Vegetarianism and the Environment
How Going Veggie Preserves the Earth’s Natural Resources
Feb 24, 2009
The positive impact of eating vegetarian on the environment is twofold. First of all, eating vegetarian prevents a lot of direct pollution of air and water by animal feces as well as secondary factors such as fuel, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides all used in meat production.
Secondly, eating vegetarian avoids waste of natural resources. When compared to a non-vegetarian diet, the production of vegetarian or, even more so, vegan food, is much more effective.
Here are some facts about how vegetarianism prevents the waste of natural resources:
Meat Industry and Land
Vast tracts of land are needed to grow animal feed for billions of animals each year. Of all the agricultural land in the U.S., nearly 80 percent is used in some way to raise animals for slaughter. Overgrazing leads to the extinction of indigenous plant and animal species, soil erosion, and eventual desertification.
Vegetarian Food is more Economic
Livestock animals are mostly feed on grain, soybeans, oats, and corn. The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth. As Mark Gold and Jonathon Porrit point out in “The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat.”, it takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of animal flesh.
Vegetarianism Saves Energy
More than one-third of all fossil fuels produced in the United States are used to raise animals for food. Energy is used to grow, process and transport animal feed; to operate farms and slaughterhouses and to refrigerate and transport the meat.
Vegetarianism Saves Water
The meat industry not only needs drinking water for the billions of animals raised for slaughter, but also for watering crops for animal feed and for cleaning away the filth in factory farms and slaughterhouses. According to Robbins, “The Food Revolution”, page 238, nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food.
Vegetarianism Protects the Rain Forest
According to the 2006 Greenpeace report "Eating Up the Amazon”, more than 2.9 million acres of rainforest were destroyed in the 2004-2005 crop season in order to grow crops used to feed factory farm animals.
One of the main common crops grown in the rainforest is soy—in fact, much of the enormous amount of soy that is needed to feed the world’s farmed animals now comes from the rainforest.
The soy that is used in veggie burgers, tofu, and soy milk in the United States is almost exclusively grown domestically, not in the Amazon.
A United Nations Report on Environmental Hazards of the Meat Industry
The most serious environmental problems of our time are all directly linked to eating meat. This is confirmed by the 2006 United Nations report "Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, Livestock, Environment and Development" which called the meat industry “oneof the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." The report cited “problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."
References: "Meat and the Environment" by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)
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