Vegetarians and the Environment

Becoming vegetarian is one of the most important and effective actions you can take to ease the strain on our Earth's limited resources, protect the planet from pollution, prevent global warming, and save countless species from extinction. According to Dr. David Brubaker, PhD, at Johns Hopkins University's Center for a Livable Future, "The way that we breed animals for food is a threat to the planet. It pollutes our environment while consuming huge amounts of water, grain, petroleum, pesticides and drugs. The results are disastrous." As the Sierra Club put it in their 2002 repot on animal factories, "environmental violations by the meat industry add up to a rap sheet longer than War and Peace."

A disproportionate amount of our earth's natural resources are used to produce meat, eggs, and dairy products. For example, it takes about 25 gallons of water to produce one pond of wheat, whereas it takes nearly 400 gallons to produce one pound of beef. The pesticides and fertilizers used to grow conventional feed for animals contribute to the pollution of our water supplies and land. Overgrazing by cattle is eroding the mineral topsoil. The bottom line, when food is grown and eaten directly by the people, more people can be fed.

Effects on Earth

- wasteful resources -

Feeding large amounts of grain to farmed animals in order to produce a small amount of meat is an inefficient waste of limited resources. A July 7, 2002 article in Time magazine describes some of the environmental problems articulated by Cornell ecologist David Pimentel: "Pimentel argues that vegetarianism is much more environment-friendly than diets revolving around meat. 'In terms of caloriec content, the grain consumed by an American livestock could feed 800 million people'... Animal protein also demands tremendous expenditures of fossil-fuel energy - eight times as much as for a comparable amount of plant protein. Put another way, says Pimentel, the average omnivore diet burns the equivalent of a gallon of gas per day - twice what it takes to produce a vegan diet."

"The cost of mass - producing cattle, poultry, pigs, sheep and fish to feed or growing population...include hugely inefficient use of freshwater and land, heavy pollution from livestock feces...and spreading destruction of the forests on which much of our planet's life depends." Time Magazine, 11/8/99

The meat industry is a major cause of fresh water depletion. According to Ed Ayres, of the World Watch Institute, "Around the world, as more water is diverted to raising pigs and chickens instead of producing crops for direct consumption, millions of wells are going dry. India, China, North Africa and the U. S. are all running freshwater deficits, pumping for from their aquifers than rain can replenish." The great Ogallala aquifer in the United States, a resource that took a half a million years to accumulate, will be depleted in less than 40 years. According to Ayres, "Pass up one hamburger, and you'll save as much water as you save by taking 40 showers with a low-flow nozzle."

- extinct is forever -

Cattle grazing is a serious threat to endangered species, both in the western United States and in the rainforests of South America. In the United States, grazing has contributed to the demise of 26% of federal threatened and endangered species. In The Western Range Revisited, a 1999 book published by the University of Oklahoma, author Debra L. Donahue writes, "Grazing's ecological impacts are more widespread than those of any other human activity in the West, and elimination of grazing holds greater potential for benefiting biodiversity than any other single land use measure."

The situation is no better in South America where the rainforests are being destroyed at an alarming rate in order to clear the land for cattle grazing. According to the United Nations, ranching-induced deforestation is one of the main reasons for the loss of plant and animal species in tropical rainforests. It is estimated that for each hamburger made.

 - global warming -

Animal agriculture contributes significantly to global warming. Growing feed for farmed animals requires intense use of synthetic fertilizer, which releases nitrous oxide - a far stronger greenhouse gas than even carbon dioxide. Heating buildings that house animals also contributes to global warming as does the decompositin of liquid manure, which releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere as well as forming nitrous oxide.

- air and water pollution -

Factory farms produce run-off that pollutes our streams and rivers, endangering not only the water supply for the humans but also harming delicate eco-systems.. A U. S. Senate Agricultural Committe report concluded, " The threat of pollution from intersive livestock and poultry farms is a national problem. According to the EPA, over 200 manure discharges and spills from U.S. animal farms between 1990 and 1997 have killed more than a billion fish. Animal feedlots can contaminate nearby well water with high levels of nitrates, which have been linked to miscarriages in humans as well as "bluebaby" syndrome in infants.

Manure lagoons and spray fields from animal agriculture also pollute the air by emitting ammonia, methane, and hyfrogen sulfide. According to a May 2003 article in the New York Times, " Around industrial hog farms across the country, people say their sickness rolls in with the wind. It brings headaches that do not go away and trips to the emergency room for children whose lungs suddenly close up. People yound and old have become familiar with inhalers, nebulizers and oxygen tanks. They complain of diarrhea, nosebleeds, earaches and lung burns." The article goes on to describe how air pollution from hog farms appears to have caused permanent brain damage in nearby residents.