* Number of acres of U.S. forest which have been cleared to create cropland to produce a meat-centered diet: 260 million
* How often an acre of U.S. trees disappears: Every 5 seconds
* At present rate of deforestation, number of years before not a single tree will remain standing in the United States: 50
* Amount of trees spared per year by each individual who switches to a pure vegetarian diet: 1 acre
* Driving force behind the destruction of the tropical rainforests: American meat habit
* Amount of meat imported annually by U.S. from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama: 200 million pounds
* Amount of meat eaten by average person in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama: Less than the average American housecat consumes
* Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests and related habitats: 1,000 species a year
Source:
http://www.foodrevolution.org
The illegitimate fascist war criminal [IFWC, if you like] Bush Administration, keep using their official story on the events of 9/11/01 as an excuse to label dissenters of their policy “terrorists”. [They use that bullshit story as “justification” for their illegal occupations which have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, the torture, the illegal detentions, etc. too, and that's why 9/11 Truth is so important, but I better get back to isolating a single issue, lest I break journalistic rules.] This false labeling of individuals as terrorists has been used especially with environmental and animal rights activists, and this phenomenon has even been given a name by activists: “The Green Scare”. This title is of course referring to the “Red Scare” fear mongering police state measures of the 1950's which the current IFWC's are repeating in the 21st century in a new form. What is of particular concern here is that environmentalism and animal rights happen to be the most important issues concerning the saving of our planet's ecosystem, and hence, us. How so? I'm glad you asked.
We should obviously care about how we are affecting the Earth’s’ ecosystem for the worse because the health and survival of our species depend on in it. This exceedingly obvious statement is considered a radical notion however by the petroleum, nuclear, coal, logging and livestock industries. That’s how backwards their current relationship to the earth, and common sense, has become in 21st century America. The glaciers keep melting, the temperature (and cancer rate) keeps rising, the weather becomes more destructive, and we just let these corporate fascists continue to lead us on a path of devastation and suffering. Earth Day passes once again while the obvious solutions to our sick ecosystem, hemp paper/fuel, solar/wind/tidal/geothermal energy, electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells, etc. still remain mostly unsupported by those who undemocratically control our tax dollars. Most Americans would love to power their homes with sun and wind and have their car run on plant-based fuel or renewable-sourced electricity, but cannot due to high costs and lack of availability. (Oh sure, we can vote for candidates that support clean energy, once they start counting all our votes, and we have campaign finance reform, but that's another issue.)
There are some things that affect the environment though that we have power over on a daily basis. Albert Einstein said: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet"
Here's an amazing fact that is extremely underreported: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that animal wastes pollute U.S. waterways more than all other industrial sources of water pollution combined. And yet instead of calling for an end to factory farming, environmental groups often suggest reforms that would have little impact. And its not just the water that the livestock industry is polluting.
From ODE magazine, December 2007:
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a report in 2006 called Livestock's Long Shadow.
"The FAO concluded that the livestock industry accounts for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. That's more than is produced by every form of transportation combined.”
“Consumers are told to conserve by switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, to take public transportation more often, to turn off the TV when they're not watching. Why aren't environmental organizations telling them to eat less meat?”
Vegetarianism is the “elephant in the room” that isn't being discussed because of ingrained conditioning as to what a “normal” diet is.
Native Americans, as I’m sure you know, honored the animals that they killed with their own hands, and said prayers of blessings for the spirit of the animal. They also used as much of the animal’s body as possible, for not only food, but clothing and shelter materials as well. Modern treatment of animals however, through factory farming and scientific experimentation, shows anything but honor and respect for these forms of life. Modern North Americans have almost completely lost daily reverence and communion with the wildlife (still surviving) and domesticated animals that share this continent with us. This is most apparent when we look at the consumption of animals as our food.
Could you slaughter your own lamb, chicken or piglet? If not, transferring the work to another person or machine is simply an act of transmuted violence. This violence no longer has to be so commonplace. Getting vegetarian foods today, especially at the supermarket, is extremely easy. The supermarket near my home sells many vegetarian foods, along with veggie meats, even vegetarian corndogs. So today it has become just a matter of choosing the real meat or the veggie meat while in the market, no more effort is required to choose the non-animal selections. Both are high protein, but one involved suffering, violence and environmental destruction, one did not. As Americans we no longer must hunt animals for survival, we only have to make choices at the supermarket, farmers market, a community garden, or even your own garden.
I have seen video of the hellish experiences cows, pigs, chickens, etc. go through during captivity, transport and slaughter; it is perhaps the greatest motivator to change to a vegetarian diet. Short documentaries like “Meet Your Meat” show you first hand the painful history of the animal flesh we eat, often without any thought of where and how it made its way to our mouth. If ever there was a hell on earth, it is the experience many animals go through in becoming our food and during animal experimentations. Isn’t there something ethically wrong with tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves against us? Rather than go into the gorish details of what I know occurs, I will leave it to you to investigate this for yourself.
I have heard some repeated counter-arguments to adopting a vegetarian diet, and all have been unjustified. To the argument that we were “meant to” eat meat, I ask “says who?” Did you have a conversation with God and she/he/it told you so? I doubt it. And for those of you who read the Bible and eat meat, you should re-read the first page! And I quote from the book of Genesis, page 1:29:
“Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”
Also from the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls it is written that Jesus said: “For I tell you truly, man is more than beast. But he who kills a beast without cause, though the beast attack him not, through lust for slaughter, or for its flesh, or its hide, or yet for its tusks, evil is the deed which he does, for he is turned into a wild beast himself.”
