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Eating Plant-Based Diet Helps Restore the Environment
November 18, 2013Welcome to the weekly CVA blog! In it you will find famous quotes, news and commentaries.
- Animal-Based Agriculture Ignores Major Problems
- Famous Quote: Mark Tercek, CEO of The Nature Conservancy
- Global Warming Increases Mercury Toxicity in Fish
- Bible verse: Genesis 2:15
- The Hazards of Liquid Manure Tanks
- This Week’s Video: Benjamin Zephaniah: Why Veganism is the Ultimate Protest against Animal Exploitation
1. Animal-Based Agriculture Ignores Major Problems
According to the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, the meat industry continues to ignore the environmental and health consequences of raising animals for food in modern agriculture. One of the areas of major concern is the overuse of antibiotic in farmed animals.Please visit Report: Meat Producers Ignore Please for Health, Environmental Reform
There is no way to raise animals for food in a sustainable way, or in a compassionate way. With such an abundant array of tasty and healthy plant-based foods we can easily transition to a plant-based diet, and effectively help heal and restore God's Creation: our health, animals and the environment.
2. This Week’s Famous Quote
"If more people had vegetarian or vegan diets, especially in the developed world, the environmental impact would be significant."
~ Mark Tercek, CEO of The Nature Conservancy
3. Global Warming Increases Mercury Toxicity in Fish
Power plants and other industrial facilities are polluting the oceans with mercury, which is later found in fish. To make things worse, studies have shown fish in warmer waters ate more but grew less and had higher mercury levels in their tissues, suggesting increases in their metabolic rate caused the increased uptake of the toxic metal.Read Climate Change May Increase Mercury Content in Fish
Eating fish is not necessary and not healthy, especially because they contain saturated fat, cholesterol and pollutants such as mercury. Replacing fish with healthy plant-based options helps restore their numbers in already devastated oceans. It also helps us avoid causing them much suffering to them and to restore our health.
4. This Week’s Bible Verse
(RSV) Genesis 2:15
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”
God instructed Adam to “till” and “keep” the Garden of Eden, and by analogy we may see caring for God’s Creation as our sacred task. The typical meat eater’s diet can require up to 14 times more water and 20 times more energy than that of a vegetarian. Indeed, current use of land, water, and energy is not sustainable; resource depletion threatens to cause hardships for humankind this century.
A 2006 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations found that animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change and air pollution; land, soil, and water degradation; and biodiversity loss. According to the report, the livestock sector is an even larger contributor to global warming than transport (cars, trucks, airplanes, and so forth). Huge quantities of the potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide are emitted by farmed animals and their waste. Animal agriculture is also a key factor in deforestation, which releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The total area used for grazing and the production of feed crops accounts for 70 percent of all agricultural land and 30 percent of the earth’s land surface. About 20 percent of the world’s pastures and rangelands have been degraded (over 70 percent in the dry lands), mostly through overgrazing, compaction, and erosion created by livestock action.
5. The Hazards of Liquid Manure Tanks
Liquid manure storage tanks widely used by the animal agricultural industry pose a health and environmental hazard. Many deaths have been caused by the fuming gases of these tanks, including the most recent death of dairyman David Stoltzfus, who tumbled into an enclosed pit Oct. 16. A new study, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Natural Resources Conservation Service directed to find a solution to the dangers of these manure pits, is taking place at 15 dairy farms in PA.Please visit Lethal Manure Pits: How a Lititz Farm Could Help Prevent Future Tragedies
The solution is much simpler, less expensive and rests on each of us. If we didn’t exploit God's animals for food then these manure pits wouldn't exist. Stopping the consumption of animal products and replacing them with plant-based alternatives will make liquid manure tanks a thing of the past.
6. This Week’s Video
Benjamin Zephaniah, an English writer, dub poet and Rastafarian, who was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008, explains passionately and clearly in this short video why veganism is the ultimate protest against animal exploitation.Please visit Benjamin Zephaniah: Why Veganism is the Ultimate Protest against Animal Exploitation and share!
Your question and comments are welcome
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