Sir Paul McCartney answers this question as follows:
“If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.”
The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization issued a stunning report on global warming in Nov. 2006. Livestock production is responsible for more climate change gasses than all the motor vehicles in the world. In total, it is responsible for 18 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.
Livestock production is at the heart of almost every environmental catastrophe confronting the planet – rain forest destruction, spreading deserts, loss of fresh water, air and water pollution, acid rain, and soil erosion.
The less we eat meat, the fewer livestock /animals we need to farm and feed. A meat-based diet requires 7 times more land than a plant-based diet. Meat production requires 10 to 20 times more energy per edible tonne than grain production.
It takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. A totally vegetarian diet requires only 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day.
It just makes so much common sense therefore to be a vegetarian.
