Factory farming is the main cause of environmental degradation. A global transition to a vegen diet is the most efficient solution.

According to the article by two World Bank environmental advisers in the publication of November / December 2009 issue of “World Clock " , the livestock sector is responsible for at least 51 % of GHGS . In 2006 a report by the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO) entitled “Livestock’s Long Shadow", said agricultural production for animals is responsible for more GHGS ( CO2 equivalents ) than all cars , airplanes, ships and other means of transportation around the world together .

The situation bodes even worse , if current trends continue , global meat production will double by 2050 , with the associated increase in GHGS and denial of the effects of many positive changes , which would make it very difficult, if not impossible , GHGS achieve reductions that climate experts believe essential to avoid the worst effects of climate change .

Factory farming has resulted in too large livestock population. In sum, the 5 species used for human consumption the population tripled. There is 1 cow for every 5 people , 1 sheep for every 6 people , 1 pig for every 7 people, 1 goat for every 8 persons and 2.5 chicks per each person. To feed all those animals will require massive amounts of cereals, grains, seeds and grasses. Cropland become insufficient and this is how the livestock industry uses deforestation of jungles and forests, generating millions of tons of CO2.

The digestive process of the more than 1,000 million cows generates 37 % of all human -induced methane, this gas is 23 times more potent than CO2. Cow feces contain high amounts of nitrous oxide, a gas 296 times more potent than CO2, and urine and feces 17,000 million chickens generate 64 % of ammonia -induced human, a chemical element that causes the rain acidic.

What's more, carry and keep refrigerated the hundreds of tons of meat, milk and eggs produced each year, involves a huge expenditure of fossil fuels and electricity.

Factory farming is responsible for 90 % of deforestation in the Amazon, the main lung of the world. This is due to the extension of pasture and forage crops to feed a growing population of cattle. Information provided by the National Forestry Commission through the inquiry system, says that 60 % of deforestation in Mexico is due to changes in land use livestock purposes.

This adversely affects the balance of ecosystems; 15 of 24 ecosystems that provide important ecosystem services are in decline, and an analysis of the Red List of Threatened Species prestigious World Conservation Union (IUCN) shows that most endangered species in the world are subject to loss of habitat due to livestock.

Livestock is probably the main cause of water pollution because of all wastes discharged into rivers, lakes and oceans, as feces, hormones, antibiotics, fertilizers, pesticides, chemicals used in tanneries, etc. According to the National Water Commission, the livestock sector accounts for 50 % of water use in Mexico, when the household occupies only 14% and production of vegetables to feed 20% human.

In all, livestock production is for 70% of agricultural land and 30% of the Earth's land area. While 30% of the human population in the world suffer from hunger or malnutrition, livestock occupies half of the production of grains and cereals worldwide, and wasting natural resources such as gas, water or soil.

To produce a kilo of beef requires seven kilos of cereal, but if this cereal should be allocated directly to the human could end with starvation and malnutrition worldwide.

The livestock industry and economic interests are as important as the taste of the people for eating meat, milk and eggs. These are the probable causes why many leaders are afraid to address the issue as its magnitude requires.

Nevertheless, the UN considers that the main solution to environmental problems is to reduce the livestock population. To achieve this it is essential that society leads towards a diet free of animal products, or at least reduce your intake of them. The vegan diet is the main ecological solution and has great benefits for human health and respect for animals.

Wait for world leaders to save us from environmental catastrophe will remain just in waiting. Time to take a proactive stance and take actions that benefit nature. Both the health of the planet as their own, begin at the table.

Source: Hazte Vegetariano

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"Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity." George Bernard Shaw

Many people will attempt to justify their meat, dairy and egg-eating ways by saying something like this: "It's a tradition in my culture to eat meat, dairy and eggs," or "It's customary among my family (or tribe) to eat meat, dairy and eggs"—or, quite simply, "It's my habit to eat meat, dairy and eggs, and as habits go, it's a hard one to break."

