If you are interested in learning more about the the benefits of a compassionate plant-based lifestyle, check out these great documentaries. Please share and spread the information!
If you are interested in learning more about the the benefits of a compassionate plant-based lifestyle, check out these great documentaries. Please share and spread the information!
If you are interested in learning more about the the benefits of a compassionate plant-based lifestyle, check out these great documentaries. Please share and spread the information!
If you are interested in learning more about the the benefits of a compassionate plant-based lifestyle, check out these great documentaries. Please share and spread the information!
After reading and following along with this blog, you likely will have learned many unsettling facts about animal agriculture that anger you because of the lack of respect and compassions humans have for animals and the environment. If you want to help make the world a better place, for this generation and the many to come, reducing or especially eliminating your consumption of animal products is the best thing you can do to do your part. There is no such thing as a meat eating environmentalist, so if you care about this planet, be the change that you want to see in this world. It is easy to say that “someone should do something” but not quite so to say “I should do something”. Climate change is not a problem we can solve by letting others act for us, it is a problem that we all hold the solution to in our kitchen. By choosing forks over knives, plants over animal products, we eliminate the suffering of animals, the environment, and our own bodies. Aldo Leopold once said, “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.” Realizing these truths, is the greatest thing you can do. The Earth is not a commodity, but a community to which we all belong, and must respect and cherish.
Although the animals directly victimized by animal agriculture are the ones being slaughtered and used for their bodies and products, the humans that live in areas around factory farms also suffer because of the poor environmental effects they have. Livestock in the U.S. produce approximately 500 million tons of fecal waste and urine every year which is way much more waste than factory farms could ever redistribute as fertilizer, so the majority of waste is left to sit and fester in massive, open-air lagoons adjacent to the farms. When these cesspools of feces and urine get full, factory farms will frequently avoid water pollution limits by spraying liquid manure into the air, which creates mists of pollutants carried away by the wind. This comes at a low cost to the industry, but a high one to the environment and local residents. Living with the putrid smell and harmful gases released by factory farm waste can ruin the health of a person and quality of life. Mental health deterioration and increased sensitization to smells can occur in people who live near factory farms according to studies. Unfortunately, many communities located near factory farms fall below the poverty level so the families living there do not have the option to relocate to a place with cleaner air, and instead fall victim to the pollutants.
A dangerous problem that comes along with storing excrement in massive lagoons is that the waste breaks down and forms ammonia gas which is released into the atmosphere. This then breeds bacteria, which combines with other pollutants in the air to form later dangerous nitric acid. When nitric acid builds up in the atmosphere, it then returns to the surface of the earth as acid rain, which harms soil, forest habitats, and water ecosystems. People also tend to suffer from respiratory irritation, bronchitis, lung inflammation, dust toxic syndrome, asthma, and even cardiac arrest if the pollution from local factory farms is bad enough. Ammonia emissions from waste pools can cause a variety of harmful health effects including dizziness, eye irritation, respiratory illness, and nausea. Releases of dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide, another dangerous gas released from factory farmed animals, can cause sore throats, seizures, comas, and even death in rare cases. Asthma can also be a real concern, especially for younger children living near these farms. Children raised in communities near factory farms are more likely to develop asthma or bronchitis than children who are not directly impacted by the pollution in the air and water surrounding factory farms. Sadly, the unsanitary conditions on factory farms, poor quality of animal feed, and overuse of antibiotics in livestock have resulted in diseases including swine and avian flu that are spread by air and difficult to manage. Factory farms not only torment and kill millions of animals each year, they impact the health of the people living near them.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that livestock production is responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while other organizations such as the Worldwatch Institute estimate it could be as much as 51 percent. Even the more modest 18 percent estimate accounts for more greenhouse gas production than all of the exhaust emitted through human transportation. A third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used in animal production, and specifically, livestock accounts for an estimated 9 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, 35 to 40 percent of global methane emissions, and 65 percent of dangerous nitrous oxide emissions.
Methane gas is one of the largest contributors to global warming and is capable of trapping up to 100 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over a five-year period. Most of the methane comes from cows and pigs on factory farms that are fed low-quality grains such as corn that their bodies were not designed to digest, which later results in indigestion and flatulence and therefore greenhouse gas emissions. All of this gas then enters our atmosphere. In addition to the greenhouse gases directly emitted from the animals, meat and other animal products have a huge carbon footprint due to the deforestation in areas such as the Amazon rainforest needed to grow feed and graze animals, as well as all of the transportation involved in both feeding the animals and distributing the animal products to consumers. Animal agriculture has a dangerously high carbon footprint that cannot be ignored.
like. objectively. living in that time period would SUCK but victorian stuff is so, so, sexy. i want to be sent off to boarding school because i’m too rowdy in an attempt to make me stop embarrassing my family only to enter into a tempestuous love affair with my roommate before drowning in the grounds lake.
threeknees