Climate change

About 30 percent of the Methane in the atmosphere is a direct result of microbial action in animals' digestive tracts. Raising animals for food creates more greenhouse gases than any other human induced activity, which is why each dietary choice creates a ripple effect across the globe.

Methane is capable of trapping 20 times more heat than CO2, and is expected to cause about 17% of the global warming over the next 50 years.
While Carbon Dioxide emissions can persist for over a century, Methane in the atmosphere breaks down within a decade. This suggests that reducing Methane emissions will have a more immediate impact on global warming.


Each year we add approximately 400 million tons of Methane to the atmosphere by raising livestock, coal mining, drilling for oil and natural gas, rice cultivation, and garbage sitting in landfills.
www.envirolink.org/orgs/edf/sitemap.html

An average cow emits around 550 liters of Methane per day. All this methane can add up to a significant amount.
In Australia the 140 million sheep and cattle are estimated to produce one seventh of the nation's total greenhouse gas emissions, and the 100 million head of cattle in America are also are major contributors.

An estimated 800 thousand metric tons of carbon equivalent (MTCE) were released in the process of making approximately 50 billion new PET bottles from virgin rather than recycled materials.


Better known as 'laughing gas', Nitrous Oxide (N2O) accounts for 9 per cent of all greenhouse gases, yet is 300 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide (CO2). As a result its longevity in the atmosphere provides a potentially more damaging legacy than CO2.
Agriculture accounts for around 70 per cent of N2O emissions. The sources are mainly from soil micro-organisms that make N2O from nitrogen-rich fertilisers added to soils to maximise crop yields.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080218134552.htm


Statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency show that animal agriculture is the number one source of Methane emissions in the U.S.
Nitrous Oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than Carbon Dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide Nitrous Oxide emissions.
Eating one pound of meat equals driving an SUV 40 miles. –
http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp


A Smithsonian study estimated that the necessity for more grazing land means that every minute of every day, a land area equivalent to seven football fields is destroyed in the Amazon basin.

For each hamburger that originated from animals raised on rainforest land, approximately 55 square feet of forest have been destroyed. And its not just the rainforest. In the United States, more than 260 million acres of forest have been clear-cut for animal agriculture.