However, to uphold some tradition, custom, or habit for no other reason than that it's a tradition, or a custom, or a habit, is obviously an invalid rationalization for preserving slavery, cruelty and murder. Just like habits, some traditions and customs are good ones, some are harmless, and some are extremely evil. Whether they prove to be good, evil, or innocuous, they didn't get that way just because they were practiced routinely. They were ALWAYS good, evil or innocuous! I understand traditions, customs and habits are hard to break, but EVIL traditions, HARMFUL customs, and BAD habits need to be broken.

The abolition of slavery in America, and of suttee in India (the burning-alive of widowed women along with their dead husbands on the funeral pyre) proves that evil can be eradicated, and that rational minds can overcome the atrocity of many traditions and customs that turn innocent beings into victims without reason or mercy.

Try to place yourself in the animals' position: confined to an artificial world, denied your freedom and the chance to live a long, healthy life, even denied sunlight most of the time. Then imagine yourself on a concentration camp truck, terrified and confused, on your way to the slaughterhouse so someone could slice your throat and cut you up into pieces. If you honestly try to assume the animals' point of view, you will understand why the psychotic addictions of meat, cheese, milk and eggs must be abolished.

If you eat animals and the things that come out of animals, you are causing pain and suffering and polluting yourself with the blood of innocent beings. Today, we knowingly contribute to an endless loop of enslaving and killing animals to preserve the abstract notion of tradition, the vacuous rituals of custom, and the murderous, selfish habit of meat, cheese, milk and egg-consumption. Peace begins at the dinner table, with what you put into your body on a daily basis.

Good people—the ones who maintain good habits, and observe worthwhile traditions and customs— don't just talk about kindness. They practice it. They don't pray about love. They actually give it. It is not your right—based on YOUR traditions, YOUR customs and YOUR habits—to deny animals THEIR freedom so you can harm them, enslave them and kill them. That's not what rights are about. That's injustice. There is no counter-argument to veganism. Accept it. Apologize for the way you've been living. Make amends and move forward.

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Breaking laws, from Jesus Christ to Nelson Mandela, from Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King, laws have always been broken to facilitate substantive change.

Please welcome, national lecturer, Gary Yourofsky.

Good afternoon, everybody, my name is Gary Yourofsky. Please take a moment and write down my email address and my website , in case you want to contact me later on. Today we are going to talk about the world's forgotten victims...Animals and the world's oldest and strongest addiction: Meat.

I'm going to challenge your belief systems today, so certain parts of the speech will be intense, but let me start with a quick disclaimer: I am not here to be your enemy.  The views expressed today, do not necessarily reflect the views of your professor or this institution. I am not trying to take you away from your religion. No religion mandates meat eating!

The Golden Rule states: 'Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself...' and animals qualify as others.

Thou shalt not kill (are) the four most important, and yet, most ignored words in all religious teachings. There is not an asterisk next to that commandment saying: 'unless you walk on all four and have fur, feathers, horns, beaks or gills.'

You can keep your friends, your politics and you patriotism, still watch your favorite TV shows and listen to your favorite music, even if it's Ted Nugent.

I'll be making some sarcastic, yet truthful comments throughout the speech. Please feel free to laugh while I'm being sarcastic, just don't laugh during the serious parts. And I'm gonna speak for around 65, maybe 70 minutes, but then we'll do a Q&A session after, for about half an hour, so hold your questions until then.

In the meantime, I have some rhetorical questions for you:

Is slavery - owner, victim, profit, and domination - exclusive to the human race? Have blacks, Jews, women and children been the only victims of this atrocity? Have not cows been enslaved? What about pigs, chickens, turkeys, fish, sheep? If they're not enslaved, then what are they? Free?

Can slavery have a victim that is neither a human, nor an animal?

Have not the oceans, the forests, the earth itself, become victims of ownership too?

And what about a slaughterhouse? HOUSE...OF...SLAUGHTER: SLAUGHTERHOUSE.

