The environmental impact of the lifecycle and supply chain of animals raised for food has been vastly underestimated, and in fact accounts for at least half of all human-caused greenhouse gases (GHGs), according to Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, co-authors of "Livestock and Climate Change".

A widely cited 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestock's Long Shadow, estimates that 18 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions are attributable to cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, pigs, and poultry. But recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang finds that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions.

To Read “Livestock and Climate Change, “published in World Watch Magazine go here:


Livestock and climate change

Ronnie Wright
World Change Cafe

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as the pollution coming from Beck, Fox Noise and the tea baggers in a steady stream of contamination from the stupidity they spread.

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The following quotes, facts, figures and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

"A reduction in beef and other meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources. Our choices do matter: What's healthiest for each of us personally is also healthiest for the life support system of our precious, but wounded planet."

---John Robbins, author, Diet for a New America, and President, EarthSave Foundation

One study puts animal waste in the United States to between 2.4 trillion to 3.9 trillion pounds per year. The United states produces 15,000 pounds of manure per person. This is 130 times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population of the United States.

A 1,000-cow dairy can produce approximately 120,000 pounds of waste per day. This is the functional equivalent of the amount of sanitary waste produced by a city of 20,000 people.

A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year. Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.

One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total. One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.

Factory farm pollution is the primary source of damage to coastal waters in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Scientists report that over sixty percent of the coastal waters in the United States are moderately to severely degraded from factory farm nutrient pollution. This pollution creates oxygen-depleted dead zones, which are huge areas of ocean devoid of aquatic life.

Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then. By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.

"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."

---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York

Agricultural meat production generates air pollution. As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health. Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain. Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia. Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.

The World Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic.

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The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture. While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it. It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.

Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals. By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom. Meat production consumes the world's land resources.

Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock. Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.

The United States government spends $10 million each year to kill an estimated 100,000 wild animals, including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears, and mountain lions just to placate ranchers who don't want these animals killing their livestock. The cost far outweighs the damage to livestock that these predators cause.

The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.

33 percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only 2 percent of our resources will go to the production of food.

"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."

---Jeremy Rifkin, author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

Lester Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.

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Kathleen Marquardt, founded Putting People First, an anti-animal rights group. In her 1993 book, Animal Scam: The Beastly Abuse of Human Rights, she says:

"The real agenda of this movement is not to give rights to animals, but to take rights from people—to dictate our food, clothing, work, recreation, and whether we will discover new medications or die."

Identical assertions could have been made about the abolition of human slavery, the crusade to end child labor, the liberation of concentration camp prisoners from Nazi physicians or an end to the experimentation upon black humans by white humans.

Marquardt writes that the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) "now encourages vegetarianism, the banning of fur, and the eventual end to all animal research, not just ‘cruel’ animal research." Marquardt writes that the Humane Society now supports vegetarianism.

According to Marquardt, "The typical animal rights activist is a white woman making about $30,000 a year. She is most likely a schoolteacher, nurse, or government worker. She usually has a college degree or even an advanced degree, is in her thirties or forties, and lives in a city."

Marquardt cites studies indicating that animal rights activists tend to identify with liberal causes such as feminism and environmentalism. "Every year," writes the Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so." It is not surprising, therefore, that Marquardt reports that "Most activists share a bias against Western civilization and its Judeo-Christian foundations."

According to Marquardt, the "political clout" of the animal rights movement "is surprisingly bipartisan. But most of the leading politicians working with the animal rights movement are liberal Democrats." Marquardt mentions Senator Barbara Boxer of California, Nevada Congressman Jim Bilbray, Charlie Rose of North Carolina, Tom Lantos and Gerry Studds.

Marquardt admits, however, that "some Republicans are animal rightists, too. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas often supports animal rights causes—except, of course, those pertaining to cattle, a major business in Kansas. Senator Robert Smith of New Hampshire was a founder of the Congressional Friends of Animals. Bob Dornan of California, one of the most conservative House members, is an animal rights advocate—he cosponsored legislation banning the use of animals in testing cosmetics and received a PETA award. And Manhattan Congressman Bill Green promoted legislation that would have shut down over 90 million acres of federal land to hunting, fishing, and trapping."

