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INFO ABOUT ANIMAL AGRICULTURE, FISHING & CLIMATE BREAKDOWN

(without sources - when I started collecting data I didn't think saving the source data was important!)
Every year in the UK we feed our livestock enough food to feed 250,000,000 people while in the world 30,000,000 people die of starvation
Intensification in animal farming has displaced 1,000,000's of people from their traditional lands - e.g. indigenous people in south & central America, native Americans in north America & crofters in Great Britain - this is continuing today. People displaced from their lands into cities succumb to dietary deficiency, diseases, parasites & opportunistic diseases.
The UK imports £46,000,000 worth of grain from third-world countries to feed our livestock
80% of cultivated land in the UK is used to grow food for animals (14,732,000 hectares)
Since 1945 in the UK we have lost 95% of flower meadows, 50% of ancient woodlands, 40% of heathlands, 50% of wetlands & 224,000 km of hedgerows all due to animal farming
If everyone went vegan up to 90% of land used for animal farming could be taken out of production & used to replant woodlands, leisure activities etc
To produce 1calorie of energy from meat takes 60 calories of petrol, whereas growing grains & legumes to directly feed people produces 20 calories for each calorie of fuel used (that's 1200 times more efficient)
The EC spends 100,000,000's to subsidise animal production resulting in lakes of unwanted milk & mountains of unwanted meat & butter. This money could be better spent encouraging organic fruit, vegetable & grain production
Between 1950 & 1985 grain production in Europe & the USA increased massively but over 60% was fed to animals
70% of all grain is fed to animals
Food production will be made more environmentally sustainable by promoting (subsidising farmers and individuals) to use permaculture methods and stockfree methods to grow food.
In the UK we feed 70 million animals enough to feed 250,000,000 Using animals as the conduit for plants isn’t very sensible.
Animal farming has, sadly, stripped the land. 75% of the land in Wales is turned over to sheep farming. Growing plant-based foodstuffs and rewilding are clearly the best answers.
By engaging in the sensible option of plant-based farming existing farmers would be able to create far more flourishing businesses without even needing subsidies.
The dairy industry is in decline in the UK. Supermarkets dictate the price to the dairy. Small dairy farms shut down. Only those factory farms that are like giant gulags survive by cruelly turning animals in automatons/robots.
US dairy – Elmhurst - switched to plant-based milk production.
As David Attenborough says healthy animals are wild animals left to their own devices in nature. Wherever the industries of animal farming and fishing operate they decimate native wild animals and fish.
Fishing is unrecognizable the industry simply indiscriminately trawl the ocean beds with nets the size of football pitches. Unwanted fish are simply thrown overboard often after death. This is not caring for them!
To quote from “This Is Not a Drill” (Extinction Rebellion Handbook) A plant-based food system (cooking for a vegan diet) “ensures maximum inclusivity and top health and safety standards. With fresh vegetables and a quick turnaround, there’s nothing that will go bad, even without refrigeration.
On the ancient savannas of Africa, food was often scarce and limited in nutrients. Protein was especially hard to come by. Meat was the perfect source of calories and protein — but also of many vitamins and minerals. It was what scientists call a 'high-quality food.' But it was also difficult to get, which made it all the more precious. Whoever had meat, had power — he (it usually was a 'he') could decide who would get the nicest shares of the hunted animal and who would go hungry.
Every 1/3-pound burger requiring 660 gallons of water to produce.
Some of the leading environmental NGOs are finally beginning to take on the issue of animal agriculture and animal-free food, from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to Natural Resources Defence Council and Wild Aid.
A recent Dutch study has revealed, simply showing people that meat-reducing diets can be a very effective way to mitigate global warming, without telling anyone to change anything, can increase their willingness to reconsider their eating habits.
Last year, the conservative estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that we probably only have 12 years to turn around the factors causing climate breakdown. More recently scientists have been saying the timescale is nearer to 18 months.
Warmer planet than 650,000 years. Hadley Centre (HadCRUT4)
Deforestation, meat diet = high carbon footprint.
By 2023 it is predicted that there will be no Arctic Ice (PIOMAS Zhang & Rothrock 2003)
“Climate change is not simply a matter of cause and effect. It is more like a vicious circle.” ~ Yale Climate Connections talking about the “Albedo Effect”
According to the Stockholm Resilience Centre, these “feedback loops” are not restricted to the Arctic. They can be seen happening in/with the Jet Stream, the Amazon Rainforest, Arctic Summer sea-ice, the permafrost in Russia, the Indian summer monsoon, the Coral Reefs, the ice sheets of Antarctica, Alpine glaciers, the Boreal Forest, ocean currents and deserts.
In the UK changes in the land temperature has risen by as much as one-degree centigrade in the last 10 years with coastal areas at just under one degree at about point seven (0.7). Sea levels have risen by as much as 10cm during the same time.
The UK Climate Coalition Report: Recipe for Disaster included reports from various people. Lee Abbey, Head of Horticulture at the NFU stated “A lot of growers will have come out of this year with sore heads and not much income. Farmers and growers are used to dealing with fluctuations in the weather but if we have two or three extreme years in a row it has the potential to put growers out of business.” Ali Capper, the chair of the NFU Horticultural board said; “In August 2015, a five-minute hailstorm with a mini-tornado destroyed my entire crop of apples.” In 2017 the yields lost to the climate were estimated as follows; apples 25%, carrots 25-30%, onions 40%, potatoes 20%.
Insects are disappearing rapidly. The imported/European honey bee continues to muscle out the native solitary bees.
Animals travel between farms & to slaughter in overcrowded transporters with no food or water - resulting in stress, injuries & deaths - legal requirements are widely ignored
Problems with the stunning practise means that many animals have their throats slit while still conscious (around 6% of cattle or 200,000 per year) & are then dipped in tanks of scalding water (to loosen feathers, bristles etc.) again while fully conscious.
In the UK animals are killed by first being stunned with electricity or a captive bolt gun (ie. a bolt is fired into their heads) before having their throats slit & being plunged into boiling water - all this happens on a production line with the animals being hung upside down from a moving conveyor belt - this is factory farming
Large areas of land are under monoculture to grow crops to feed to animals - these areas are wildlife deserts supporting fewer & fewer species.
20 vegans can live off the land required by one meat eater
If all Americans became vegan, it would free enough grain to feed 600,000,000 people (the population of India)