Do you really think there is such a thing as humane slaughter?

Exactly what is your definition of humane?

Besides psychological and physical abuse, torture, dismemberment and murder, what else do you think happens to animals inside of a slaughterhouse? Do you think they get belly rubs and tushy slaps? And if you think there is such a thing as humane slaughter. I'm curious, do you also think there is such a thing as humane rape?

Humane child molestation? Humane slavery? How about humane holocaust? In fact, what is your definition of a holocaust? Is it a massacre of human beings, or a massacre of innocent beings? I thought it was innocent...

Which brings us to the biggest holocaust massacre of all. Every year in America, without mercy, we murder 10 billion land animals, and 18 billion marine animals. Not for health, survival, sustenance or self-defense. People eat meat, cheese, milk and eggs for 4 reasons: Habit, Tradition, Convenience, Taste.

I want to define a word that might be new to some people right now, and its vegan, it's up there, on the screen: V-E-G-A-N.

Vegans, like vegetarians, do not consume the meat of any land or marine animals. Vegans, however, unlike vegetarians, also refrain from eating cheese, milk, eggs, honey or any animal product, whatsoever. We also don't wear animal’s skins, no fur, and wool, leather, silk or down.

Now, I want to let you all know, that I was not raised vegan. I ate meat, cheese, milk and eggs for around 25 years. I used to wear leather shoes, belts and jackets like everyone else. In fact, around 20 years ago, I even owned a fur coat. Needless to say, I understand your lifestyle, it used to be mine.

And for people involved in politics... Let's get this out of the way right now. I am not a democrat, an anarchist or some hippie with a closet full of tie-dyed shirts. I'm not a republican, a socialist or a fascist. I'm an activist, root word is active.

I've been banned from 5 countries so far, and arrested 13 times, for random acts of kindness and compassion, on behalf of my animal brothers and sisters, if you want to read up about that, check out my website. And today, I would love to give you a chance to actually do something, and truly get involved! Because I understand that a lot of people want to get involved, honestly I do.

But putting a "Coexist" bumper sticker on your car, wearing a 'What would Jesus do?' bracelet, or sporting a 'Peace and Love and Sunshine' t-shirt, that is not 'getting involved'!

I understand that we are all on a journey in life. We all have different likes and dislikes, different nationalities and religions too, but there is one thing that we need to have in common with each other, and that's peace!

Genuine compassion and genuine peace for our planetary companions!

Contrary to political and religious dogma, animals do not belong to us. They are not commodities! They are not property! And they are not inanimate, stupid objects, who can't think and feel!

That Descartes' Cartesian way of looking at animals, like they're machines... It is outdated, and quite frankly, 100% insane. Because, if we all understand that animals use their eyes to see, ears to hear, noses to smell, mouths to eat, legs to walk, feathers to fly, fins to swim, genitalia to procreate, bowels to defecate.. I'm always perplexed that most people don't believe that they can also use their brains to think, feel, be rational, be aware and be self-aware!

Am I supposed to believe, that every body part of an animal functions just like it's supposed to, except the brain? Those lies are thick. The propaganda from the animal abusers is enormous! I mean, when was the last time you turned on TV and saw a commercial for shiitake mushrooms? People singing and dancing down the streets, having a good time eating mushrooms?

How about alfalfa sprouts?

Quinoa? (It's a seed)

Radishes?

Raspberries?

Tofu?

You don’t see that stuff advertised on TV. What you see instead?

HAVE SOME MORE MEAT! HAVE SOME MORE CHEESE!

Have some more cheese on your meat! Meat, cheese, double cheese, extra cheese, and how about a little more cheese with your meat? Have some more cow’s milk, have some more eggs! And then what do you see interspersed between those advertisements?

Not feeling so well?

Need to see a cancer specialist? How about a heart doctor? Needs some Lipitor? Zocor? Crestor? Plavix? Needs some diet pills? How about some energy drinks? Some Kaopectate? Tums! Pepto Bismol You’ve been duped.

