#EatForThePlanet
- 21
- Apr
Animal Place is proud to participate in One Green Planet’s #EatForThePlanet campaign. Make every day Earth Day by adopting a vegan lifestyle. One Green Planet’s campaign is vital in connecting consumers to the choices they make. Our planet needs change and it needs it now. You can make it happen.
Here are 4 Reasons Why!
Water Wasters
With California and several western states facing a severe drought, now is not the time to grow water intensive crops only to turn around and feed those crops to thirsty animals. Cut the middle animal out of the equation! Animal agriculture is water intensive. In California, a million acres of arable land is used to grow 6 million tons of alfalfa. The US grows around 49 million tons of alfalfa, 12% of which is exported (the #1 importer of alfalfa is the United Arab Emirates). Alfalfa is, by far, the thirstiest crop grown in California, followed by almonds and pistachios, and then pasture (food for farmed animals).
Manure Murders
Animals exploited for farming poop. A lot. Farmed animals produce more than 500 million tons of feces, three times more than humans. The photo below shows a 20-acre manure lagoon from a dairy in Oregon. Unlike human waster, nonhuman feces and urine do not need to processed. They sit beneath sheds or in manure pits or lagoons and are then sprayed upon crops. The run-off of the excess manure causes dead zones and fish kills. In some cases farms will allow raw sewage to leak into groundwater, rivers, and other Millions of fish have been killed by manure run-off.
Climate Changers
According to experts, animal agriculture contributes more to climate change than the transportation sector. One study estimated 18% of warming gases are produced by the livestock sector, including nearly 40% of methane emissions. Methane is a far harsher gas than carbon dioxide but also dissipates from the environment quicker than carbon dioxide.
Rainforest Ruin
The rainforests are our planet’s lungs and they are being crushed at an alarming rate…for animal agriculture. In Brazil, the number one contributor to deforestation is animal farming – forests are being cleared to graze cattle and grow soy. The soy is shipped across the globe to be used as feed for farmed animals. Entire ecosystems can be destroyed.
You may be surprised to learn – this is the short list of animal agriculture’s negative impact on the planet. Exploiting nonhumans for food is responsible for turning arable land into deserts, causing species extinction, increasing the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria, creating dead zones in our lakes and oceans, reducing fish populations to the brink of collapse.
Want to help? Make every day an Earth Day and #EatForThePlanet. Join our Sanctuary Sweets email list and we’ll email you a vegan breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert recipe each week!
-Marji Beach, Education Director
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I began eating a vegan diet because of the abuse to animals but have found the degradation to the environment just as compelling a reason to change my eating habits. A plant based diet can be very tasty and healthful if it you eat whole foods such as whole grains and seeds and whole fruits. I have reversed diabetes two which my doctors have taken off my charts. I also got rid of painful arthritis in my hands. This diet, however doesn’t work for all kinds of arthritis.
Please take appropriate action to secure our future!! We all
must become aware of the necessity of our good earth!!!!
We suck as humans if we can’t see how thy are treating these animals,.
Thank you, Animal Place, for all you do for the animals! I have been vegan for 41 of my 47 years, and vegetarian for the first 6 years of my life. My mother was a vegetarian before I was born and we as a family, have always been extremely active in animals rights and welfare.
I am so grateful for your organization and we will continue to support you in any way we can!
One of the best decisions of my life is to be a vegetarian….I don’t contribute to the horrors if factory farming, world hunger, wasting natural resources, hurting the environment.