Dr. Jai Maharaj posted:
>
> > Avoiding meat and dairy is 'single biggest way' to reduce
> > your impact on Earth
> >
> > Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of
> > livestock -- it provides just 18% of calories but takes up
> > 83% of farmland
> >
> > By Damian Carrington, Environment editor @dpcarrington
> > The Guardian, theguardian.com
> > Thursday, May 31, 2018
> >
> > [Caption] Cattle at an illegal settlement in the Jamanxim
> > National Forest, state of Para, northern Brazil, November
> > 29, 2009. With 1,3 million hectares, the Jamanxim National
> > Forest is today a microsm that replicates what happens in
> > the Amazon, where thousands of hectares of land are prey of
> > illegal woodcutters, stock breeders and gold miners.
> > Photograph: Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty Images
> >
> > Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way
> > to reduce your environmental impact on the planet,
> > according to the scientists behind the most comprehensive
> > analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet.
> >
> > The new research shows that without meat and dairy
> > consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more
> > than 75% -- an area equivalent to the US, China, European
> > Union and Australia combined -- and still feed the world.
> > Loss of wild areas to agriculture is the leading cause of
> > the current mass extinction of wildlife.
> >
> > The new analysis shows that while meat and dairy provide
> > just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses the vast
> > majority -- 83% -- of farmland and produces 60% of
> > agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions. Other recent
> > research shows 86% of all land mammals are now livestock or
> > humans. The scientists also found that even the very lowest
> > impact meat and dairy products still cause much more
> > environmental harm than the least sustainable vegetable and
> > cereal growing.
> >
> > More than 80% of farmland is used for livestock but it
> > produces just 18% of food calories and 35% of protein
> > [Chart]
> >
> > The study, published in the journal Science, created a huge
> > dataset based on almost 40,000 farms in 119 countries and
> > covering 40 food products that represent 90% of all that is
> > eaten. It assessed the full impact of these foods, from
> > farm to fork, on land use, climate change emissions,
> > freshwater use and water pollution (eutrophication) and air
> > pollution (acidification).
> >
> > "A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce
> > your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but
> > global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water
> > use," said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK,
> > who led the research. "It is far bigger than cutting down
> > on your flights or buying an electric car," he said, as
> > these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.
> >
> > Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of
> > wild mammals -- study
> > Read more
> > https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-mammals-study
> >
> > "Agriculture is a sector that spans all the multitude of
> > environmental problems," he said. "Really it is animal
> > products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding
> > consumption of animal products delivers far better
> > environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable
> > meat and dairy."
> >
> > Continues at:
> >
> > https://www.theguardian.com/environm...mpact-on-earth
>
> Say "No!" to meat and chicken!
>
> Congress wanted to know just how commonly meat in the
> United States today is infected with salmonellosis. They
> summoned Dr. Richard Novick, of the Public Health Research
> Institute, and asked for his expert testimony. The
> authority didn't mince his words:
>
> "The meat we buy is grossly contaminated with both coliform
> bacteria and salmonella."
>
> One of the reasons our meat supply is so heavily
> contaminated with these disease agents is the way the
> animals are handled today. To begin with, they are sick
> creatures, due to how they are kept, and thus susceptible
> to just about any disease that comes down the pike.
>
> Then they are fed contaminated byproducts from the
> slaughterhouse, and crowded into cages, feedlots, trucks
> and holding pens which are perfect environments for disease
> to spread. And as if that weren't enough, the
> slaughterhouses themselves could hardly be better designed
> for the spread of disease.
>
> It is not just food reformers and vegetarians who are
> concerned. The Journal of the American Veterinary