They’re killing you, they’re killing the animals, and they’re killing this planet. And those blinders are on nice and tightly, but if you give me an open mind today, that's all I ask for, an open mind, I'm gonna take your blinders right off!

My goal is simple. All I want to do is re-connect people with animals. Awaken some emotions and some feelings and some logic that is been buried and suppressed, intentionally, by our society.

And the reason why I say re-connect it's because each and every person in this room used to be a real animal rights person at one time, a true animal lover, and a real friend to the animal kingdom. And it's when we were kids!

When we were young...When we were kids...Man...We used to be in awe of animals. They used to make us laugh, and giggle and smile. They made us pretty happy! And there was a time in our lives, when we would do just about anything in the world to make THEM happy as well. To protect them from cruelty! Or to, at least, ACKNOWLEDGE the cruelty they were receiving.

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What does Republican Matthew Scully, the former senior speechwriter for George W. Bush, have in common with Ohio's ultra Democrat and former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich? The same thing Russell Simmons, Erykah Badu and Joaquin Phoenix have in common with Cesar Chavez, Pythagoras and Leonardo da Vinci. Besides capturing the hearts and minds of generations, all are vegan. By not wearing fur, leather, wool, silk and down, nor consuming milk, cheese, eggs, honey and the meat of any land or marine animal, they made a compassionate decision to directly save the lives of thousands of animals.

Animals had an inherent right to be free and live completely unfettered by human domination, I wondered why it takes so much time to attain this nonviolent awakening.

I began to ask, "Who taught me that animals were put on this Earth for food? Who taught me to disrespect animals and view them as mere commodities? Who stole my compassion, my empathy and my conscience? Who lied to me? Who instilled this vicious mindset of human-to-animal exploitation as standard operating procedure?"

If every meat, dairy and egg-eater logically and compassionately re-evaluated their beliefs, they would understand why veganism is the only ethical and acceptable way to live on this planet.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the compassionate Jewish humanitarian who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland, once condemned every animal-exploiter by stating, "What do they know—all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."

Singer's indictment is probably the most damning statement ever about humankind. It establishes the fact that violence is violence and murder is murder even if the victims have beaks, horns, gills, feathers or fur.

It's important to note that animals were the first victims of slavery, oppression and murder. Humans perfected these psychotic techniques on animals before using them on each other. In the last 12 months alone, tens of billions of animals worldwide were enslaved, murdered, dismembered or tortured by the food and clothing industries, in vivisection experiments, by hunters, in rodeos, circuses, and zoos, making the Animal Holocaust the largest and longest-running Holocaust of all time.

When Nazis rounded up Jews, babies were ripped out of their mothers' arms. In the dairy industry, calves are stolen from their mothers after birth. Other animal mothers, such as sows, rabbits and ewes, have their babies taken within days, weeks or months after birth. Separating families is a psychologically devastating tactic used to weaken one's pride and inhibit their desire to retaliate and fight back. Nazis swiped this technique from the meat, dairy and egg industries. Jews were tattooed to mark them. All animals in the meat and dairy industries are branded with hot irons, or ear-notched with a numerical tag. Jews were sent to the concentration camps in the same extermination trucks that still send animals to slaughterhouses. The Nazis constructed human slaughterhouses to massacre millions, while these torture-buildings have been strategically built all over the planet to massacre billions of animals. Jews have been, while animals still are, treated like nothing, as if their lives don't matter.

