Veganism and the environment

One positive impact a vegan lifestyle can have is limiting water pollution. Factory farmed animals create a lot of manure, we are talking billions of pounds. This waste ends up draining into water ways and even affects drinking water. There are different ways that the waste drains into water. Some of the waste is left in cesspits which drain into the ground water, while other waste is used to help crops grow. This drains into waterways.

Another important impact is water conservation. “Agriculture consumes more water than any other major global industry, accounting for 70% of global water use. A study published in Water Resources Research estimates that 41% of the water used for agriculture goes toward growing livestock feed for the meat industry. It takes about 460 gallons of water to make one quarter-pound beef patty—that’s the equivalent of taking 23 showers,” as stated in an article by Environmental Justice.

Every piece of food we eat has an impact on the environment, but each piece of food has a different impact. To grow plants takes a lot less resources than it does to raise and slaughter animals.

In order to raise an animal for slaughter you need to have the land to feed it, land to grow feed and straw for it, water for the animal and then consider waste pollution. More to think of is that the land may not just be available for pasture, which leads to deforestation and destruction of natural habitats.

Considering the needs for a few animals may not be such a big problem, though when we look to factory farms it does become an entirely different scale of impact. Factory farms are ginormous productions, in which some of the largest carbon emissions come from. “Each year, a single cow belches 220 pounds of methane into the atmosphere. Multiply those emissions by the 1.5 billion cows in our global food system, and it adds up to a dangerous amount of methane in our atmosphere,” as stated in an article by Environmental Justic. Methane helps keep heat in our atmosphere.

“Converting grass into (meat) is like converting coal to energy. It comes with an immense cost in emissions,” was said in an Oxford study lead by Joseph Poore.

Animal agriculture contributes to land degradation. Large numbers of cattle being grazed on public lands are eating the native grasses, which endangers native species. This also causes the land to lose water and then lose nutrients.

We saw a small impact like this during our droughts. Although the lack of water was not due to our animals grazing, we saw the impact that having 5 horses and 2 cows walking on dry land, and how quickly everything disappeared. To think of this on such a large scale seems quite frightening.