More than 70 billion farm animals die each year for food and are raised in unconscionable living conditions, and the females are forced to be pregnant over and over again, while their babies are taken away from them each time.
Not only is their treatment inhumane, but raising these animals takes a toll on the earth’s resources like water and biodiversity (1).
3% of the world’s water is considered freshwater and only 1% of it is available for our needs (2). Considering it takes 2,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, 55% of U.S. water usage is used for raising farm animals, and globally, 2.3 billion people face water stress annually, we can see how water is fast becoming a precious resource. It is in our power to change the way we approach our diets (3), (4).
Animal agriculture also degrades the oceans; 116,000 pounds of farm animal excrement is produced every second (4). Run-off of water pollution from their excrement flows into the ocean and has created dead zones. More than 95,000 miles of ocean water are completely devoid of life from this excrement (4).
Wild spaces are needed to maintain biodiversity to keep the planet healthy but 45% of land globally is used to raise farm animals (5). 91% of the Amazon rainforest, which is the lungs of the planet, has been destroyed to raise cattle (6).
The more these wild spaces are desecrated to raise farm animals means less biodiversity, less habitat for wildlife, more greenhouse gas emissions, less absorption of these gases, and less oxygen that we all rely on from the plant life of these wild spaces.
With greenhouse gas emissions on the rise, cattle are a top source of methane gas released into the atmosphere, which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the earth (7). Livestock currently accounts for 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions (4).
Kirk R. Smith who was a Professor of Global Environmental Health at Berkeley maintained that if we reduced methane emissions, the levels would diminish within a decade compared to if we were solely to focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, carbon dioxide would take over one hundred years.
Reducing our reliance on animal products and focusing on plant-based foods helps to save lives, reduces torture and cruelty of innocent beings, restores habitats for wildlife, and improves the health and stability of the planet which in turn supports our health and our ability to thrive on earth. We are all interconnected.
Resources:
1. Sanders, Bas. 10th, October, 2018. Global Animal Slaughter Statistics and Charts.Faunalytics. https://faunalytics.org/global-animal-slaughter-statistics-and-charts/
2. NASA. Freshwater Availability To0lkit. EarthData. https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/toolkits/freshwater-availability-toolkit#:~:text=Of%20all%20of%20the%20water,readily%20available%20for%20our%20use.
3. Reddon, Claire. 13th, April, 2022. The Surprising Amount of Water It Takes to Produce One Pound of Beef. https://www.tastingtable.com/830861/the-surprising-amount-of-water-it-takes-to-produce-a-pound-of-beef/
4. Cowspiracy. Anderson, Kip. Kuhn, Keegan. 2014. https://www.cowspiracy.com
5. United Nations Environmental Program. 26th, September, 2018. To Solve The Climate Crisis, We Need to Rethink How We Produce Our Food. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/solve-climate-crisis-we-need-rethink-how-we-produce-our-food#:~:text=Using%20animals%20for%20food%20makes,growing%20feed%20crops%20for%20livestock.
6. Margulis, Sergio. 2004. Causes of Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon. World Bank Working Paper, No. 22. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/fc75c578-7b58-5419-82e9-fdcfa8873e92/content
7. Jones, Erin. Datil, Ariane. Delfino, Alanna. 14th, December, 2021. Yes, Cattle Are the Top Source of Methane Emissions in the U.S. https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/environment-verify/cattle-cows-the-top-source-of-methane-emissions-in-united-states/536-8d5bf326-6955-4a9c-8ea5-761d73ba464c
