The Discerning Brute

Last year, we highlighted 3 Earth Day Doozies: the Holocene Extinction Event, the Overpopulation, Meat, and Food Crisis problems, and the problem of Greenwashing:

We all know that recycling and changing light-bulbs is not going to solve the ecological crises we face. So why does every media organization keep feeding us this crap? And why is going vegan not on any list of “10 simple things you can do…blah blah“? If raising livestock is the #1 cause of Global Warming, the most effective thing we can do is go vegan! Duh. Check out these charts from Scientific American.

In addition to being the leading cause of global warming – according to Farm Sanctuary:

Inevitably, intensive animal agriculture depletes valuable natural resources. Instead of being eaten by people, the vast majority of grain harvested in the U.S. is fed to farm animals. This wasteful and inefficient practice has forced agribusiness to exploit vast stretches of land. Forests, wetlands, and other natural ecosystems and wildlife habitats have been decimated and turned into crop and grazing land. Scarce fossil fuels, groundwater, and topsoil resources which took millenium to develop are now disappearing.

Meanwhile, the quantity of waste produced by farm animals in the U.S. is more than 130 times greater than that produced by humans. Agricultural runoff has killed millions of fish, and is the main reason why 60% of America’s rivers and streams are “impaired”. In states with concentrated animal agriculture, the waterways have become rife with pfiesteria bacteria. In addition to killing fish, pfiesteria causes open sores, nausea, memory loss, fatigue and disorientation in humans. Even groundwater, which takes thousands of years to restore, is being contaminated. For example, the aquifer under the San Bernadino Dairy Preserve in southern California contains more nitrates and other pollutants than water coming from sewage treatment plants.