You can also compare the two Holocausts this way. Go to the nearest cow or pig slaughterhouse and remove the animals and replace them with humans. You have now re-created Birkenau. If you travel back in time and remove the Jews from Birkenau and replace them with cows or pigs, a Holocaust is still taking place. During my 2012 lectures in Israel, after showing a new slaughterhouse video, I asked thousands of people the following: "How come if the animals in that video were dogs or cats, you'd be outraged? If they were kids, you'd be screaming bloody murder! Instead the victims are cows and chickens and fish and all of a sudden no one cares, it's okay? So I'm a little confused here. Is the slaughterhouse a problem? Or is the problem who's getting killed in the slaughterhouse? It's a HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER. Why does it even exist? Especially in a country that loves to say, 'NEVER AGAIN. IT'LL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.' I got some news for ya. The Animal Holocaust was happening long before the Jewish Holocaust, during the Jewish Holocaust and it's still happening today. It's time for Israel to become the first nation on this planet to abolish concentration camps once and for all."

The global atrocity of eating animals kills more innocent beings in one year than all human atrocities over the past 5,000 years combined! This makes veganism the most important aspect of animal rights because almost every animal who is abused and killed on this planet is abused and killed by the meat, dairy and egg industries, despite the fact that no one in this day and age needs meat, cheese, milk and eggs to survive. The only exception would be people residing in icy environments or desert settings. But eating animals for pure survival is rare with only around 1 percent of the earth's population being able to use this excuse. Keep in mind, this is just a valid excuse and NOT a justification. I understand why they do it. I wouldn't do it under any circumstances, but I understand their motives. Everyone else on this planet eats animals and the things that come out of animals for four reasons: Habit, convenience, taste and tradition. With the addition of the profit motive, those are invalid, unnecessary and barbaric reasons to intentionally harm animals.

Meat, dairy and egg-eating societies are also the main cause of world hunger as they continually feed around 50 percent of the world's corn, wheat, oats and soy to 60 billion land animals and tens of billions of marine animals (fish-farming) instead of hundreds of millions of starving people! Every two to three seconds, someone on this planet dies from malnutrition while pigs and cows get fat. Consequently, meat, dairy and egg-eaters are anti-human because feeding billions of animals instead of millions of hungry children is an indirect form of genocide.

Worldwide, around 60 billion land animals [10 billion in the USA] and 90 billion marine animals [18 billion in the USA] are killed and eaten every year in a monumental Holocaust borne of ignorance, arrogance and racism. The human race v. animal race brand of racism permits humans to enslave and kill any other species with impunity. Singer calls speciesism the "purest form of racism" because it kills more innocent beings that any form of human-to-human racism.

This is why vegans are the utmost humanitarians. We indiscriminately seek justice for all by doing unto others as we would have done unto ourselves [THE GOLDEN RULE].

As an ethical vegan, it's logical for me to proclaim that the only nice slaughterhouse is an empty slaughterhouse. This statement, however, is often challenged by uninformed, egocentric individuals who believe mercy and kindness are exclusive to humans. But to deny every animal's inherent right to fly, swim and run freely is cruel and dishonest. If given an option, no animal would choose pain or death.

To understand the compassionate movement of animal rights, empathy must be used to examine the issue from the animals' point of view. This isn't a radical concept either. Abolitionists looked at slavery through the eyes of subjugated blacks, just as the Allied Forces looked at Nazism through the eyes of Jews and other non-Aryans whom Hitler labeled unworthy and expendable. Empathy allows people to understand the injustice without over-analyzing the issue, especially when those in power deem the victims unworthy and expendable, something Hitler, slave-owners, and meat, dairy and egg-eaters have all done to their respective victims.

In an attempt to defile the animal rights movement, meat, dairy and egg-eaters often proclaim that Hitler practiced vegetarianism. However, biographers Albert Speer and Robert Payne attested to Hitler's love for liver dumplings, stuffed squab [pigeon], ham and sausage. German Chef Dione Lucas wrote about Hitler's carnivorism in her Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook, published in 1964. Rynn Berry's Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover describes how Goebbels, The Third Reich's propaganda minister, tried to sell Hitler as a vegetarian to make him seem as peaceful as Gandhi. The next section in this series, HITLER WAS NOT VEGETARIAN, provides ample evidence that, contrary to a good deal of popular misconception, Hitler and his henchmen were not vegetarians at all.

