Our Big Picture Role is Slight, but the Damage is Ruinous
By: The Good Men Project
Tags: Agriculture, Humanity, Climate Change, Vegan, Environment

Our Big Picture Role is Slight, but the Damage is Ruinous

Going vegan is the key to saving the planet, animals, and ourselves.

Photo credit: iStockPhoto

By Craig Shapiro

On one hand, the stats are surprising. On the other hand, not so much.

A sweeping new study of life on Earth — or as scientists call it, “a comprehensive, holistic estimate of all the different components of biomass” — found that the 7.6 billion humans who call this planet home don’t take up much of the big picture. We represent a paltry 0.01 percent — one one-hundredth — of all living things here.

Bacteria, at 13 percent, are a major life form. How’s that for perspective?

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also found that since the dawn of civilization, humans have wiped out 83 percent of all wild mammals and half the plants. Today, 60 percent of mammals are livestock — their counterparts in the wild make up only 4 percent — and 70 percent of birds are farmed poultry.

Those statistics aren’t so surprising.

“I would hope this gives people a perspective on the very dominant role that humanity now plays on Earth,” said Ron Milo, a professor at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, who led the study.

“Dominant” is one way of putting it. “Imperious” is another.

Milo added that he’s cut back on consuming animal flesh because of the meat industry’s toll on the environment. Good for him. First steps like that help, but if we’re to be responsible stewards of the planet, we need to leave meat, dairy “products” and eggs off our plates entirely and opt for a sustainable, plant-based diet.

Every minute, bulldozers flatten seven football fields’ worth of land to make more room for farmed animals and the crops that they eat. In the U.S., 80 percent of agricultural land — nearly half the total land mass of the continental 48 states — is used to raise animals for food and to grow grain to feed them. Raising livestock takes up 45 percent of the land worldwide.

One pig drinks 21 gallons of water a day, while a single cow on a dairy farm drinks upwards of 50. Growing feed crops uses 56 percent of the water in the U.S. It takes 2,500 gallons to produce a pound of beef but only 180 to make a pound of whole-wheat flour.

Animal agriculture also pollutes the water. Factory-farmed animals produce a trillion pounds of waste a year, which is typically used to fertilize crops and runs off into lakes and rivers, eventually ending up in our drinking water, along with the drugs and bacteria that it contains.

And animal agriculture fouls the air, too. Livestock and their byproducts account for 51 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions. Transportation exhaust, including that produced by vehicles that take animal flesh to markets, is responsible for 13 percent. Here’s another thing to consider about our lust for meat: Producing just over 2 pounds of beef causes more greenhouse-gas emissions than driving a car for three hours does.

Eight years ago, the United Nations warned that if the worst effects of climate change are to be negated, a global shift to a vegan diet is crucial. As the world’s appetite for meat increases, the need has become more pressing.

While there are many reasons to go vegan, none is more urgent than reducing the staggering number of lives lost in the meat, egg and dairy industries.

Humans slaughter more than 56 billion farmed animals every year — thinking, feeling individuals who, like us, only want to live in peace. They’re mutilated, torn away from their mothers and forced to spend their lives in cramped fetid sheds, tethered to milking machines or stuck in “gestation” crates that are so small they can’t even turn around. Their misery ends at the slaughterhouse, although many are still conscious when their throats are slit.

Speaking of lives lost, the cholesterol in meat, dairy “products” and eggs has been linked to cardiovascular disease, which is the number one killer in the U.S., accounting for nearly 1 million heart attacks a year and 2,150 deaths every day. Plant-based foods contain no cholesterol but do have loads of fiber that scrub the digestive tract.

Meat consumption is also implicated in increased rates of high blood pressure, stroke, obesity, diabetes and some types of cancer. In 2015, the World Health Organization classified processed meat, including hot dogs, bacon and sausage, as carcinogenic and red meat as a probable carcinogen.

During that same year, this former meat-eater changed his ways, and in doing so, has driven his cholesterol and blood pressure levels below the national recommendations and now shops for smaller pants. He also rests easy knowing that he’s saving animals and helping his family have a “greener” future.

Have I persuaded you to go vegan? Good. Get started by visiting PETA.org and ordering a free vegan starter kit today.