The Environment

Environmental groups like The Audubon Society and The Sierra Club, along with the Nobel Prize winning chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, are focusing on this problem and encouraging vegetarian diets as a way to prevent further environmental damage.

Below is a sample of some facts, cited from the book “Food Revolution,” by John Robbins.   (The corresponding page numbers are also provided, for further reference.)

RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION

Tropical rainforests contain 80 per cent of the world's species of land vegetation and account for much of the global oxygen supply. In one square mile of Amazon rainforest, there are more species of birds than exist in all of North America.

Two thirds of Central America's rainforests have been cleared primarily to raise cattle whose stringy, cheap meat is exported to profit the u.s. food industry. When it enters the United States, the beef is not labeled with its country of origin, so there is no way to trace it to its sources. (pg. 256-257)

WATER POLLUTION

• Gallons of oil spilled by the Exxon-Valdez: 12 million
• Gallons of putrefying hog urine and feces spilled into the New River in North Carolina on June 21, 1995, when a "lagoon" holding 8 acres of hog excrement burst: 25 million (pg. 242)
• Amount of waste produced by the 1,600 dairies in California's Central Valley: more than the entire human population of Texas.
• Total number of water quality inspectors in California's entire Central Valley: 4
• "Dairies are the single largest source of water pollution...Our volunteers frequently encounter massive discharges of dairy waste that literally cauterize waterways and kill fish...We're in the process of losing one of the most marvelous and diverse aquatic ecosystems in the world." -Deltakeeper, an environmental group that monitors California's waterways. (pg. 246-247)

AIR POLLUTION

• "Livestock account for 15-20% of (overall) global methane emmissions."
• "American feed (for livestock) takes so much energy to grow that it might as well be a petroleum byproduct." World Watch Institute (pg. 267)

WATER CONSUMPTION

For more information:

• The Sierra Club issued a report in August 2002 called "The RapSheet on Animal Factories". The subheading reads, "Environmental violations by the meat industry add up to a rap sheet longer than War and Peace."
• The WorldWatch Institute has a feature,"Like it or not, meat-eating is becoming a problem for everyone on the planet," by the Editors of WorldWatch Magazine, July/August 2004.
• Read "The Food Revolution" by John Robbins. (The facts cited above are taken directly from this book and include the page number. In the book, Robbins also cites the source for every fact listed.)