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Default Avoiding meat and dairy is 'single biggest way' to reduce your impact on Earth

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.

>
> Environment
>
> Assessing the Meat Industry's Impact on Earth's Climate
>
> Aside from the deplorable treatment of farm animals, consider for a moment
> that giving up beef alone can have more environmental benefit than giving up
> your car
>
> By Mat McDermott
> Hinduism Today Magazine
> January-February-March 2017
>
> THE MEAT INDUSTRY HAS CAREFULLY cultivated a benevolent image of itself and
> worked hard to instill that image in our minds. We look out over the
> quintessential American family farm. A dog sleeps on the large, hospitable
> front porch of an old white two-story house. The warm orange first light of
> day rises beyond a distant treeline over a lush green landscape. Fog rises
> from a small pond. Facing us is a red barn with open front doors. Just
> visible are rows of cows, eagerly awaiting their keeper's attention. The
> farmer, dressed in denim overalls, white t-shirt and rubber boots, carries a
> wooden stool and a milk bucket into a clean stall to milk a black-and-white
> Holstein, her udder bulging. She steps forward to meet him, and he takes his
> seat and begins milking. A dog barks in the distance, and we hear a woman's
> voice. The scene fades as milk fills the bucket under the farmer's deft
> hands.
>
> Marketers of milk, eggs and meat want us to believe our food is produced by
> this kindly bucolic chain. It starts with salt-of-the-Earth people working on
> small farms, lovingly caring for their animals; it ends with a happy, healthy
> family seated around the dinner table. No doubt there are still farmers who
> deeply care about the animals they raise. But statistically this image is as
> much a relic of America's past as paddle-wheel boats, bustle skirts and the
> wild West.
>
> The reality of the livestock industry is grim. Undercover investigators and
> whistle-blowing farm workers have made countless videos documenting the
> depraved treatment received by farm animals. These have spread via the
> internet to millions on their mobile phones. While these videos clearly show
> the inhumanity of the industry, they do not show its impact on the
> environment, which equals or even exceeds the devastation caused by our use
> of fossil fuels for energy and engines.
>
> The Scale of the Problem
>
> To understand the sort of damage being caused by intensive raising of
> animals, we need to grasp the prodigious numbers of animals involved. USDA
> data shows that in 2015 9.2 billion land animals were killed in the United
> States alone for their meat -- 8.8 billion chickens, 232 million turkeys, 115
> million pigs, 28 million cows, 28 million ducks and two million sheep. That's
> 28 animals killed for every US resident. Globally, according to statistics
> compiled by Compassion in World Farming, 70 billion land animals are killed
> for food by humans, an average of 10 per human, with two-thirds of them
> raised on factory farms. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
> places the total weight of meat produced in 2015 at 350 million tons.
>
> When you include sea life, the figures are even more mind boggling. Again
> based on FAO data, each year some 2.7 trillion animals are harvested from the
> world's oceans, totaling 90-100 million tons of fish -- 386 sea creatures per
> person. But for now, we will focus on land animals and leave the impact on
> the oceans for another article.
>
> Continues at:
> https://www.hinduismtoday.com/module...hp?itemid=5745


"A vegetarian diet can prevent 97 percent of our coronary
occlusions."

- "Diet and Stress in Vascular Disease," JOURNAL OF THE
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, Vol. 176, No. 9, June 3,
1961, page 806.

Cited in Robbins, J., DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA, Stillpoint
Publishing, 1987.

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://tiny.cc/jaimaharaj