(Ch. XXII)
To assume that animals were “made for humans to eat” lacks any plausible foundation. Seed bearing fruit however is obviously designed and intended to be eaten, so its seeds can return to the earth in fertilizer, so new fruit may grow. And many plants, like hemp for its nutritious seed, and many vegetables, can be harvested over and over again without resulting in the death of the plant; another indication of its design to be used for food. We do not find such obvious design for food consumption in animals, who feel enormous amounts of physical and emotional pain like we humans do when are bodies are cut or our children are taken away from us and killed. A vegetarian diet is also better for own well-being; meat and dairy products are generally loaded with fat, hormones, antibiotics and pesticides. All of these can lead to disease and cancers. (Some also believe that eating animal flesh lowers our vibration due to the violence associated with it, and is therefore an obstacle to a spiritual path.)
The argument that you can’t be healthy and get the protein you need without meat and dairy is completely false. You can, and the protein from vegetables is more easily absorbed by the body. The human body does not require meat to reach optimum health, and in fact some of the most fit and healthy bodies ever to walk this Earth were formed with vegetarian diets. Many of the world’s top athletes have vegetarian diets; the two men that first broke the four minute mile were vegetarians. Olympic track stars Carl Lewis and Leroy Burrel were both vegetarian when given the title as World's Fastest Man. Two-time Olympic gold medalist Edwin Moses was vegetarian, and the list goes on and on...
Our DNA is 98.3% identical to a chimpanzee; to separate ourselves from the animal kingdom as a wholly different being is foolish and illogical. When most people are asked why we can eat and wear animals, they usually answer with something like “because we are superior”. Unfounded claims of superiority have been used to justify slavery and genocide; could our notion of superiority over animals that supposedly justifies unnecessary mass killing for food also be unfounded?
Getting back to the environment, a major reason for continued deforestation, along with not using hemp, is the expansion of land used for livestock. Therefore a meat eating diet can be directly linked to an increase of global warming and all the destruction that will increasingly bring.
About ninety percent of all our agricultural resources are used for the feeding of livestock. This food could be used to feed the hungry and starving instead and for growing environmentally beneficial crops like hemp.
From page 191 of the book “the World Peace Diet”:
"Everyone on Earth could be fed easily because we currently grow more than enough grain to feed ten billion people; our current practice of feeding this grain to untold billions of animals and eating them forces over a billion of us to endure chronic malnutrition and starvation while another billion suffer from the obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer linked with eating diets high in animal foods. The drugs we take to combat these diseases are discharged through the urine, flow into the water and become yet another major stream that adds to the pollution of our Earth.”
From environmental destruction to inflicting torturous pain on other beings, the modern meat industry is a clear example of something “bad”. That's right, I made a moral judgment! I must be an extremist! (Or so says modern Sophists in America society conditioned into suppressing the use of their own conscience). The experience of pain in other mammals, birds and fish is virtually the same as our own. For those that say that there is no difference between killing plants and animals, the obvious answer to them is that they are ignoring the fact that animals feel pain, plants don’t. Animals have feelings, have consciousness on some level, and so therefore should be treated as such, not just as animated food. Would you like to be imprisoned, tortured and then brutally murdered so someone could eat your flesh for dinner? I didn't think so. Nonviolence remember? The foundation of the Revolution? Speaking of which here are some salient excerpts from the excellent book “The Nonviolent Revolution” by Nathaniel Altman: “In addition to its impact on animal welfare, a vegetarian lifestyle offers additional 'ahimsic benefits' towards one's body, the environment, and the right utilization of the earth's resources....The practice of feeding plant protein to livestock instead of directly to people places a tremendous strain on the earth's resources, and contributes to the shortage of food around the world... In addition, a vegetarian diet calls for far less water than a diet containing meat... [which] utilizes some 2,500 gallons of water per day (including irrigation ,animal drinking water, and the large amount of water needed for the actual processing of meat), while the pure vegetarian (vegan) diet uses only 300 gallons per day. [According to Dr. Aaron Altschul of Georgetown University]
Some more poignant information from Alternatives magazine, winter 07-08, in an article by Bruce Friedrich:
“Even leaving aside all the animal welfare issues, a vegan diet is the only reasonable diet for people in the developed world who care about the environment or global poverty... Environmental Defense, on its website, notes: “If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains... the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. Roads.” Imagine if we stopped eating animal products altogether... Vegan foods cut out the factory farms, the slaughterhouses, and multiple stages of heavily polluting tractor-trailer trucks, as well as the resources (and pollution) involved in each of those stages... Choose vegan – and preferably organic [and local] – foods. It's bad for the environment to eat animals. It's time to stop looking for loopholes.”
And since I'm a fan of being blunt and cutting through the bullshit when appropriate, I'll share such a statement from the book “The Real Forbidden Fruit: How Meat Destroys Paradise And How Veganism Can Get It Back” by Jeff Popick: “There are many well-intentioned people who consider themselves to be environmentalists, and yet many of these people eat animal products, even though it is animal products that are primarily responsible for the demise of the environment. Eating meat kills animals, people and the planet. To be an environmentalist, one must be vegan.”
I know black and white statements are unpopular among apathetic post-modern nihilists, but the truth must be told. (By the way, non-dualism/non-judgment is an idea that permeates all areas of modern culture, from those that are “cool” to those that are “square”, from the young to the old, from the academic to the spiritual, and it is corrupting the progress of mankind. Instead of citing those that have backwards/insane ideas about morality and the environment, why don't you stand up for the sane perspective?) If we want a healthy, peaceful and sustainable world, that means: No war, No nukes, No coal, No clear-cutting, No petroleum, and No meat.
CD
justice
July 2008 
Satyagrahi
Access: Public
John Robbins 