> Association surveyed a cattle slaughterhouse and found a
> very high percentage of the carcasses were contaminated
> with salmonellosis.
>
> When 60 MINUTES asked the head of the USDA Inspection
> Service, he answered (in March, 1987) that if you go into a
> supermarket anywhere in the United States and buy a
> chicken, the odds are better than one in three it will be
> contaminated.
>
> Alarmed, 60 MINUTES conducted its own test, and the results
> brought no peace of mind. Over half the birds they
> purchased were found to be contaminated with salmonellosis.
> Amazed, they interviewed a number of meat inspectors, who
> publicly acknowledged on national television that the
> inspection system provides no protection to the consumer.
>
> Even the industry acknowledges this is the case. Poultry
> Science, a journal of the poultry trade, reported that 90%
> of the dressed product from a poultry processing plant was
> contaminated with salmonellosis. The National Research
> Council, evidently not believing things could be this bad,
> conducted its own survey, and found out things were worse.
> No less than 90% of the poultry from a federally-inspected
> plant they examined were contaminated with salmonellosis.
>
> o Statement by Richard Novick, Hearings before the
> Subcommittee on Agricultural Research and General
> Legislation of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and
> Forestry
> September 21, 1977
>
> o "Salmonellae in Slaughter Cattle"
> Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association
> 160(6):884, 1972
>
> o "Salmonella Contamination in a Commercial Poultry
> Processing
> Operation," Poultry Science, 53:814-21, 1974
>
> o Robbins, John, "Diet For A New America"
> Stillpoint Publishing, Walpole, N.H., 1987, pgs. 302-303
>
> o Wellford, H., "Sowing the Wind"
> Bantam Books, 1973, pgs. 133-134
> "Twelve years after the chemical was banned in the United
> States, researchers checked 27 bottle-nosed dolphins found
> dead off the coast of California. They found `extremely
> high' concntrations of DDT in every one."
> - "DDT and the Dolphin," ANIMALS' AGENDA, 1985.
> Quoted in DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA by John Robbins, 1987.
>
> o "On June 26, 1980, the U.S.D.A. revealed that turkey
> products from Banquet Foods Corporation contained
> intolerable levels of dieldrin. Eventually two million
> packages of frozen turkey dinners, turkey pies, and other
> turkey products were recalled."
> - Associated Press, "Banquet Foods Recall Turkey,"
> WASHINGTON POST, June 27, 1980.
> Quoted in DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA by John Robbins, 1987.
>
> o "Even in the few cases where the use of a pesticide has
> been restricted, the poison simply does not disappear from
> the environment. Quite the contrary, toxic chemicals like
> DDT take decades or even centuries to degrade. Even if by
> some miracle we stopped all pesticide use today, these
> chemicals would remain with us, contaminating our
> environment and our food chains for the foreseeable
> future."
> John Robbins in his book DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA, 1987.
>
> o "DDT, one of the earliest pesticides, is one of a mere
> handful of these poisons that has actually been banned [in
> the USA.] Yet four years after the moratorium on DDT had
> been declared, the government tested soils in Arizona that
> had once been treated with DDT and found no measurable
> decrease in the amount in the soil."
> - THE 6TH ANNUAL REPORT, COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY,
> 1975.
> Quoted in DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA by John Robbins, 1987.
>
> o "Researchers from the National Cancer Institute [USA]
> assured Congressmen that it might be possible for only one
> molecule of DES in the 340,000,000,000,000 present in a
> quarter pound of beef liver to trigger human cancer."
> - Food and Drug Administration biochemist Jacqueline
> Verret, 1974.
> Quoted in DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA by John Robbins, 1987.
>
> o "In the 1970's, mounting public concern [in the USA]
> overrode pressures from the chemical companies, and forced
> the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act. But this
> Act has not in practice turned out to be the boon to
> environmental health it was intended to be. More than three
> years after the Act became law, the agency responsible for
> its administration had not yet ordered testing for a single
> one of more than 50,000 toxic chemicals on the market."
> - Severo, R., NEW YORK TIMES, May 6, 1980.
> Quoted in DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA by John Robbins, 1987.

