Meat’sdevastating impacton the ecosystem The global animal
agriculture industry uses up about one-third of the Earth’s
entire land surface (for grazing pastureand growing livestock
feed), and more than half the water and over one-third of
thepetroleum consumed in the U.S. Producing meat requires many
times the resourcesneeded to grow a nutritionally-equivalent
volume of plant foods. Cows, pigs, chickens, and other farmed
animals produce about 130 times moreexcrement than the entire
human population. Antibiotics and hormones fed to
livestock,toxic chemicals sprayed on feed crops, and other
poisons from factory farms are amongthe most common causes of
habitat collapse and wildlife loss. In2006, the United Nations
Food and AgricultureOrganization reported that animal
agricultureproduces moregreenhouse gasses than all the
automobiles in the world. AUniversity of Chicago study found
that a person on a vegandiet produces 1.5 tons fewer carbon
dioxide emissions each year than the average meat eater,while
switching f