A vegetarian from another list (obviously) sent this to me.  It is sponsored by a vegetarian group.  I have heard about the tie-in between raising animals and the environment, but am concerned that this is circulating on the World Wide Web.

Kath


NASA climate scientists report new data. This week, NASA climatologists said that new data suggests that the Arctic Ocean may have no more ice by 2012. Jay Zwally, of NASA's climate change research team, said that the ice was melting "much faster than previous predictions" supposed.   He explained that the presence of the Arctic sea ice reflects about 80% of the sun's heat, stabilizing the temperature of the ocean. Top NASA climatologist James Hansen stated, "We have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back in time – but it is going to require a quick turn in direction." 


  Thank you NASA scientists for your important research and encouragement toward immediate action. May we all be inspired to do our utmost to protect our incomparably beautiful planet Earth. 



  http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=3991705    http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jCYJx0roNyeIgXtvTqHL0POi-jwwD8TFI4N81 



As per a UN report one of the leading causes of global warming is as follows:

In a groundbreaking 2006 report, the United Nations (U.N.) said that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined . Senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization official Henning Steinfeld reported that the meat industry is "one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems ."2

http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp


Last year researchers at the University of Chicago took the Prius down a peg when they turned their attention to another gas guzzling consumer purchase . They noted that feeding animals for meat, dairy, and egg production requires growing some ten times as much crops as we'd need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken nuggets, and other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the animals to slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses, and distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie of meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil fuels--and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide--as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found that, when it's all added up, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius. 

It's a little hard to take in when thinking of a small chick hatching from her fragile egg. How can an animal, so seemingly insignificant against the vastness of the earth, give off so much greenhouse gas as to change the global climate? The answer is in their sheer numbers. The United States alone slaughters more than 10 billion land animals every year , all to sustain a meat-ravenous culture that can barely conceive of a time not long ago when "a chicken in every pot" was considered a luxury. Land animals raised for food make up a staggering 20% of the entire land animal biomass of the earth. We are eating our planet to death. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/vegetarian-is-the-new-pri_b_39014.html 

You Can Help Stop Global Warming! 
The most powerful step that we can take as individuals to avert global warming is to stop eating meat, eggs, and dairy products.
 

http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp 

Check out the environmental section of www.GoVeg.com for a lot more information about the harmful effect of meat-eating on the environment.