From 'Livestock's Long Shadow'

Animal exploitation is not only the cause of zoonotic disease, such as covid-19, HIV, SARS, MERS, and the historic Spanish Flu and Black Death, but is destroying the planet.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs.  The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray crops.  Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below ground water resources.  Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed.

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass.  Livestock’s presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock.  Forests are cleared to create new pastures causing deforestation, especially in Latin America where 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

It is time to stop exploiting innocent, defenseless individuals, and begin to recognize their value as individuals, and in the process save them, ourselves, and the planet.