There are many logical reasons to adopt a vegetarian diet. But aside from the countless health benefits and animal cruelty protests involved with it, there is one much more urgent and demanding reason to take on a meatless diet. One of the most popular topics in the news these days is our environment and the dangerous path we’re following in relation to it. And one of the major factors that contribute to this almost certain future disaster concerning our environment is the meat industry. Adopting a vegetarian diet is one of the simplest and most effective ways you can positively affect your environment and help steer humanity away from the doomed path that it’s on.

There are two central ways that the meat industry negatively affects the environment: with pollution, and with wasted resources. Water pollution from factory farms and concentrated livestock operations is caused mainly by the run-off of the millions of tons of excrement produced every year by farm animals. As stated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), livestock produce 13 times more waste than humans. This leads to harmful fish environments as well as unsafe drinking water for people. Because of this, water pollution is just as dangerous to humans as to fish. While killing thousands of fish in the rivers and streams where the contaminated feces have overflowed, the massive amounts of waste have also sickened countless humans and have even caused death. One of the most serious diseases carried in the waste is E. coli. “According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the run-off from factory farms pollutes our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined” (GoVeg 8).

The air around factory farms is also incredibly contaminated. Besides naturally producing more than 14 million pounds of particulate and filthy, polluted dust every year, meat and dairy industries consciously, and greatly, add to the “air-quality crisis” by spraying tainted urine and feces as mist into the air to relieve overflowing cesspools. Aside from putting impure waste out into the clean and livable environment, this method of getting rid of excess manure is extremely dangerous for people who live nearby.

The other main way that factory farms pollute our environment is through wasted resources. One of the biggest necessities in raising and slaughtering livestock is land. Approximately half of the total landmass in the U.S. is used in some way to raise animals—whether it is for farms raising the animals, farms growing food for the animals, or for slaughterhouses. A study done at the Smithsonian institute showed that almost seven football fields’ worth of land is destroyed every minute just to make room for livestock and crops (GoVeg 1).

Another huge necessity for the meat industry is food and water. It’s a fact that animals need to consume large amounts of food to survive. The process of raising animals for food is extremely slow and ineffectual, because while they require so much grain, they only produce small amounts of meat. It has been reported that more than 70 percent of grains grown in the U.S. are fed to livestock. This vast amount of grain wasted to the world’s cattle alone could provide the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people (GoVeg 2).

Vast amounts of water are also needed for the process of raising animals. Water is needed to irrigate the crops fed to the animals, it’s used to water the animals themselves, and it’s required for cleaning the factory farms, the transportation vehicles used for moving the animals, and the slaughterhouses. All this water wasted for the production of meat uses up about half of the United States’ water supply. For only 1 pound of meat, about 5,000 gallons of water is used. To grow one pound of wheat, about 25 gallons of water is used. “While millions of people across the globe are faced with droughts and water shortages, much of the world’s water supply is quietly being diverted to animal agriculture” (GoVeg 4).

There are endless lists of statistics and numerical facts about the amount of land, food, and water that are wasted ever day, every week, or every year on raising animals for food, but it’s the undeniable and inevitable truth that eventually we will run out of those resources. Like Timothy B. Rutherford said on the subject, “As the population increases, the need for land increases, the need for water increases, and the need for food increases. By putting meat on the menu, less land, less water, and less food is available. The simple fact is that the Earth has limited resources and as our population grows, and if things do not change, they will be used to depletion.”

It is crucial that people start to think about what they are doing to the Earth. The evidence is more overwhelming than ever that taking up a vegetarian diet is tremendously beneficial for our environment. You are not being asked to go out and buy a brand new $30,000 hybrid car (a major report by the University of Chicago in 2006 found that adopting a vegan diet has a greater impact in the fight for the environment than switching to a hybrid car does, anyway [GoVeg 3]) or to immediately go and install solar heating panels on your home, although both of those things are good to have. It cannot be too much to ask to cut out, or at least cut down, you meat intake. According to the official handbook for the “Live Earth Concerts”, “refusing meat is the single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint,” and in our increasingly energy-wasting society, reducing your individual carbon footprint is now more important than ever.