Now I am not trying to convince anyone to become vegetarian.  I just thought that the following statistics were very interesting from PETA.org and were worth sharing.  Meat production is in the top three list of largest contributors to environmental problems, locally and globally.  It effects water supply, energy use, pollution levels and the ocean..

• “Animals raised for food in the U.S. produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population of the U.S.  According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the runoff from factory farms pollutes our rivers and lakes more than all other industrial sources combined”
• “More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared for grazing and growing grain to feed farmed animals.”
• Over 90% of Amazon rain-forest land since 1970 has been cleared for meat production.
• “Livestock production accounts for half of all the water used in the U.S.”
• “The meat industry uses more than 1/3 of all the fossil fuels consumed in the U.S.”
• “Commercial fishing nets scrape the ocean floor clear of all life and destroy coral reefs; they also kill porpoises, birds, sea lions and other “bycatch” animals.”

I think that if humans could at least cut back on meat consumption that would be a huge start!

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