Become a pescatarian save 3,531 + pounds of carbon dioxide emissions from being released into the atmosphere, as well as over 242,500 gallons of water. Cutting red meat and poultry from your diet is a profound and necessary step in your stance against global warming. A single kilogram (2.2 lbs) of beef is responsible for the equivalent release of 80 lbs. of C02 and the use 5,500 gallons of water. The average American eats 318 pounds of meat every year (beef = 97 lbs, pork = 68 lbs, poultry = 106 lbs, fish = 45 lbs.) On average, becoming a pescatarian saves 273 pounds of meat from being produced (grown, killed, and transported) every year. United Nations' scientists concluded that eating animals causes 40 percent more global warming than all planes, cars, trucks, and other forms of transport combined, which is why the Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook says that "refusing meat" is "the single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint."  The Reporter and the New York Times both report that “the world's meat consumption has quadrupled between the early 1960s and 2007 to a total of 284 million tons (consumed) per year. Statistics show that America's 300 million people, about 5 percent of the world population, consume 15 percent of the world's meat by growing and slaughtering 10 billion animals per year. This is like a community of 100 people and 100 cows in which 95 people share 85 cows, but five super rich people consume 15 cows. According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the US livestock population consumes more than 7 times as much grain as is consumed by the entire American population. There are approximately 800 million people in the world suffering from hunger and/ or malnutrition and 1/3 of the corn and soy grown in the world feeds cows, pigs and chickens. In America alone the amount of grains fed to US livestock is sufficient to feed about 840 million people who follow a plant-based diet (more than the entire starving population of the world).  Simply put, meat in an incredibly inefficient food source. For every 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of high-quality animal protein produced, livestock are fed about 6 kg (13.2 lbs) of plant protein. According to a January New York Times article, Americans eat about 110 grams of protein a day, which is roughly twice the federal government’s recommended allowance (56 grams from a mixed diet). Of those 110 grams, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine eating around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources. The editors of World Watch concluded in the July/August 2004 edition that “the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future — deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities and the spread of disease.” Eating meat is “no longer just a lifestyle issue, the mass production and consumption of animal flesh has become a huge challenge to the stability of climate, forest cover, fresh water, and human health. However, none of this is new information. Albert Einstein said many years ago that “nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." Making the choice to cut red meat and poultry from your diet has a profound positive impact on your health and the environment. Between fish and other kinds of meat, the combination of red meat and poultry are responsible for the greatest amounts of C02 emissions.  Keep in mind though that eating fish is taking a gigantic toll on the ocean’s fish populations and is still responsible for a carbon footprint comparable to eating beef. Check out Solution #745 for more information.  For help getting started, check out http://www.vegkit.org/ for a free vegetarian starter kit. Sources:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.htmlhttp://www.emagazine.com/view/?3312http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1670http://www.thereporter.com/ci_9690714?source=most_emailedhttp://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/660S#T1http://www.alternet.org/story/74605/?page=entire  

reference link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html

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