Marquardt states further that "Although he’s not an elected official, a conservative political figure who, surprisingly, is on the other side is G. Gordon Liddy, author Will and a key figure in the 1972 Watergate uproar. When I went on Liddy’s radio show, he and PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk greeted each other with hugs and kisses and lots of warm words.

"With allies in both political parties and across the ideological spectrum," concludes Marquardt, "the animal rights movement has been able to score some great successes, regardless of which party controls the White House or Capitol Hill."

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Good job, PETA... just when I thought you couldn't do any better than inpiring idiots to make that People Eating Tasty Animals joke every time I even mention I am a vegetarian... you team up with a guy who called meatless mondays a form of indoctrination.

Good on you, PETA. As usual, I am sure there will be ZERO blowback from this one.

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PETA is always right when it concerns animals and the planet. Long live Ingrid and PETA! It took courage to go and debate w/ this Glenn Beck! Indeed, wear a coat made of giraffe'skin? Come on...but he did retract that stupid comment. I am not as pleased w/ the quote from Umbra Fisk at Grist who wants us to think that eating her local bacon is perfectly ok. I won't list all the reasons why it is not. After watching Mr. Al Gore's film I
was appalled that he purposedly left out "An Inconvenient Truth", going vegetarian for the health of the planet! But after all he comes from a family of ranchers! Without even considering the welfare of animals, we all know that real environmentalists don't eat meat because factory farms pollute the earth more than all other industrial sources combined. And please, this new movement to "kill the animals softly" (read humanely) is a lot of BS. In the film "Foods Inc." the farmer didn't show a lot of care for these poor chickens whose heads were roughly stuffed
in a metal funnel while he jolly spoke w/ interviewer and buddies there. It reminded me of the scene when Sarah Palin pardonned a turkey on TV and had all the others being killed behind her in such a fashion. Ha! My
suggestion to anyone is to read Jonathan
Saffran Foer's latest book "Eating Animals". And as far as PETA is concerned he is so right in writing of ... "the unpleasant realization that "those PETA people" have stood up for the values we have been too cowardly or forgetful to defend ourselves". Yes Mr. Gore, that's a very inconvenient truth. Your support of the beef industry and pigs and chickens industry is wrong, very wrong and hypocritical. Long live Ingrid and PETA! The Power of the truth is in them!

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thanks for all the stats in the various comments here. I am really going to consider going veg with my family (wife and two kids.) I've been there before for a couple of years, but mostly for health reasons, not for environmental reasons. The evidence does seem to be overwhelming and in good conscience, I think its a worthy direction. thanks again.

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To me, a vegetarian for 25 years, the issue is neither personal nor ecological health, though these are important considerations. My reason for going vegetarian is based on an aversion toward killing and eating my fellow sentient beings. I find that practice morally indefensible. Period.

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peta2 is now the largest youth movement of any social change organization in the world.

peta2 has 267,000 friends on MySpace and 91,000 Facebook fans.

A few years ago, PETA was the top-ranked charity when a poll asked teenagers what nonprofit group they would most want to work for. PETA won by more than a 2 to 1 margin over the second place finisher, The American Red Cross, with more votes than the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity combined.

I understand there are conservative Christians who fear vegetarianism...which is kind of like being afraid of nonsmoking, nondrinking, or recycling. Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain fed to livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

A pamphlet put out by Compassion Over Killing says raising animals for food is one of the leading causes of both pollution and resource depletion today. According to a recent United Nations report, Livestock's Long Shadow, raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and other forms of transportation combined. Researchers from the University of Chicago similarly concluded that a vegetarian diet is the most energy efficient, and the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by not eating animal products than by switching to a hybrid car.

A 2007 journal published by the American Dietetic Association found "meat protein production required 26 times more water than vegetable protein on rain-fed lands." The journal further states that dieticians "can encourage eating that is both healthful and conserving of soil, water, and energy by emphasizing plant sources of protein and foods that have been produced with fewer agricultural inputs."

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."

---Union Nations' Food and Agriculture Association

70% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are used by the meat industry. (Audubon Society)

Over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock. (Greenpeace)

It takes nearly one gallon of fossil fuel and 5,200 gallons of water to produce just one pound of conventionally fed beef. (Mother Jones)

Farmed animals produce an estimated 1.4 billion tons of fecal waste each year in the U.S. Much of this untreated waste pollutes the land and water.

The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.

