If your tofu has turned green, you'll probably want to toss it. But the results of a recent study show that our tofu is so green that it's a cause for celebration!

The findings of this new study reveal how vegan foods, such as veggie dogs, tofu, and seitan, contribute little to climate change compared to meat. For example, only 350 grams of carbon dioxide are released for each kilogram of soy "meat" produced, while an equivalent amount of ground meat is responsible for around 7,200 grams of carbon dioxide. If my math is correct, that means a hamburger patty causes more than 20 times more harmful greenhouse gasses to be released than does a veggie burger of the same size.

PETA's always said that "meat's not green" because of the severe environmental damage caused by factory farming—which releases massive amounts of the greenhouse gasses that cause climate change.

With a growing focus on our responsibility for maintaining our planet, there's still no better way to go green than by going vegan.

If you're one of those people who need a deadline to take action, here's one for you: five years. That's how long analysts with the International Energy Agency give the world's governments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and reverse climate change "before it's too late." Governments have their role, but there's an important lifestyle change that every individual can make to ensure that our planet doesn't become a giant sauna: Go vegan.

A plant-based diet is not only healthier for you but also better for the entire planet. Consider the following statistics:

• Producing a single pound of meat emits the same amount of greenhouse gasses as driving 40 miles in an SUV.
• It takes 10 times as much fossil fuel to produce one calorie from animal protein as it does to produce one calorie from plant protein.
• If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and opted for plant-based foods instead, the carbon-dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.

In addition, raising animals for food in the U.S. alone produces 89,000 pounds of waste per second. Much of that untreated waste ends up polluting our land and waterways. 

There's no time to delay switching to a healthy, vegan diet. Check out PETA's vegetarian/vegan starter kit, and share it with friends and family. On behalf of everyone who's become rather fond of Earth's inhabitable qualities, thank you.

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan

After Al Gore chastised President Obama in a Rolling Stone essay for not being tough enough in combating climate change, PETA, in turn, took the former veep to task for not being tough enough on his own high-carbon diet.

Even though scientific studies show that raising animals for food is one of the leading contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions, Gore continues to chow down on chops. In fact, the official handbook of the Live Earth concerts—which Gore helped organize—acknowledges that abstaining from meat is the "the single most effective thing" you can do to reduce your impact on climate change.

"As you know, going vegan will help reduce animal suffering, your waistline, and your impact on the planet, so it's a win-win situation for everyone," wrote PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman in a letter to Gore. "After all, it wouldn't do to challenge the president's 'climate of denial' while ignoring your own book's excellent advice."

After an unprecedented victory by the Green Party in Germany's elections, Green candidate Winfried Kretschmann is preparing to be the party's first appointed governor in the state of Baden-Württemberg. One newspaper called it "the start of a new political era in Germany."

The Green era could be the animal-friendly era, too, if the party opts to support healthy vegetarian and vegan diets. It would make perfect sense, considering that a German study conducted in 2008 concluded that the diet of a meat-eater is responsible for more than seven times as much greenhouse-gas emissions as the diet of a vegan is. 
  

There’s nothing ‘green’ about factory farms.

 
Raising animals for food is one of the biggest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions. (Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide together are responsible for the vast majority of global warming.) In addition, runoff from factory farms pollutes our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. And where does all that farmland come from? An area of land equivalent to the size of seven football fields is bulldozed every minute in order to create pasture and raise crops for farmed animals.

You don't have to be German to go green. Just order a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit—and maybe you won't feel so guilty about your old incandescent light bulbs.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

henryjacksonsociety / CC

In preparation for the World Day of Peace on January 1, 2010, Pope Benedict released a statement calling for a more "sober lifestyle" and a move "beyond a purely consumerist mentality." We've got two words for the pope to add to his call to save the environment: Go vegan.

Raising animals for food wastes resources and devastates our environment. Going vegan curbs climate change and promotes everything Jesus required of his followers: compassion and love toward all beings. We've written a letter to Pope Benedict asking that the Vatican become a global leader on the path to (green) peace by serving only vegan meals.

Even the pontiff himself has spoken out against the factory farming industry and its un-Biblical ways. "Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible," he said in an interview in 2002.