COWS (CATTLE)
1lb of beef takes 1 gallon of petrol to produce
Cattle convert only 6% of their energy intake (mainly grains & soya) into flesh, the remaining 94% is wasted as heat, movement (which is why they keep many animals in very close confinement), hair, bones, faeces etc.
It takes 16lbs of high protein soya to produce 1lb of beef
Meat & dairy farming uses billions of gallons of oil to run tractors, fuel ships & lorries (to move animal feed & animals), pump billions of gallons of water to irrigate fields & run slaughterhouses, power refrigeration units to prevent the corpses from decomposing & to power sewage plants to clean up some of the pollution produced.
A family of four eating beef for a year uses enough petrol to run a car for 6 months (obviously depending on how far you drive!)
If the full ecological cost of meat was passed onto the consumer - the price would be quadrupled (at least)
1-acre yields 165 lbs of beef or 20,000 lbs of potatoes
25 gallons of water to produce 1lb of wheat & 2500 gallons to produce 1lb of meat
Cows were fed on the ground-up remains of other cows & sheep - the result is thought to be BSE (mad cow disease)
Cows only give milk for 10 months after they have a calf - so they are routinely artificially inseminated (ie. mechanically raped) to keep them pregnant & milking - their calves are taken away (usually at 12 hours old) for meat or export to veal crates
Cows would naturally live up to 20 years but are slaughtered after 5-7 years when their milk production begins to fall.
Veal calves are confined in stalls in the dark, unable to move & are fed on pigs blood, chocolate & dried milk (we are drinking the rich fresh milk of their mothers)
Cows naturally produce 5 litres of milk per day for their calves - under the intensified systems of modern farming they produce 25-40 litres per day - resulting in swollen & inflamed udders - at this rate, they are soon worn out.