“If anyone wants to save the planet,” says Paul McCartney in a PETA interview, “all they have to do is 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. Let’s do it! Linda was right. Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century.”

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They know how to get their message out! Apparently "Fox's audience is by far the largest of the cable networks, with an average of more than 2.1 million viewers in prime-time this year according to Nielsen Co." (Peter Nicholas/ Los Angeles Times)
People must hear PETA's truth, regardless of their political associations. Politics of meat is universal. And THANKS to Alternet for making this video interview available to all their viewers.

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PETA is so far left they have come full circle and are smoozing with the far right. What a bunch of quacks. Industrial meat production is terrible, but there are people who raise and eat organic beef, pork, poultry, etc... and they are real environmentalists--more in touch with the natural world than a wako group of animal rights freaks.

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Newkirk is on Bacon-Fat Beck's program to chastise AL GORE?

What, was she having a brain fugue? That's like getting in bed with an Al Qaeda representative to stick it to Harry Reid.

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While I do not dispute the facts of factory farming being atrocious, Ingrid Newkirk and her vile organization are hypocrites and liars. She is a bloated ego dedicated to self-promotion, duping celebrities with the inability to comprehend issues more complex than which designer ot wear into posing nude for her propaganda campaigns.

And, while I am an omnivore (yes, I eat meat and I will continue to do so) I am proud to say that I have never eaten meat -- or anything else -- in a factory farm.

Oh, and one more thing: Bill Mahar is a fucking idiot.

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They are paid to bribe legislators.

See FEMA care under demoboobs.

See NAFTA under repubs.

See anything but the truth, may it help you sell our kids down the road to servitude.

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You can't be an industrial meat eater and a supprter of good environmental outcomes.

That's true even when said on the Glen Beck show. That Ingrid went on is a good thing.

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If he cared so much about the environment, he wouldn't have supported NAFTA and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. How much pollution has resulted from the industrial production of goods we import from those counties? He's a shrewd politician who knows that environmentalism is a sexy issue that turns on liberal voters.

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If this organization lived up to it's claim to be "People for Ethical Treatment of Animals" I would totally support them.
Instead they specialize in encouraging young people to break the law by trespass and criminal damage.
As an earlier poster above pointed out they are NOT about saving animals from abuse but about controlling humans. What we eat, wear and associate with in any way.

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So the sole reason why he had PETA on was to lambaste Al Gore only, not anything to do with himself & his selfish ilk, remember that when you see the footage. Beck believes that Global Climate Change is a lie used by the Socialists to destroy Capitalism and take over. Just like Rush Limbaugh said so many years ago when that meme was set upon our country 15 years ago.

We need meat, just that we consume far more than we need to live. Way too much in fact. We need to cut back by 50-90% would be better for us all.

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According to public records from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, PETA killed 2,124 pets last year and placed only seven in adoptive homes. Since 1998, a total of 21,339 dogs and cats have died at the hands of PETA workers.

Why does PETA hate pets? Here's why:

“Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.”
— Ingrid Newkirk, Harper's, Aug 1988

"In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether."
— Ingrid Newkirk, Newsday, Feb 1988

PETA kills pets because Ingrid Newkirk hates pet ownership. Stop this hypocricy of animal murder and maybe I'll listen to some of the things PETA has to say. In the meantime, Ms. Newkirk, you'll take my cats away from me when you pry them from my cold, dead arms - and if you do try, I'll do my best to make sure you predecease me.

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Check out your point on soy -- the horrifically environmentally destructive production goes toward feeding livestock. Most higher quality human consumption soy, which is relatively little of the total produced is more sustainably produced and local.

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Come on Tara, painting the soybeans used for tofu and soymilk as the cause for all that destruction you mentioned is now known to be absolutely false. That is pure meat/dairy interest propaganda, and I think you are well-informed enough to know that. Such a small percentage of the soybean crop is actually used for soyfoods, and most of that is now organic, it's not even funny. Not to mention that the "local/grassfed/free-range,etc" "happy" meats that you refer to are actually shown to be even worse for the environment due to the increased land needed for production and such. Bashing the consumption of soyfoods, when you are angry at Peta, does nothing to harm Peta. You are just ensuring that more people will be choosing to consume animal-meat and dairy instead, thereby causing even more brutalizing and murdering of other sentient beings of other species against their will. Those innocent, voiceless beings are who you are truly victimizing.

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