The driving force behind the destruction of the rainforests is livestock grazing. The leading cause of species in the United States being threatened or eliminated is livestock grazing. A 1997 study of endangered species in the southwestern United States by the Fish and Wildlife Service found that half the species studied were threatened by cattle ranching.

You know, you and I cannot change all this. We are not going to be able to get a bill through Congress outlawing factory farming. Yet Earthsave as an organization believes we can still have a dramatic effect: we believe that you can protect your health and protect the environment one bite at a time. Let's review what I've said here: by not eating beef - and other farm animals as well - you: