Facts regarding meat consumption
&
the destruction of our planet

For those who believe vegans, vegetarians and activists only care about animals,
here are a few statistics to alter your perception of us.


  • Number of people worldwide who will die of starvation this year: 60 million

  • Number of people who could be adequately fed with the grain saved if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10%: 60 million

  • Human beings in America: 243 million

  • How frequently a child starves to death: every two seconds

  • Number of people who could be fed with grain and soybeans now eaten by U.S. livestock: 1.3 billion

  • Percentage of corn grown in the U. S. eaten by people:  20

  • Percentage of corn grown in the U. S. eaten by livestock: 80

  • Pounds of grain and soybeans needed to produce a pound of beef: 16

  • Fatalities per 100,000 in livestock occupations: 28

  • People employed in slaughterhouse operations: Over one half million

Why is it destroying the planet?

Even if you do not believe in the environmental impact caused by methane, factory farming is still the primary cause of global warming/Greenhouse Effect.

Carbon Dioxide emissions from fossil fuels (livestock transport, slaughterhouse operations, logging operations to make room for livestock, etc)

  • Fossil fuels needed to produce a meat-centered diet vs. a meat-free diet: 50 times more

  • Number of acres of U.S. forest cleared for cropland to produce meat-centered diet: 260 million

  • Area of tropical rain forest consumed in every quarter-pound hamburger: 55 sq. ft.

  • Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rain forests for meat grazing and other uses: 1,000 per year

  • Use of more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S.: Livestock production

  • Gallons of water to produce a pound of meat: 2,500

Why does it damage our health?

70 percent of the 9 billion broiler chickens , 34.4 million cattle, and 116.5 million pigs produced annually in the U.S. are fed a diet containing roxarsone, the most common arsenic-based additive used in animal feed. Arsenic has been linked to bladder, lung, skin, kidney and colon cancer, while low-level exposures can lead to partial paralysis and diabetes.

  • Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat meat 4 times a week vs. less than once a week: 4 times.

  • For women who eat eggs daily vs. less than once a week: 3 times

  • Increased risk of fatal ovarian cancer for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week vs. less than once a week: 3 times.

  • Increased risk of fatal prostate cancer for men who eat meat daily vs. sparingly or not at all: 3.6 times

  • Most common cause of death in U.S.: heart attack

  • How frequently a heart attack kills in the US: every 45 seconds

  • Average US man’s risk of death from heart attack while eating a meat-centered diet: 50%

  • Risk for average U.S. man who avoids the meat-centered diet: 15%

  • Percentage of pesticide residues in the U. S. diet supplied by grains

  • Percentage of pesticide residues in the U. S. diet supplied by fruits: 4

  • Percentage of pesticide residues in the U. S. diet supplied by dairy products: 23

  • Percentage of pesticide residues in the U. S. diet supplied by meat: 55

This message is not meant to “convert”, rather, it is meant to show you that we care about the posterity of our own species and all life on Earth, as well. Humans disregard how damaging meat consumption is, not only for us, but for our planet. Eating something because it tastes good is not justification for destroying the Earth, starving children, killing, maiming/crippling the people exploited under horrendous work conditions who are also forced to slaughter animals.

Sources: UN, National Agricultural Statistics Service, US Department of Agriculture, American Heart Association, Human Rights Watch

Information taken from the website of A.E.L.L.A. Alliance for Earth, Life, Liberty & Advocation


Those of you who question planetary, animal and vegan activists would do well to remember that the moral dilemma pressing many of us to keep meat off our plates, includes a fear for your children. When you speak as though our care is not for human beings, you misjudge many of us. Most of us care about the future of all life, including that of human posterity. I can only hope that you read the information herein, to try and understand what many of us already know.

When the average, every day person thinks about issues like pollution, global warming and deforestation, their concern is based mainly on carbon dioxide emissions from our vehicles and factories. Unfortunately, this is only a small part of the problem relative to humanity’s affect in relation to climate change.

Methane happens to be a much more lethal greenhouse gas and our penchant for the consumption of flesh, to go along with a human overpopulation in regard to the way we currently live, has led us toward a downward spiral that we may not be able to pull ourselves out from.

The rearing of livestock, especially that of bovines, has become an increasingly detrimental risk to all of humanity. Cows produce a vast amount of methane emissions and in terms of greenhouse gases, one cow produces the same amount in one day as an SUV driving over 30 miles (roughly 48.2 kilometers).The total number of cows on this planet is close to one third of the estimated human population. The methane expelled into our atmosphere from the back end, as well as from the mouths of cows, partnered with the decomposing refuse produced by the whole of the farming industry, makes for a lethal dose of over 100 million tons of further greenhouse emissions.

Greenhouse gases in our atmosphere have already pushed our global average temperature up by nearly an entire degree since the 1980′s. This may not sound like a dramatic increase to you, however, considering that this slight rise in temperature has caused extensive glacial melting and the exposure of permafrost in arctic climates, we may see the beginning of global heating sooner then we predicted.

Permafrost itself, is simply ground that is frozen solid for over 10,000 years and it is rich with ancient vegetation. When the permafrost thaws, which it now is, this vegetation becomes exposed from its icy shell to the elements, including bacteria. Bacteria begins to eat away at the vegetation, expelling massive amounts of methane in its waste product. This is already beginning to happen around the world as evidence can be seen in many arctic regions.

We must also consider what will happen once vast sheets of ice no longer cover the Earth’s surface during summer months. Obviously, ice is bright white and reflects much of the Sun’s warming rays. Where there is no ice, dark waters absorb the Sun’s rays, which will increasingly raise the temperature of the Earth’s oceans. Anyone who understands in the slightest, how fragile and perfectly balanced all life in the sea is, realizes what will come from this. The Northwest Passage has already become navigable during the summer. Until 2009, the Arctic pack ice prevented regular marine shipping throughout most of the year, but global warming has changed that. Humanity itself, has altered the face of the planet on an unprecedented scale, over the last century.

All of this says very little in regard to the amount of fertile lands about the globe that are stripped barren, deforested for the sake of rearing cattle for their flesh. These lands, once grazed over by herds of cattle, become lifeless and unable to regrow vegetation at all again. The Amazon itself, is being raped and pillaged as you read this. Currently, because of human interference, less than 6% of the Earth’s surface is covered by the rain forests that supply much of our oxygen. Clearing tropical forests for agriculture is slated to produce another 17% of the entire world’s greenhouse gas emissions, which is more greenhouse gases than the entire global transport system.

For pictures and the entire article, please visit  A.E.L.L.A.  Alliance for Earth, Life, Liberty & Advocation


Meat, the truth

This extraordinary movie made by the Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation from Holland shows us the whole and bitter truth about the influence of the meat industry on our climate and on the devastation of our environment, water and air.

More informations how to stop global warming: http://www.MeatTheTruth.com or http://www.GlobeTransformer.org


UN urges global move
to meat and dairy-free diet



Lesser consumption of animal products is necessary to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change, UN report says

guardian.co.uk - Wednesday 2 June 2010

A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today.

As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.

It says: "Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."

Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said: "Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels."

The recommendation follows advice last year that a vegetarian diet was better for the planet from Lord Nicholas Stern, former adviser to the Labour government on the economics of climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions.

The panel of experts ranked products, resources, economic activities and transport according to their environmental impacts. Agriculture was on a par with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased economic growth, they said.

Ernst von Weizsaecker, an environmental scientist who co-chaired the panel, said: "Rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards meat and dairy products - livestock now consumes much of the world's crops and by inference a great deal of freshwater, fertilisers and pesticides."

Both energy and agriculture need to be "decoupled" from economic growth because environmental impacts rise roughly 80% with a doubling of income, the report found.

Achim Steiner, the UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UNEP, said: "Decoupling growth from environmental degradation is the number one challenge facing governments in a world of rising numbers of people, rising incomes, rising consumption demands and the persistent challenge of poverty alleviation."

The panel, which drew on numerous studies including the Millennium ecosystem assessment, cites the following pressures on the environment as priorities for governments around the world: climate change, habitat change, wasteful use of nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilisers, over-exploitation of fisheries, forests and other resources, invasive species, unsafe drinking water and sanitation, lead exposure, urban air pollution and occupational exposure to particulate matter.

Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, says the report, which has been launched to coincide with UN World Environment day on Saturday.

Last year the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said that food production would have to increase globally by 70% by 2050 to feed the world's surging population. The panel says that efficiency gains in agriculture will be overwhelmed by the expected population growth.

Prof Hertwich, who is also the director of the industrial ecology programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said that developing countries – where much of this population growth will take place – must not follow the western world's pattern of increasing consumption: "Developing countries should not follow our model. But it's up to us to develop the technologies in, say, renewable energy or irrigation methods."

Source


You can read the entire report HERE!




The breathtaking effects of cutting back on meat

Sometimes, solutions to the world's biggest problems are right in front of us. 

The following statistics are eye-opening, to say the least.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

● 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;

● 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;

● 70 million gallons of gas--enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;

● 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;

● 33 tons of antibiotics.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:

● Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;

● 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;

● 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;

● Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.

My favorite statistic is this: 

According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads. See how easy it is to make an impact?

Other points:

Globally, we feed 756 million tons of grain to farmed animals. As Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer notes in his new book, if we fed that grain to the 1.4 billion people who are living in abject poverty, each of them would be provided more than half a ton of grain, or about 3 pounds of grain/day--that's twice the grain they would need to survive. And that doesn't even include the 225 million tons of soy that are produced every year, almost all of which is fed to farmed animals. He writes, "The world is not running out of food. The problem is that we--the relatively affluent--have found a way to consume four or five times as much food as would be possible, if we were to eat the crops we grow directly."

A recent United Nations report titled Livestock's Long Shadow concluded that the meat industry causes almost 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world's transportation systems--that's all the cars, trucks, SUVs, planes and ships in the world combined. The report also concluded that factory farming is one of the biggest contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every level--local and global.

Researchers at the University of Chicago concluded that switching from standard American diet to a vegan diet is more effective in the fight against global warming than switching from a standard American car to a hybrid.

In its report, the U.N. found that the meat industry causes local and global environmental problems even beyond global warming. It said that the meat industry should be a main focus in every discussion of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortages and pollution, and loss of biodiversity.

Unattributed statistics were calculated from scientific reports by Noam Mohr, a physicist with the New York University Polytechnic Institute.

Source: huffingtonpost.com