Going Veggie for the Environment

1. Greenhouse Gases - Fossil Fuels: Meat production requires 10 to 20 times more energy per edible ton than grain production. This includes growing the crops to feed the animals, processing the feed, housing the animals in unnatural conditions, transporting them to the slaughterhouse and the actual slaughtering. The slaughtering process alone is intensive in its use of water and energy. Animal products also require more energy for packaging, refrigeration and transportation, whereas many vegetables and fruit require no packaging or refrigeration. The energy generated for the entire production system comes mostly from burning fossil fuels that contributes to pollution and global warming.

2. Greenhouse Gases - Methane: Also, livestock emit vast quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. It is estimated that the methane from animal agriculture causes more than 15% of the planet's human-induced warming.

   A vegetarian diet can save 1.5 tonnes of greenhouse gases per person per year.

3. Land use: A meat based diet requires seven times more land than a plant based one. Much of the land that is used for grazing was once wild grassland or forest, supporting a variety of wild species. Using the land for grazing farm animals also leads to soil degradation that otherwise would not have occurred.

4. Water use: It takes 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of grain.

5. Inefficient use of plants: To produce 1 lb. of meat requires 3.5-8.5 lb. of plant food (ratios vary with the type of animal - "broiler" chickens being the most "efficient", pigs the least.)

6. Animal Waste: Cattle produce 40 lb. of manure for every lb. of edible beef. This waste must be disposed of. Animal waste can seep into water systems can cause Ecoli, nitrogen, phosphorous, nitrate pollution. Canadians will remember a small town in Ontario where seven people died and many more were made sick when Ecoli contaminated the town's drinking water.

7. The Oceans Commercial fishing has had a devastating effect on marine ecosystems, not only depleting fish stocks, but ravaging the environment for other marine life. Marine mammals such as whales and dolphins are sometimes caught in nets and drown. Other fish species that are not useful to the fishers also die. Fish farms, developed to supplement dwindling fish stocks, raise fish in underwater cages in high densities. The water is contaminated with drugs and feces that pollute the adjacent waters. Fish that escape can spread disease to wild stock. From an animal rights perspective, fishing is one of the cruelest ways that animals are killed. The fish suffocate or are crushd to death. A fish flopping around in a net or hold of a boat is literally gasping for air.

• "Meat production's environmental toll" , a paper presented by Stephen Leckie at the 1997 International Conference on Sustainable Urban Food Systems, held at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada,
• "Diet for a Small Planet" (Frances Mooore Lappe)
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
• Vegetarian Society of the UK
• EarthSave International