Methane, the green house gas.
Methane is 21 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, the most abundant global warming gas. Much the methane, also called natural gas, is coming from livestock, including manure, belches, and flatulence, as well as leaks from refining and drilling for oil and gas.In 2008, it is estimated that U.S. poured 49 million tons of methane into the air. That means U.S. methane emissions trapped about as much heat as all the carbon dioxide pollution coming from cars, trucks, and planes in the country in 6 months.
Farm Animal is the main Methane source.
Cattle generate twice as much methane as the EPA supposed, according to a report published by Harvard University. About 90 million cattle in US feedlots are the country's largest source of methane from anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates.In Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, anthropogenic methane emissions from all sources were 2.7 times greater than believed, making up 24% of the nation's emissions. This was found a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to the report, anthropogenic methane emissions account for 50~65% of the global methane "budget", the largest portion of which comes from cattle. The natural-gas industry is the next largest source, followed by fermentation in landfills and then coal mining.
Humanities desire for meat leads us to breed and eat tens of billion farm animals per year, a figure so large and has absolutely devastating effects on the planet and also our health.
Why do we need to be a vegetarian?
The fastest way to halt global warming by curbing global greenhouse gas emissions is for all the people in the world to become vegetarian. You don't need to be a full-time vegetarian, though that would certainly be more helpful. You can just start with one vegetarian meal a week, then twice a week, and so on. Because very bit help!The food that we already grow to feed the animals (mostly soy and corn) could be used to feed the humans directly, which would create a huge surplus of food, since livestock does not return the same amount of protein that we feed it. Cows for instance return only about 8%. And with 40~60% of the worlds grains being fed to cattle and other animals.
Less Grain for animal, more for mankind!
Around 760 million tonnes of grain would be used to feed chickens, pigs and other farmed animals, she said - more than seven times the amount used to produce biofuels; and it take up to 16 pounds of precious grain to produce just 1 pound of meat. This would free up massive amounts of food to feed to humans, thus eliminating global hunger.
Billions of dollars would be saved on health care each year, as heart disease and colon cancer (two of the Western World's biggest killers) would become almost non-existent, and humans in general would live better lives.
If only we could stop.
If the world stopped eating meat, we could also stop clearing land (the Amazon for example), which would also help to alleviate a whole host of other problems that the planet faces. Global deforestation will be slowed, or even stopped.People would have better health, countries would have more money, the environment would be cleaner, there would be less natural disasters, global hunger could be eradicated, more clean water for all. (Animal farming use a lots of water)