Were you also aware that animals in the meat, dairy and egg industries receive no legal protection whatsoever? After all, slavery and slaughterhouses cannot co-exist with freedom and protection. Here's an excerpt from section two of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), the federal law that oversees animal-use in America: "When used in this act, the term "animal" ... excludes farm animals, such as, but not limited to, livestock and poultry used or intended for use as food ..." That's pretty cute, isn't it? The animals who are enslaved or eaten aren't even recognized as animals under the law. Does this remind you of another piece of legislation that ignored the victims and existed to shield victimizers from prosecution? When the Constitution was first enacted, only land-owning, slave-owning, white men of European descent were protected. Blacks, Natives, women and many others were conveniently excluded.

The AWA, kosher and halal-style killings, and the free-range/freedom/organic/cage-free/antibiotic-free/hormone-free/grass-fed/buying local marketing terms are used to manipulate people into thinking that meat, dairy and egg production can be done happily and humanely. But there is no such thing as happy and humane slaughter just as there is no such thing as happy and human rape, happy and humane slavery, or happy and humane child molestation. From the animals' point of view, anyone who commodifies their bodies is equally vicious. And if for some reason my aforesaid words aren't proof enough of the terrorism claims I'm lodging against the meat, dairy and egg establishments—and the people who consume these products—maybe the billions of dead, dismembered animal bodies consumed annually could count as proof.

Fortunately, de-programming the perfunctory ways of meat, dairy and egg-eaters is possible. The University of North Texas opened a vegan dining hall in 2011, a New York elementary school turned its cafeteria vegetarian in 2013, and the Victor Valley Medium Community Correctional Facility in Adelanto, California, successfully ran a vegan rehabilitation program, just to name a few. My lectures convert thousands to veganism annually while thousands more significantly reduce their meat, cheese, milk and egg intake. Reduction and abolition are the only options to end this massacre. Welfare regulations are a stamp of approval to let the carnage continue unabated because compassionate ways of enslaving and killing billions of animals do not exist.

This is why we shouldn't be a fan of legislation. Fighting for bigger cages or "better" treatment of animals is contradictory and ridiculous. It will never lead to empty cages. When examining human liberation movements, you'll notice that Malcolm X and Dr. King didn't fight for "better" treatment of blacks via improved segregation policies. They wanted to abolish segregation. They fought for equality and freedom. Cesar Chavez fought for it, too. Same thing when Gandhi liberated India from British rule. If abolition instead of welfare were somehow legislated, I'd be down for that. But I don't believe you can legislate until you educate. Passing welfare laws—which won't be enforced anyway—without explaining why it's evil to commodify animals is backwards.

In America, each meat, dairy and egg-eater is responsible for the deaths of 3,000 land animals and thousands of other marine animals throughout their lifetime. Meat, dairy and egg-eating, however, is not an instinctive behavior. It is learned tradition. Scientific claims of the human body being omnivorous or carnivorous are erroneous and illogical. If someone placed a two-year old child in a crib with a bunny rabbit and an apple, the child would play with the rabbit and eat the apple, an unambiguously herbivorous reaction. People become inured to the taste of blood, flesh, veins, muscles, tendons, cow secretions [milk], hen-ass droppings [eggs] and bee vomit [honey], as I will discuss in the "Humans Are Herbivores" section.

Since veganism is for anybody who wants to be kind to animals, good to the environment and healthy, millions of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, black, white, Asian, Latino, Native, pro-life, pro-choice, pro-gun and anti-gun people live a vegan lifestyle. Millions of Democrats, Independents and Republicans are vegan as well. Tales of tree-hugging liberals being the only supporters of veganism couldn't be further from the truth. Scully's Dominion is a right-wing, faith-based, Christian conservative view supporting veganism because ethnicity, religious affiliation or political party have no bearing on eating a veggie burger tonight instead of a hamburger.

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