Nitin Mehta: Each of us should help save the planet by changing our diet
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Independent Minds
Here is something we can all do and should do to save our planet: give up meat eating and return to a plant-based vegetarian and vegan diet.
Apart from the human population of six-and-a-half billion we are raising a staggering 60 billion animals a year for meat. Our planet is simply not big enough to sustain these numbers. Farmed animals produce more greenhouse emissions than the world's entire transport system.
To produce a pound of meat 2,500 gallons of water are needed as opposed to 25 gallons needed to produce a pound of wheat. In the Gulf of Mexico pollutants in animal waste have contributed to a "dead zone" where there is not enough oxygen to support aquatic life. During the summer of 2004 this dead zone extended over 5,800 square miles. Livestock is responsible for 70 per cent of the Amazon deforestation. On present trends the rain forests of South America, the lungs of the planet, could disappear by 2030 – this could lead to a major catastrophe. The introduction of biofuel combined with livestock rearing may deliver a fatal blow to Mother Earth putting in danger the human civilisation as we know it. Industrial fishing is doing to oceans what animals reared for meat are doing to the land. All marine life from turtles to dolphins is perishing due to modern fishing methods. Mangrove forests and coral reefs are disappearing; mangrove forests are being cleared to start fish farms. The amount of grains fed to animals could feed up to 4 billion people, and with the human population set to grow up to 9 billion by 2050 mass starvation is inevitable unless the Western world and the middle classes of Indian and China reject meat and fish as a food of choice.
On present trends global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while the milk output is set to rise from 580 to 1,043 million tonnes. Unless this trend is reversed, future generations will face a unimaginably bleak future. Let every individual weigh the habit of meat eating with the terrible damage it is already doing to our planet. Here is something positive we can do – go vegetarian and reduce our foot print.
This is an edited extract from a talk given by Nitin Mehta, the founder of the Indian Vegetarian Society, at the Jain Centre, Manchester
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Comments
The milk output is set to rise from 580 to 1,043 million tones. HIV is up by 125% from 2005
We are raising a staggering 60 billion animals a year for meat. So that is why we have the cow folding on the legs drop and die and the swine coming bringing us the flu, Yesterday one small girl, very tiny, girl, honest, never saw the world errs, milk fish dead by swine.
To produce a pound of meat 2,500 gallons of water are needed as opposed to 25 gallons. Why do we oppose we propose
Human population set to grow up to 9 billion by 2050 mass starvation is inevitable unless the Western world and the middle classes of Indian and China reject meat and fish as a food of choice. 2050 I will be dead. Let me live my life. Nitin hide under the bed the swine is looking for you with the Vet.
BUT i thank you
Firozal A.Mulla ps My grace stone has the number 007 77 77 77 543 10 street
firozali a mulla small today size reduced already
me firozali a mulla tomatoes to you
Gordon Brown stepped up the pressure on Iran to free the British Embassy employees seized in Tehran by declaring their arrests ?unacceptable, unjustified and without foundation? and hinting at concerted international action. "More priority" to people with local links in the allocation of empty properties. His move was widely seen yesterday as a response to the suspicion?
With you expect all those earn with one pay, trains have gone up, I mean the fares are up, food is up, water is down, oil is down, bread is up in the ceiling stuck up, eggs chicks don?t want to compete with pigs and swine for stretching the back and the duck are sold, Ballsd dropped the bomb on history , postmen down, FTSE down, Paris down, London garbage up, Naples down , boobs big, sizes small, we are going everywhere to beg for oil.
IS that little you tell me?
Look, even Micheal dies very thin. Graves too in problems. Barbers have no income all out going
A "severely emaciated" Michael Jackson weighed just over 8 stone (51kg) and was disfigured and virtually bald after years of physical abuse, according to leaked results from an official autopsy.
What do you expect from the celebrities coming too UK when the economy sinks so low, prices of fish high as we have to fast on Monday , no milk in tray on Sunday, pop corns on Thursday , Ramadan Fasting in the moth to save the tunas and whales(Wales too with Scots) . We are a dying dynasty I tell all Tree is falling on my cash, trains and jails broken broke no cash in BOE Japan sells Honda no more then come bicycles. Fast all fast. Die all death is certain am I okay
"British jobs for British workers" Hurray here I come from Tehran. Please give me my Brazil Passport please the greened cards ad the red football cards from turkey
I love Brown and Yellow too. Cards to the refreeze in Turkey greens and Broun and red all play cards all
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
Perhaps, though, we ought to start small, and suggest one vegetarian or vegan day a week to try it ought. Many people would then be surprised at how many excellent vegetarian dishes there are, and perhaps alter their diet, if not to a pure vegetarian one, at least to a healthier one for the future.