By Lucy Corkhill
21st May 2013
Even if people opted to ‘go vegetarian’ for a day or two a week, it would take an enormous strain off our planet, but choosing a wholly vegetarian diet could help prevent global warming, rainforest destruction, and pollution whilst saving water and other precious resources.
The annual National Vegetarian Week takes place this year from 20th to 26th May, and there are loads of ideas to inspire you on the website. You can find out about events in your area here, including discounts in vegetarian restaurants, cooking demonstrations, vegetarian expos and foraging talks. If you’ve been toying with vegetarianism, why not visit the Vegetarian Society www.vegsoc.org website for tips, recipes and advice. This week presents the perfect opportunity to ‘give it a go’, and here are our top ten environmental reasons why vegetarianism could change the world:
1. According to a 2009 Californian study, a non-vegetarian diet consumed 2.9 times more water, 2.5 times more primary energy, 13 times more fertilizer, and 1.4 times more pesticide than a vegetarian diet.
2. Globally, we feed 756 million tons of grain to farmed animals. As Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer notes, if we fed that grain to the 1.4 billion people who are living in abject poverty, each of them would be provided more than half a ton of grain, or about 3 pounds of grain/day — that’s twice the grain they would need to survive.
3. A recent United Nations report titled Livestock’s Long Shadow concluded that the meat industry causes almost 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world’s transportation systems — that’s all the cars, trucks, SUVs, planes and ships in the world combined. The report also concluded that factory farming is one of the biggest contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every level — local and global.
4. Researchers at the University of Chicago concluded that switching from standard American diet to a vegan diet is more effective in the fight against global warming than switching from a standard American car to a hybrid.
5. The U.N. found that the meat industry causes local and global environmental problems even beyond global warming. It said that the meat industry should be a main focus in every discussion of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortages and pollution, and loss of biodiversity. (facts from http://www.alternet.org)
6. Raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and growing feed crops) now uses a staggering 30% of the Earth’s land mass.
7. Nearly 80% of land deforested in the Amazon is now used as cattle pasture. (facts from www.chooseveg.com)
8. It takes thousands more litres of water to produce a kilo of beef than to grow the same quantity of grains, vegetables or pulses. Manure, antibiotics and hormones all find their way from livestock farms into our water system, while fish farms release chemicals and parasites that threaten wildlife.
9. 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises are killed every year as ‘by-catch’ of the fishing industries. Over-fishing, by-catch, climate change, invasive species and coastal development have resulted in a decline in the number of marine species, such as sharks, seabirds and turtles.
10. Over 1 billion people worldwide do not have access to clean water and more than double do not have proper sanitation. By 2025 there will be 1.8 billion people living with absolute water scarcity. Farming accounts for around 70% of all freshwater withdrawn from lakes, waterways and aquifers. (facts from the Vegetarian Society www.vegsoc.org)
