How Changing Your Diet Can Help Lower CO2 Emissions

More and more people are beginning to realise how damaging animal agriculture is to the environment and to the planet. Especially when it comes to CO2 emissions. 51% or more of total greenhouse gas emissions are caused my animal agriculture.

We can switch to energy-saving light bulbs and energy efficient vehicles, but if we want to make a more significant impact, we need to reflect on our diet.

For each diet, researchers looked solely at the emissions associated with food supply, so they did not include those from consumer’s transportation, storage or the cooking of food.  Nor did they consider land use change emissions.

A Vegetarian’s foodprint is about two thirds of the average American and almost half that of a meat lover.  For a Vegan it is even lower.

Read more at http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet#EP0CEBCbK4byGY2u.99

By adopting a vegan diet, you can reduce your risk of osteoporosis, heart disease, diabetes, cancer etc. You can also cure allergies and acne as well as improving sleep and boosting energy levels.
Your diet will be more friendly to the environment. You’ll be reducing your water usage, CO2 emissions, as well as helping to preserve habitats and species across the world.
People are becoming more aware about how animal agriculture is unsustainable and often cruel, but it has also been proven that animal products are harmful to human health and the planet. If we don’t begin to make changes in our diets soon, we will be suffering serious consequences in just a few decades.

To learn more about becoming vegan, visit the Becoming Vegan page.

Related Posts On The Vegan Lily:

• How Can I Help Stop Water Pollution
• Why Should I Go Vegan For Climate Change?
• The Easiest Way To Save Water

Share this post if you think it was informative or helpful. The key to helping end animal suffering, human disease, world hunger and further damage to the environment, is to educate as many people as possible. Share buttons are below. Thank you.

-The Vegan Lily

Cowspiracy To Be Screened On BBC?

Cowspiracy is a powerful documentary which highlights the environmental consequences of our dietary choices.  The film explores the devastating impact of animal agriculture on the environment, and investigates the policies of large-scale environmental organizations on this issue.

Animal agriculture is the number one cause of global warming, even surpassing carbon emissions.  Cowspiracy does a fantastic job at exposing the real inconvenient truth and it directly involves you.

”There is one single movement destroying the planet more than any other… but no one wants to talk about it.”

Cowspiracy trailer.

A petition has been created in the hopes that Cowspiracy will be screened on BBC. As a result, a much bigger audience will be exposed to the effects of animal agriculture.

Follow this link to sign a petition in favour of screening Cowspiracy on BBC : https://www.change.org/p/bbc-screen

To learn more about Cowspiracy, visit http://www.cowspiracy.com/

Other related posts on The Vegan Lily:

• How You Can Help Stop Water Pollution
• The Easiest Way To Save Water
• Why You Should Go Vegan For Climate Change
• Ag-Gag Petition
• Yulin Festival Petition

Share this post/petition if you believe it would be informative and helpful to screen Cowspiracy on BBC. The key to reducing the environmental damages caused by animal agriculture is to educate as many people as possible. Share buttons are below. Thank you.

-The Vegan Lily

How You Can Help Stop Water Pollution

More people on this planet own a cell phone, than have access to a toilet.  Thousands of people die every day, due to a lack of clean water.  3.575 million people die each year due to water related disease and 1.4 million of these people are children.  Animal agriculture contributes largely to the pollution of streams, rivers and oceans across the world.  Not only does this affect the animals and the environment but it greatly affects humans too.

How does animal agriculture contribute to water pollution?

Most of the freshwater that the livestock industry uses goes back into the environment as manure and wastewater (pollution).  One dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of manure each day, which is equal to the waste produced by 20-40 people. Animal waste can contain pollutants like hormones, antibiotics, heavy metals, nitrate and ammonia. Some of these pollutants will end up in our rivers and underground drinking water.  Unlike human waste, animal excrement from factory farms is not processed as sewage—making it about 500 times more concentrated than treated human waste, while leaving pathogens (like Salmonella and E. coli) and volatile chemicals intact.  Excrement from animal waste can seep through the soil into nearby groundwater and overflow during storms.  In 1995, for example, an eight-acre pig-manure lagoon in North Carolina ruptured, spilling 25 million gallons of untreated waste into the New River, which killed about 10 million fish.

