Environmental reasons

I've always had a hard time trying to clearly explain to people the environmental reasons for being vegetarian, although I think sustainability is a vitally important reason to eat an all-plant diet. So I spent 3 hours this morning compiling some convincing hard numbers from online. Although I tried to use reliable sources and take into account different numbers from different sources, there might still be mistakes. I just hope that this list can give people a rough understanding of the environmental reasons to go vegan.

• 50% of water in the US
• 70% of grains in the US, and 40% of grains in the world
• 80% of land in the US, and 30% of land in the world
are used to raise animals for food (including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops)

Loss occurred from grain to meat
• It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef. That's 94% more land and pesticides
• By feeding grains to livestock, we lose 90% of the protein, 96% of the calories, 99% of the carbohydrates, and 100% of the fiber
• If Americans would reduce meat consumption by just 10%, enough grain would be saved to feed the 60 million people who die of hunger each year

Water
• 2500 gallons produce 1 pound of meat, while 25 gallons produce 1 pound of wheat
• It takes 300 gallons of water daily to feed a vegan, 1200 gallons to feed a vegetarian, and 4200 gallons to feed a meat eater. Thus by becoming vegan, one person could save 3900 gallons of water each day for their entire life
• You save more water by not eating 1 pound of beef than by not showering for a whole year

Land
• One acre of land can produce 356 pounds of protein from soybeans, 265 pounds from rice, but only 45 from meat, and 20 from beef
• On an ongoing basis, it takes 3.25 acres of land to produce one meat eater’s food, but only 1/6 of an acre to produce a vegan’s food. So only 5% of the land currently devoted to food production would be used to produce food if we all ate an all-plant diet. That’s also 5% of fertilizers and pesticides

Other
• Global warming: the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all of the transportation industry combined
• Water pollution: livestock produces about 130 times the feces of the entire U.S. population, and since none is treated or recycled, they pollute our groundwater and river more than all other industrial sources combined
• Energy consumption: producing 1 calorie of protein for beef uses 54 calories of fossil fuel, while grains only 3 calories of fossil fuel
• Deforestation: Every 8 seconds an acre of trees in the US is cleared to produce cropland for meat
• Topsoil loss: 85% of topsoil loss in the US is the result of livestock production, with each pound of steak resulting in 35 pounds of eroded US topsoil
• Extinction of plant species: livestock grazing is the number one reason that plant species in the US go extinct