AMAZON RAINFOREST
Between 1966-1983 38% of the Amazon rainforest was destroyed for cattle grazing
90% of cattle ranches established on cleared forest land go bankrupt in less than 8 years as the land becomes barren due to nutrient loss & overgrazing
Overgrazing by cattle is destroying the land & increasing desertification, nearly 430 million acres in the USA alone has suffered a 25-50% reduction in yield since first grazed.

METHANE
The 1,300,000,000 cattle in the world emit 60,000,000 tons of methane per year (methane is a greenhouse gas & leads to global warming)
Burning of forests, grasslands & agricultural waste associated with animal farming releases 50-100,000,000 tons of methane per year
Combining these figures, 25% of methane emissions are due to animal farming (not including the billions of sheep, pigs & poultry so the real figure is much higher).

CHEMICALS & EMISSIONS
Fertilizer used to grow crops to feed to animals releases nitrous oxide - thought to account for 6% of the greenhouse effect
Fertilizer, weedkiller & pesticides sprayed on crops enter the atmosphere creating a noxious carcinogenic cocktail
Ammonia from animal urine pollutes the atmosphere
CO2 is released by burning oil & petrol in lorries, ships, abattoirs, dairies, factories etc. associated with meat & dairy production
Emissions from large chemical plants which produce fertilizer, weedkiller & other agricultural chemicals are also poisoning our air.

FARM ANIMAL WASTE
UK farm animals produce 200,000,000 tonnes of slurry (liquid excrement) every year, the majority of which ends up in our rivers
Bloody waste water from abattoirs ends up in our rivers and seas.
Nitrates & pesticides used on crops grown to feed livestock end up in our rivers
The liquid waste from the various parts of the meat & dairy industry flow into the rivers & from there into the seas polluting them & encouraging huge algal blooms to grow

WATER USE & WASTE
Meat & dairy farming uses 70 litres of water per day per animal in the UK or 159,250,000,000 litres per year in total
The water used to produce 10 lbs of steak is equivalent to the average consumption of water for an entire household for an entire year
Depletion of groundwater reserves to grow crops for animals & to supply abattoirs will lead to greater water shortages
Aquafers (stores of underground water) are being drained at alarming rates to produce meat
18% of all agricultural land in the world is irrigated & as global warming increases (partly due to animal farming)
The water used to produce a 1000 lb beef steer is enough to float a battleship.

FISHING
Fishing with drift (and other modern) nets weakens & destroys ecosystems by indiscriminately killing billions of sea creatures & disrupting the seabed
Fishermen's nets kill 10 times as many other animals as the fish they are hoping to catch
Fish caught in nets die an agonisingly slow death of suffocation
Each year 15,000,000,000 land animals are slaughtered for food & an unknown but much larger number of sea creatures (including 1000's of dolphins caught accidentally)