How does this affect humans?

UNICEF reports that Diarrhoea is the second leading cause of death among children under five globally & kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. Diarrhoea is largely due to lack of safe drinking water, sanitation & hygiene. Children in poor environments who lack clean drinking water, often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at one time and millions of children spend hours each day, trying to collect water from distant & often polluted sources.

How Can I Help?

By not supporting and funding this industry.  It is extremely damaging to the environment, the animals and human health.  By adopting a plant-based diet you can help stop the pollution of our precious oceans, rivers and streams.  To learn more about transitioning to this lifestyle, visit the Becoming Vegan page and to learn more about how animal agriculture damages the planet visit The Planet page.

Related posts on The Vegan Lily:

• How Meat-Eaters Waste More Water
• Why You Should Go Vegan For Climate Change

If we don’t begin to make changes in our diets soon then we’re going to suffer the consequences in just a few decades.  With the amount of information out there about how animal agriculture is damaging the planet, eating animal products is simply unjustifiable. We only have one planet and it’s being rapidly destroyed.  Share this post if you think it was helpful or informative.  The key to reducing the amount of animal consumption is to educate as many people as possible. Share buttons are below. Thank you.

-The Vegan Lily

The Easiest Way To Save Water

Many people know that the more animal products you consume, the more water you use.  One of the easiest ways to slim your water footprint is to eliminate meat and dairy from your diet or at least cut down on consumption. Below are a few facts and statistics that may help put into perspective, how much water you may actually be using if you consume animal products.

• Below is a chart showing how much water (in gallons) and food (in lbs) 7 billion humans use in comparison to just 1.5 million cows.

• It takes about 660 gallons of water to produce 1/4 pound of hamburger meat and it takes about 1,000 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of milk.

• Worldwide, the meat and dairy industries use 30 percent of our fresh water every day.

• It takes about 4,000 gallons of water to produce the average meat eaters diet per day.

• A quarter pounder is worth more than 30 average 1st world showers.

• A serving of poultry costs about 90 gallons of water to produce.

• 477 gallons of water are required to produce 1lb. of eggs;  almost 900 gallons of water are needed for 1lb. of cheese.

Going plant-based makes a bigger impact than any other action you can take. Here’s an example: If you gave up showering, you’d save less water than what’s required to make a single pound of beef. Not beef for a whole year, just one miserable pound. A whole year’s worth of showers takes about 5,200 gallons, but it takes 5,214 gallons to produce a single pound of beef. By going plant-based, you would also be cutting your average daily footprint from about 4,000 gallons to about 300 gallons.

To learn more about how to lessen your water use visit:

• http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

If your interested in learning more about how your diet can affect the planet and the environment, visit ‘The Planet’ page.

Share this post if you think it was helpful or informative. The key to reducing people’s unnecessary consumption of animal products is to educate as many people as possible. Share buttons are below. Thank you.

-The Vegan Lily

Why You Should Go Vegan For Climate Change

When I first transitioned to veganism, I was completely unaware of the environmental issues related to ‘consuming animal products’.  As I became more interested in the movement, I learned that we need to become vegan a bit quicker than I thought.  One issue I researched was climate change. What I discovered was shocking.  Livestock farming ranks as one of the three greatest sources of climate changing and we need to make a quick shift in our dietary habits if we want to see significant environmental improvements.

With rising temperatures, rising sea levels, melting icecaps and glaciers, shifting ocean currents and weather patterns, climate change is the most serious challenge facing the human race. The livestock sector is a major player. Livestock are responsible for almost two-thirds (64 percent) of anthropogenic ammonia emissions, which contribute significantly to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.  It’s also estimated that over 50% of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture, according to a report published by the Worldwatch Institute.

In 2006, the UN calculated that the combined climate change emissions of animals bred for their meat were more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.  The United Nations called for a global shift to a vegan diet wherever possible as the most effective way to combat climate change.  ”Lesser consumption of animal products is necessary to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change. Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use.” – 2010 UN report.  Ernst von Weizsaecker, an environmental scientist who co-chaired the panel, said: “Rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards meat and dairy products – livestock now consumes much of the world’s crops and by inference a great deal of freshwater, fertilisers and pesticides.”

