Global Warming

Global Warming and reducing your carbon foot print have now become house hold conversations. You will hear tips on driving less, changing your bulbs to CFL, buying eco-friendly detergents, and blah blah blah. Here are two interesting (read: SCARY) facts that explain what you eat for dinner tonight can have a much bigger impact than driving from Bangalore to Goa and back.

• Several of the world’s mightiest rivers no longer reach the sea, and aquifer levels around the world are dropping by dozens, and even hundreds, of feet. Largely responsible is the fivefold increase in worldwide (water-guzzling) meat production that’s taken place over the last half-century. Producing a pound of animal protein requires about 100 times the water needed to produce a pound of vegetable protein. It takes about 1,300 gallons of water to produce a single hamburger. Seventy percent of the fresh water that is taken from the world’s rivers, lakes, and underground wells goes to agriculture, and 43 percent of the world’s grain goes to feed animals for meat.

• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 70 percent of the world’s commercial fish stocks are fully exploited, overfished, or collapsed. To supply surging world demand, fishers use rapacious techniques, such as sonar, driftnets, longlines, dredgers, and leviathan fishpacking vessels. In the case of longlining, 4.5 million hooks are launched daily. Now, 90 percent of the coveted top predator fish are gone. Consequently, fishers have moved down the food web to species once considered“trash.” These species, of course, are the food source of the fish that were initially overfished. Amazingly, a third of the world’s harvested fish go to feed livestock or farmed fish. The ocean’s interconnected ecosystem simply cannot keep pace. In 2006, a report published in the journal Science estimated that by 2048 all wild commercial fish stocks would be wiped out.

2 reasons from 101 Reasons Why I'm A Vegetarian