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Spring

This forum is set aside for the BHA Humanist Vegetarian Group. All of Think Humanism's registered users are welcome to participate. If you wish to receive news and announcements from this group, please register with the HVG user group. See instructions near the top of the HVG forum.

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clayto
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Joined: July 22nd, 2007, 6:34 pm

Spring

#1 Post by clayto » March 15th, 2009, 3:26 pm

HVG Member Michael Maybury has forwarded the item below.

Chris

The World Bank estimates that livestock production is responsible for 50% of greenhouse gases.
If you're interested in real facts and statistics that show easy ways to reduce everyone's carbon footprint drastically, please read on.
No more 19th. Century thinking. This is the 21st Century.
One world started to be recognised in the 60's, and now everyone realises that we are responsible for 900,000 obese people and 1.2 billion undernourished people worldwide.
**************************************************************
----- Original Message -----
From: Katelijne Rothschild Van Look
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 6:49 AM
Subject: Spring

Hallo :-)

Spring is in the air, daffodils start painting the landscape, birds will soon arrive in multitude to delight us with their symphonies. Yet, my heart is heavy.

Why does the killing go on? More than 60 billion animals each year, expected to double by 2050. And this is just to feed us, to keep us "alive"?

And why are there still so many hungry people? 963 million (while 1.2 billion obese). Why do we not give them the 760 million tonnes of grain, which are now fed to livestock? As well as 85% of the entire soya harvest, also fed to livestock? We could cover the global food shortage manyfold, if we would use this food to feed people instead.

And why is deforestation still soaring? 70% is due to clearing land for pasture and livestock feed crops. Did you know that each second, an area of tropical rainforest the size of a football field is destroyed to produce 257 hamburgers?

Did you know that animal wastes contribute to large oceanic "dead zones", which extended to nearly 7,903 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico in 2007?

Did you know that it takes 4664 liters of water to produce 1 portion of beef, 1249 liters of water to produce 1 portion of chicken and 371 liters of water to produce an entire vegan meal? This while 1.1 billion people don't have access to clean drinking water; that is 1 in 6 of us.

Did you know that the total EU interventions and direct subsidies to the livestock industry during 2007 amounted to 3.5 billion Euros? And that the subsidies to the fishing industry worldwide are approximately £15 billion each year, the bulk of which leads to over-fishing?

Did you know that the Word Bank estimates that the livestock industry is responsible for 50% of all greenhouse gasses, instead of the 18% first estimated by IPCC (International Panel for Climate Change)? All transportation together (cars, planes, etc) only contributes 13%.

And did you know that the most devastating effect of rising temperatures and melting ice is the release of 400 billion tonnes of methane gas from the ocean seabed? This gas, in such quantities, is enough to end life on Earth as we know it.

Do you know what the real cost is of 85 billion $2 hamburgers (in the US)? An epidemic of high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, colon and breast cancer and food poisoning; grain fed to cows instead of millions of starving people; water pollution, topsoil erosion and rain forest destruction; millions of tons of methane, trillions of liters of water used to grow livestock feed; tens of millions of cows brutally slaughtered.

And do you know what the SOLUTION is? The easiest, cheapest, quickest and most efficient way to stop global warming, world hunger, pollution, deforestation, health problems, animal cruelty? Yes, it is to stop eating animals and animal products. Going vegan. To save the Planet, to feed the hungry, to protect the environment, to keep your health, to prevent cruelty.

Please be brave, and change your diet.
Be a hero. Be veg.
Please do it.
Do it now.

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet" ~ Albert Einstein

Let's materialize our dream of a happy, green and lush Planet, where children run carefree, where people smile, where animals are our friends. Then spring will truly come.

x Katelijne
clayto

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