Ten reasons why going vegan is good for the environment involves 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: cattle, pigs, all birds raised for human consumption, hens for laying eggs, cattle for fattening and dairy. Vegans prefer to eat natural products that do not involve the slaughter of animals and therefore live a more compassionate life.
1. Being vegan avoids 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 that are 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 feed like slaughter animals, staying 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. Going vegan decreases the use of fossil fuels
Going vegan has a lot to do with the livestock area’s fossil fuel production, responsible for around 64% of ammonia emissions. In addition, a calorie produced from animal protein for fossil fuel is produced at a cost ten times greater than the amount of a calorie from plant protein. Taking this into account, approximately one third of all fossil fuels are used for the production of animal agriculture. An easily solved problem, going vegan for the average individual will save a ton and a half of carbon dioxide per year.
3. Being vegan protects the rainforest
With the United States importing several million pounds of beef from dense Central America, the rainforest is rapidly disappearing there. Part of the top ten countries ranked for the greatest forest loss used to be Central America’s Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Due to the large amount of cattle ranching, at some 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 amounts of cheap quality meat.
4. Being vegan reduces global warming
Something that nobody knows, except the cattlemen, is the fact that the cattle fart; in fact, they fart a lot due to their diet. These farts (and probably ours) produce methane gas that is released into Earth’s atmosphere, where it absorbs heat, in the same way that carbon dioxide does. The only difference is that methane gas is not a direct cause of environmental effects, but rather 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 rise; the melting of the glaciers begins; 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 increased use of water for irrigation of crops to feed livestock and other forms of livestock. Livestock are the biggest source of water pollution, contributing to dead zones in coastal areas, human health problems, resistance to antibiotics and the degradation of coral reefs. Water pollution is caused by runoff from animal waste, tannery chemicals, eroded sediment from pastures, crop fertilizers, and pesticides.
6. Being vegan respects the ocean ecosystem
More than 20% of the 220 companies identified have been convicted or charged with criminal charges for leaking urine and feces that flow into rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, groundwater and eventually the ocean. More than 10.6 million fish died between 1995 and 1997 due to manure spills from livestock lots, pig farms, and meat companies. Pathogenic organisms are spreading in waterways from poultry and pig waste, and they also kill humans.
7. Being vegan promotes fair trade and reduces labor exploitation.
With the United States consuming more than a third of the world’s resources, there are many countries that have children doing adult work 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 is not “fair trade” on food labels. The label should tell the consumer where the food or product was made. 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 sanitary homes.
8. Going vegan takes a political position on environmental violations by the meat industry.
By not going vegan, the meat consumer promotes environmental pollution through the excessive reproduction 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 animals, hormones and antibiotics. .
9. Being vegan helps eliminate the world’s water deficit.
With the meat industry the leading cause of freshwater depletion, this is a time in history 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 can be replenished by land-based rainfall. An example of this is the Ogallala Aquifer, also known as the High Plains Aquifer below the Great Plains of the USA, and considered the largest aquifer in the world. By 2005, the aquifer had reached a minimum of 253 million acre-feet since irrigation development began, which is estimated to be depleted in 40 years after it has taken half a million years to accumulate. According to the World Watch Institute, a hamburger costs as much water as 40 showers with a low-flow nozzle.
10. Being vegan protects federal lands and endangered species.
More than 26% of federal land in the United States has been affected by cattle grazing, along with the loss of endangered species. An ecological impact, eliminating mass grazing of dairy and beef cattle on federal lands and in South America will protect the land of the earth more than anything else. Livestock deforestation is one of the main causes of the loss of plant and animal species.