Ten Reasons Why Being Vegan Is Good for the Environment implies a basic respect for animals, a fundamental point of view that protects animals from being exploited by humanity. Vegans choose not to consume animal products: beef cattle, pigs, all poultry raised for human consumption, chickens for laying eggs, feeder and dairy cattle. Vegans prefer to eat natural products that do not involve the killing of animals and therefore live a more compassionate life.
1. Being vegan prevents the exploitation of all animals
The exploitation of animals is not only cruel but inhumane. Living in crowded conditions and often standing on their own feces, animals raised for conventional slaughter can develop resistant strains of e-coli that are passed on to carnivores. Their meat also contains massive antibiotics and hormones that are fed like slaughter animals, remaining in the meat to consume. Even organic meat cannot prove that the animal was raised humanely, simply because it was not fed antibiotics or hormones.
2. Being vegan reduces the use of fossil fuels
Being vegan has a lot to do with the production of fossil fuels in the livestock area, responsible for around 64% of ammonia emissions. Furthermore, a calorie produced from animal protein for fossil fuel costs ten times more than a calorie from plant protein. With this in mind, approximately one third of all fossil fuels go into animal agriculture production. An easily solved problem, going vegan for the average individual will save one and a half tons of carbon dioxide per year.
3. Being vegan protects the rainforest
With the United States importing several million pounds of meat from dense Central America, the rainforest is rapidly disappearing from the area. Part of the top ten countries ranked for the greatest loss of forests used to be Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras from Central America. Due to the large amount of cattle ranching, at one point Costa Rica lost more than 83% of its forests in 1983, with more than 300 million pounds of beef shipped annually to the United States for hamburgers, due to the need for large inexpensive quantities of meat. Cheap quality meat.
4. Being vegan decreases global warming
Something that nobody knows except cattle breeders, is the fact that cattle fart, in fact, they fart a lot because of their diet. These farts (and probably ours) produce methane gas that is released into Earth’s atmosphere where it absorbs heat, much like carbon dioxide. The only difference is that methane gas is not a direct cause of environmental effects, but a contributing factor to global warming. Once the absorption of heat begins to increase the temperature of the land, many things begin to happen: the temperature of the ocean begins to increase; the melting of the glaciers begins; the permafrost begins to melt; floods increase; severe intensity of weather patterns and more.
5. Being vegan reduces water pollution
Unfortunately, livestock production accounts for the increases in water use for irrigating crops to feed cattle and other forms of livestock. Livestock are the main source of water pollution and contribute to the creation of dead zones in coastal areas, human health problems, antibiotic resistance and degradation of coral reefs. Water pollution originates from runoff from animal waste, tanning chemicals, eroding pasture sediments, crop fertilizers, and pesticides.
6. Being vegan respects the ocean ecosystem
More than 20% of the 220 companies profiled have been convicted or criminally charged for seeing urine and feces flowing into rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, groundwater, and eventually the ocean. More than 10.6 million fish have died between 1995 and 1997 due to manure spills from cattle lots, hog farms, and meat companies. Pathogenic organisms are spreading in waterways from bird and pig waste, and are also killing humans.
7. Being vegan promotes fair trade and reduces the exploitation of workers
With the United States consuming more than a third of the world’s resources, there are many countries that have children doing adult labor for very little pay and in unsanitary conditions. They also have adults who work long hours seven days a week for pennies. Vegans often refuse to eat anything that doesn’t have “fair trade” on the food label. The label must inform the consumer where the food or product has been produced. By eliminating the need for industries that promote child labor and sweatshops, companies are forced to pay higher wages that help people buy healthier food and live in hygienic homes.
8. Going vegan takes a political stand on environmental violations by the meat industry
By not going vegan, the meat eater promotes environmental pollution through the overbreeding of all animals. This in turn promotes the need for large amounts of grain and water, oil to transport and produce the meat, pesticides to control weeds around the fields and in mass crops, and drugs to administer to the animals: hormones and antibiotics.
9. Being vegan helps eliminate water deficits around the world.
With the meat industry being the leading cause of freshwater depletion, this is a historic moment when millions of global wells are running dry in India, North Africa, China, and the United States. They have been forced to pump more water from aquifers than rain from the earth can ever replenish. One such example is the Ogallala Aquifer, also known as the High Plains Aquifer beneath the US Great Plains, and considered the largest aquifer in the world. By 2005, the aquifer had reached a low of 253 million acre-feet since irrigation development began; it is estimated that it will run out in 40 years after taking half a million years to accumulate. According to the World Watch Institute, one hamburger costs as much water as 40 showers with a low-flow nozzle.
10. Going vegan protects federal lands and endangered species
More than 26% of US federal lands have been affected by cattle grazing, along with the loss of endangered species. An ecological impact, eliminating mass grazing of dairy and feeder cattle on federal lands and in South America will protect the earth’s lands more than anything else. Livestock deforestation is a major reason for the loss of plant and animal species.