The environmental benefits of vegetarianism

By Gabe Bronk and Arthur Su
Special To The Tab
Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Vegetarianism is not only a response to the inhumane
practices of factory farms; it is also a way to conserve
natural resources, improve the environment and benefit
human health.

The meat industry is very wasteful of natural resources. An
inherent problem with eating meat is that an animal must be
fed roughly ten pounds of plants to produce one pound of
meat. Therefore, much more food is consumed to support the
animals than would be needed if more people were
vegetarians. Seventy percent of the grain grown in the US
is used to feed livestock. Because of the growth of so much
animal feed, half the water consumed in the U.S. is used by
the meat industry, and our groundwater is being withdrawn
25% faster than it is being replenished. In the High Plains
states from South Dakota to New Mexico, it is projected
that the aquifer will be depleted in 60 years. Erosion and
nutrient depletion caused by animal feed production and
overgrazing by livestock are destroying vast areas of
arable land.

We are currently in an oil crisis, and the meat industry is
exacerbating it. Eight times as much fossil fuel energy is
used in the production of animal protein as is used in
plant protein production due to the fuel required to
manufacture fertilizers and pesticides for animal feed, to
operate farming machinery, for transportation and for
irrigation. Four hundred gallons of fossil fuels are used
to produce food for the average meat-eating American each
year.

A meat eater requires two to four times more farmland than
a vegetarian. To make room for enough farmland, the meat
industry constantly destroys vital ecosystems, thus taking
away the habitats of myriad species and reducing
biodiversity. The vast Amazon rainforest is rapidly being
destroyed to make way for ranching and growing animal feed
and will be gone by the end of this century if the current
rate of destruction continues. Do you want to let this
happen?

The damage to the environment does not stop at animal feed
production. The plants are fed to the livestock, which,
after digesting the food, produce 1.37 billion tons of
manure in the U.S. annually. The manure often spills out of
open-air storage pits and into waterways, accelerating the
growth of algae. When the algae die, their decomposition
depletes the water of oxygen. This causes the deaths of
millions of fish. Manure also releases ammonia into the
air, which can contaminate rain, killing forests. Fumes
from factory farms cause people in the area to experience
respiratory problems and other ailments. Nitrates leak from
manure into community drinking water, causing serious human
health problems.

The meat industry contributes significantly to global
warming. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is released by bacteria
in the rumens of cattle and in the manure of many farm
animals. Furthermore, forests and grasslands that would
absorb high amounts of carbon dioxide are cleared to make
way for farmland. To make matters worse, the enormous fires
used to burn down these forests release carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere.

The fishing industry also contributes to environmental
degradation. Many species are being fished faster than they
can reproduce. 15 of the 17 major ocean fisheries are
exhausted or overexploited, so many marine food webs are
depleted, and ocean ecosystems are seriously damaged.
Myriads of other animals are accidentally caught and killed
in the nets, such as nearly 300,000 whales, dolphins and
porpoises killed each year. Pulling bottom trawls across
the seafloor devastates habitats including coral reefs.

You can help save the environment and keep yourself healthy
at the same time; according to the American Dietetic
Association and Dietitians of Canada, vegan and vegetarian
diets are appropriate for all stages of life as long as the
vegetarian gets all necessary nutrition, which is easy to
do. Visit www.veganhealth.org for nutrition information.

A well-planned vegetarian or vegan diet offers many health
benefits. Vegetarians have lower blood cholesterol levels,
lower rates hypertension and lower rates of death from
ischemic heart disease due to the lower levels of saturated
fat found in animal products and the higher levels of
antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables. Fruits,
vegetables, nuts, legumes and whole grains, all staples of
a vegetarian diet, provide better nutrition and help
prevent many diseases.

Spurred by this knowledge as well as by the meat industry's
brutality towards animals, we became vegetarian/vegan and
have examined and promoted vegetarianism as a project for
our biology class at Newton North High School.

Consider the possibilities. There are many delicious and
varied foods that do not contain animal products. We're not
just talking lettuce and bananas; think grilled veggie
burger or bean burrito. If becoming vegetarian seems like a
difficult task, try reducing your consumption of meat
gradually; cut out meat one day a week at first. Soon you
will have a healthier diet and be saving natural resources
and the environment. If you do become vegetarian, email us
at to let us know that this article
had the desired effect.

http://www2.townonline.com/newton/ar...ticleid=529805

"Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life
but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit."
- Aurobindo.

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://7.ly/jai