Climate change is the leading cause of refugees
The International Red Cross determined that environmental refugees totalled 25 million in 1999 (58% of all refugees) significantly outnumbering those displaced by warfare or persecution, and estimated to climb to 50 million by 2010. ‘Environmental Refugees’ are populations obliged to leave their established homelands for reasons of environmental destruction, such as floods, rising sea levels, desertification, shrinking freshwater supplies. The impact of our life style in North America is felt in other countries around the world.
Ethanol
In agricultural terms, the appetite for automotive fuel is insatiable. The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol would feed one person for a full year. If the United States converted its entire grain harvest into ethanol, it would satisfy less than 16 percent of its automotive fuel needs.
source: WashingtonPost.com Sun. Sept. 10, 2006
Biofuels eat into global food supply
Fuel made from food crops like wheat and corn is causing food shortages around the world. Learn more about this crucial issue. Read this article in the Guardian, this article in the Globe and Mail, this backgrounder from Greenpeace International.
Beef
North American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians every year.
Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation.
The best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal products.
Environment impacts from the beef industry include:
- cow flatulence
- deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops
- energy to produce fertilizers
- energy to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants
- energy to pump water
- etc.
source: Report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
~~~
On Google, search: meatless meal recipes
for some great results; e.g.,
http://busycooks.about.com/od/meatlessentreerecipes/Meatless_Entree_Recipes.htm
