ENVIRONMENTAL REASONS TO GO VEGETARIAN

GLOBAL WARMING: The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation’s 2006 report Livestock’s Long Shadow states that the livestock sector (animals bred for human food) is responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO₂ equivalent.

Meat and Dairy animals produce more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transport combined.

By choosing to replace your regular servings of meat and dairy with plant-based alternatives in a single meal you can save about 1.3 kilograms of CO₂ equivalent.

So try a tasty, nutritious and healthy animal-product-free meal soon – and then make it a regular part of your diet.

Vegetarian

The Environmentally Responsible Diet

THE EARTH DIET

DEFORESTATION: In Central America, entire forests are felled or burnt to provide land for grazing cattle. Most of these cattle end up as second-quality hamburger meat for the North American junk food market. Being hard-hooved, cattle erode vulnerable topsoil.

POLLUTION: The effluent produced by intensive piggeries, cattle feedlots and chicken broiler units is polluting our increasingly fragile waterways and producing huge amounts of nitrates and ammonia. The effluent produced by these animals in the relatively small area of land that they occupy becomes a pollutant in the general environment.

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* Animals Australia: Water, Drought and Animal Production "What has not been pointed out by the politicians or by those responsible for monitoring Australia's water supplies is that we can drastically reduce water consumption just by reducing the amount of animal products we consume."

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* Compassion in World Farming "Eat less meat – it’s costing the earth"

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* 4th International Crop Science Congress "To save water, consume less meat? MEDIA RELEASE
27 September 2004: According to an international water expert, a person's diet, not how long they spend in the shower, is the main determining factor in how much water they consume.."

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* SBS - Green Gurus: "... whatever your beliefs on the ethics of eating meat and other animal products, a vegetarian diet is greener in more ways than one".

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* Vegetarian Society of Colorado: "Rainforest Destruction and Beef Consumption. Many of us have heard the quote: For every quarter-pound hamburger made from rainforest beef, 55 square feet of rainforest are destroyed. What does this really mean?"

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* University of Chicago Study - vegan diets healthier for planet, people than meat diets: "The food that people eat is just as important as what kind of cars they drive when it comes to creating the greenhouse-gas emissions that many scientists have linked to global warming, according to a report accepted for publication in the April 2006 issue of the journal Earth Interactions."

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* Watch this YouTube video of US TV commentator Glenn Beck on why Al Gore should not be eating meat.