Animal Exploitation Destroys the Environment

Animal Exploitation Destroys the Environment. ( can I say duh? )

• Rearing cattle causes more co2 to be emitted into the atmosphere than driving cars- nearly 20% more.

• Livestock use 30% of earth’s land surface.  70% of Amazon Rainforest has been cleared for grazing.

• Livestock production causes water pollution & destroys coral reefs (hundreds of thousands of animal & plant species depend on the coral reef ecosystem) through animal wastes, antibiotics, hormones, tannery chemicals & fertilizers and pesticides used to grow feed crops (more crops are grown for livestock than for human consumption).

• The majority of earth’s ecosystems are in decline due to human’s raising of livestock.

Source: http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html

Isn’t that enough?

It has been well documented that livestock production requires significantly more land, water, and fossil fuels than plants to produce a kilogram of protein.  Significantly more people on this planet could be fed on a vegetarian diet than on any diet consisting of animal meat or other animal products.

Here watch:

“The U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat, Cornell ecologist advises animal scientists.  Future water and energy shortages predicted to change face of American agriculture”- Cornell University Science News

Eating meat significantly contributes to climate change.  The National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan, published a study concluding that producing 2.2 pounds of beef generates more carbon dioxide than an average car does every 160 miles, as reported by cattlenetwork, the nytimes, and NewScientist, among others.

This is the most valid and convincing argument regarding this issue that I’ve heard: http://www.audubonmagazine.org/features0901/viewpoint.html

Our government does not seem do it’s job in regulating the CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations- a euphemism for industrialized torture, according to myself).  An 85 page report by the GAO is evidence of this.

As an example, a graphic on page 26 is labeled, “Total Number of Hogs in Five Counties (of N.Carolina): 7,551,920 producing about 15.5 million tons of manure per year.”  That is nearly 8 million pigs people! The human population of the entire state of N.Carolina is about 8 million!  The report is ironically titled: “CAFOs, EPA Needs More Information and a Clearly Defined Strategy to Protect Air and Water Quality from Pollutants of Concern”.

Ironic because the EPA already has the information.  Perhaps a strategy of stepping up to the USDA would be a good start- demand that subsidies to the meat industry be eliminated.

The impact on the environment will only increase and worsen.  The planet earth is not expanding in size- it is finite.  But the number of animals raised and slaughtered is increasing; nearly 10 billion animals killed in 2007, compared with about 4 billion 30 years ago (USDA stats provided by the HSUS).  Meat consumption is increasing globally.

At this rate, it’s not difficult to imagine the environmental catastrophe awaiting us.