CHICKENS
Chickens are crammed into battery cages with up to 3 other birds, they are unable to even spread their wings & many can not even stand up
Unwanted male chicks (because they can't lay eggs) are gassed or pulped while their sisters go to the battery sheds
Chicks are debeaked without anaesthetic to prevent them injuring each other in the unnaturally confined conditions they are kept in - this is equivalent to having your fingernails pulled out without anaesthetic
Modern farming methods using growth hormones & artificial lighting mean that many chickens outgrow their bones, resulting in fractured & broken legs
Poultry raised for meat are kept in windowless broiler sheds, with around 20-30,000 in each shed, they live in an area of 10-20 cm square - fighting due to overcrowding is common & like battery hens, they commonly suffer from superating bed sores
Broiler sheds are artificially lit 23 hours a day to produce rapid growth
95% of poultry suffer injuries before being killed & 30% suffer broken bones
Intensive industrial factory farms are vectors for disease. Laying hens are overcrowded to the point of stress. The laying hen is typically confined in a cage half a metre square. It stays here for its entire productive life of one or two years. There is barely enough room for the birds to turn around. Laying hens stand on wire mesh all day and night so their feet are often calloused and sore.
They have no stimulation other than the other birds in their cage - so hen-pecking and aggression are common. De-beaking and toe trimming are therefore routinely practised. These procedures can cause pain and stress and lead to infections. The de-beaking of chicks is banned in Finland, Sweden and Norway. But it is still common in most battery farms and hatcheries.
The calcium needed to form just one egg can bind up 10% of the calcium from a hen's bones. Extended egg-laying without proper mineral replenishment will lead to soft or fractured bones.
When left alone, hens will eat their unfertilized eggs. This replenishes them with minerals lost during the egg formation process.
To stop the spread of disease from overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, antibiotics are routinely supplied with feed.
Of course one of, if not the, worst thing about the egg industry is that each year six billion (6,000,000,000,000) live male chicks are macerated.
In 2015 the estimated number of male chicks killed equalled 250,000,000 a day. Being male means they will not go on and produce eggs and make money for their "owners". Male chicks are just thrown, still alive, into a grinder, some places in the UK use gas chambers, or the chicks simply put into plastic bin bags and left to suffocate or starve to death. I don't see any of those methods as being very kind, or even necessary, do you?
Who wants to eat a hen's period anyway? (they use the same hole for everything)
Eggs are unhealthy; they are loaded with artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fat - 70 per cent of the calories in one egg is from pure fat!

PIGS
Sows are kept tethered their whole adult lives in stalls 1.3 x 1 metre on concrete or slatted floors - they can not even turn around.

HEALTH ISSUES
Vegans have a 20% lower rate of mortality from all causes (ie. they live longer & don't get sick as often)
Meat is full of traces of antibiotics, hormones, toxins produced by stress & pesticide residues that become concentrated from all the crops they have eaten
Fish contain heavy metals & other pollutants -many of which originated on farms
The world health organisation recommends a diet low in saturated fat, sugar, salt & with plenty of fibre - exactly what you get on a vegan diet
Farmed animals contain up to 50% saturated fat in their bodies
Vegans have a 57% reduced risk of getting heart disease (heart disease is the biggest killer in the UK accounting for 50% of deaths)
Obesity is rare in vegans, obesity is related to many diseases
Vegans have lower blood pressure & cholesterol levels - high levels are associated with heart disease, strokes & kidney failure
Vegans have a 50% reduced risk of dying of diabetes
Vegans have a 40% reduced level of cancer than the general population thought to be because they have a higher intake of vitamins A, C & E
Vegans have a reduced risk of developing gall & kidney stones
80% of food poisoning is due to infected meat (faeces, bacteria etc.) after all meat is decomposing flesh - most of the rest is due to salmonella in eggs
Osteoporosis due to calcium loss from bones is mainly due to the sulphur content in meat & casein protein in milk that causes calcium to be lost in the urine - the countries with the highest meat & dairy consumption are those with the highest levels of brittle bones
50% of people do not have the enzyme to digest milk properly & milk allergy is related to asthma & eczema
Meat eaters have double the rate of Alzheimer's disease as Vegans - some people also think that Parkinson's disease is also linked to meat-eating
Egg yolk is a dense concentration of saturated fat & the white is high in albumin protein associated with leaching calcium into your urine. Butter is 80% saturated fat, cream is 40% saturated fat & cheese is 25-40% saturated fat
Meat eaters are two and a half times more likely to get bowel cancer than Vegans
The cling film used to wrap meat in supermarkets & butchers contains chemicals linked to falling sperm counts in men
Chinese people (living mainly on a vegetarian diet) consume 20% more calories than Americans but Americans are 20% fatter
Of 2,190,000 deaths in the USA in 1987, 1,500,000 were related to diet (ie. meat & dairy).