US News

CB · Guest

Meat and the Environment

Would you ever open your refrigerator, pull out 16 plates of pasta and toss
them in the trash, and then eat just one plate of food?1 How about leveling
55 square feet of rain forest for a single meal or dumping 2,500 gallons of
water down the drain?2,3 Of course you wouldn't. But if you're eating
chicken, fish, turkey, pork, or beef, that's what you're doing-wasting
resources and destroying our environment.

Animals raised for food expend the vast majority of the calories that they
are fed simply existing, just as we do. We feed more than 70 percent of the
grains and cereals we grow to farmed animals, and almost all of those
calories go into simply keeping the animals alive, not making them grow.4
Only a small fraction of the calories consumed by farmed animals are
actually converted into the meat that people eat.

A major 2006 report by the United Nations summarized the devastation caused
by the meat industry. Raising animals for food, the report said, is "one of
the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious
environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of
this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with
problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water
shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity. Livestock's
contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale .."5

Growing all the crops to feed farmed animals requires massive amounts of
water and land-in fact, nearly half of the water and 80 percent of the
agricultural land in the United States are used to raise animals for
food.6,7 Our taste for meat is also taking a toll on our supply of fuel and
other nonrenewable resources-about one-third of the raw materials used in
America each year is consumed by the farmed animal industry.8

Farmed animals produce about 130 times as much excrement as the entire human
population of the United States, and since factory farms don't have sewage
treatment systems as our cities and towns do, this concentrated slop ends up
polluting our water, destroying our topsoil, and contaminating our air.9 And
meat-eaters are responsible for the production of 100 percent of this
waste-about 86,000 pounds per second!10 Give up animal products, and you'll
be responsible for none of it.

Many leading environmental organizations, including the National Audubon
Society, the WorldWatch Institute, the Sierra Club, and the Union of
Concerned Scientists, have recognized that raising animals for food damages
the environment more than just about anything else that we do. Whether it's
the overuse of resources, unchecked water or air pollution, or soil erosion,
raising animals for food is wreaking havoc on the Earth. The most important
step you can take to save the planet is to go vegetarian.

Read more.
http://goveg.com/environment-wastedResources.asp

CB
I hereby pledge to cut out meat in 'half' the meals I consume...wish me
luck. I've always been a leg and rump man ;).......
--
CB
What put's Algore in his lockbox?
http://home.austarnet.com.au/yours/Global%20Warming%20Problem.gif

2006 power bill
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/07.03.04.ConspicConsump-X.gif

Global warming on Mars
In its ninth year in orbit around Mars, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor has made
a number of surprising discoveries. For three Mars summers in a row,
deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the
previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress. Apparently,
President Bush's environmental policies are so destructive that they are
causing global warming throughout the solar system.
--Harry Dope

pearl · Guest

"CB" <CB@PrayForMe.com> wrote in message news:45f018a8$0$5290$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...