Environmental research organization Worldwatch Institute observes: “It has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future—deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease.”

To learn more about how you can help save the planet with your diet, I’d recommend visiting some of the following sites:

• http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/environment.html
• http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/meat-environment/

Share this post if you think it was helpful or informative. The key to stopping animal consumption is to educate as many people as possible. Share buttons are below. Thank you

-The Vegan Lily

Toxic Fumes From Hog Manure Pit Kills Father And Son

Factory farms have been known to pollute the water and air surrounding them. Recently, an article written about father, Gene Opheim and son, Austin Opheim, proves that these are not the only ways in which factory farms are harmful and dangerous.

A father and his son who were so close that they were “like glue” were killed Saturday by noxious fumes from a northwest Iowa hog manure pit — the second father and son in the Midwest to die of poisonous manure pit gases this month.

Father and son died after being submerged on a hog manure pit filled with noxious fumes

Gene Opheim, 58, and his son, Austin Opheim, 32, both of Cylinder, Iowa, were rescued from the pit after the Palo Alto County Sheriff’s Office received a report of two men submerged at 1:50 p.m. Saturday. Both were pronounced dead at a hospital in Emmetsburg.

The two men were repairing a pump at a hog confinement when a piece of equipment they were using fell into the manure pit.  Austin Opheim went into the pit first to retrieve the equipment, and his father followed him after realizing his son had been overcome by gases.

This isn’t the only case. A father and son were killed at a Wisconsin farm on the 7th of July as they were attempting to retrieve a broken wheel from a hog manure pit. In 2007, four family members and a hired farm hand were killed in Virginia by gases at a dairy farm while trying to save one another.

”It takes just a few seconds for routine maintenance work in a pig barn to turn deadly,” said Daniel Andersen, a water quality and manure management professor at Iowa State University. ”It’s hydrogen sulfide that can be the deadliest of the gases created when manure decomposes — along with methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide,” Andersen said.

Large ventilation fans and curtains are used to help ensure the air is safe for people and animals in a pig barn. But farmers can run into trouble when doing maintenance work below the slats — or in pump pit areas, where the manure is accessed to fertilize farm fields.

“When you’re working in the animal environment, you’re relatively safe,” Andersen said. “But whenever you’re working below the slats — or where manure is being disturbed — that can be highly dangerous. “Typically, we try to avoid going into the manure pits at all cost for this very reasons,” he said.

Something as simple as dropping equipment in the manure can send bubbles of hydrogen sulfide into the air. It’s especially a problem when people are in confined spaces.

“When something breaks the surface of the manure or if the person is in the manure, moving around, that causes more hydrogen sulfide to come out of the manure,” Andersen said. “That can cause unconsciousness and untimely death.”

Five Reasons To Go Vegan 🐤

– The Animals It’s estimated that over 56 billion farmed animals alone are killed every year and over 3000 animals are killed in slaughter houses around the world every second. Of course, these figures are not including the numbers of fish and sea creatures that are killed each year. This number is so large that it’s measured in tonnes.

–Your Health A healthy vegan diet can be very beneficial for your health. Excluding animal products and by-products from your diet can help prevent cancers, heart diseases, diabetes etc.

Planet Livestock is responsible for 18% of carbon emissions in the world. Compare this to transports responsibility for 13% of carbon emissions…

–The People Starving Land used to grow grain and food for our own ‘food’ to eat could be used to grow crops that could feed millions of starving people in third world countries.

–Your Mind Being aware of your surroundings, what’s happening around the world as well as being aware of where your dinner has come from proves to be extremely beneficial for the mind and soul. Becoming vegan has allowed many people to feel as though they have found their sense of purpose.

—– It is my opinion that we share this earth with one another and that includes the other non-human animals. We do not have the right to create these artificial populations of certain animal species for our own needs and often for the sole purpose of killing these animals for food, fashion etc. We are quite literally killing ourselves and bringing the planet with us.