The bovine pope has been cruelty-free his entire life—we think it's time for his human counterpart to follow suit. So what do you say, Your Holiness? Won't you give peas a chance?

Written by Logan Scherer

When morning's chill is frigid and frightful, my husband and I can get into some pretty intense debates about whose turn it is to walk Charlie and Lucy. OK, I'm exaggerating: We just play a few rounds of rock-paper-scissors—and usually wind up walking them together.

But in Spain's Catalonia region, a heated battle is growing over a proposed bill to ban bullfighting, initiated by a citizens' lobbying group that opposes the hideous "sport." Of course, other politicians want to keep the bloody "tradition" alive.

stopbullfighting / CC

We're happy to report that the bill just passed a secret vote in the regional parliament (yay!). According to news reports, it was such a sensitive issue that some legislators actually used newspaper to cover their hands when they voted. Secret voting is rare in the Catalan legislature—so the cruelty behind bullfighting really hit home for the representatives who voted their conscience in defiance of tradition.

But the vote was close (67-59), and the bill still has a long way to go: Debates are sure to intensify before the final vote, which is several months away. If the bill passes, Catalonia will be the second region in Spain to outlaw bullfighting—the Canary Islands did it way back in 1991.

Of course, there's no question that my husband and I will call a truce long enough to sign this petition to end the Running of the Bulls. Won't you do the same?

Written by Karin Bennett

Every year, PETA's offices are flooded with calls about dogs who are relegated to the backyard by guardians who refuse to let them inside. These dogs are left outside in freezing temperatures, often with nothing more than a plastic barrel or a wooden lean-to as shelter from the ice, sleet, and snow. For the last two years, a third-grade class at Samuel Staples Elementary School in Easton, Connecticut, has worked hard to raise funds for PETA's doghouse program, which provides warm homes for lonely backyard dogs. The students donate their leftover lunch money, parts of their allowance—even the quarters that they find in couch cushions. With all their combined change, the students were able to raise more than $800 for dogs last year!

It was such a great idea that TeachKind—PETA's humane-education program, which I coordinate—is launching a brand-new school fundraising program called Change for Chained Dogs.

This program makes it easy for schools to get students active and empower them to make a difference for animals. Every school that signs up gets an introductory letter, stickers, leaflets, and a sign to print out and tape to collection cans. So far, more than 500 schools—including Samuel Staples—have signed up for the fundraiser. It's a great opportunity for students, families, and communities to work together to help dogs in need.

We hope that even more schools will get involved in this exciting program, so if you have kids or know any educators, encourage them to sign up their school to host a Change for Chained Dogs fundraiser! And if you want to make a contribution yourself but don't know any kids, don't worry—you can always donate directly to PETA's doghouse program to help give lonely dogs a warm home this winter.

Written by Liz Graffeo

livesets.nu / CC

I got my first vegan pancake recipe from Moby when his berry flapjacks were featured way back when in Seventeen magazine.

He could have stopped there, but it seems like Moby keeps coming up with ways to win my animal-loving heart.

In a recent blog entry, Moby goes the extra mile for animals and the planet by calling out "environmentalist" Al Gore over his refusal to ever mention that animal consumption is the leading cause of climate change. Moby says:

Gore should have named his movie Sorta-Inconvenient Truths if he didn't want to cover the environmental destruction that his meaty diet causes.

Written by Shawna Flavell

Al Gore admitted to an audience at a political blogger conference that he may, indeed, be bad for the environment and guilty of contributing to global warming. Why? Because he just can't seem to stop eating meat, which is more harmful to the global warming crisis (which Gore is known for being a teeny bit fanatical about) than all of the world's cars, trucks, SUVs, and planes combined!

According to Ezra Klein at Prospect.org, Gore said, "It is true that it would be healthier for us as individuals and as a planet if we consumed less meat. I acknowledge that. … I myself am a meat eater and maybe that's had some effect" (emphasis mine). How did he go from acknowledging that vegetarianism is better for individuals and the planet to saying that maybe his choice to eat animals has some negative effect?

Without committing to any changes in the present, Al Gore explains that he "plead[s] guilty" and that we must "walk before we can run." Seriously? He doesn't know how to walk the walk on this issue? Have we not been clear enough with this guy? We'd love to love you, Al, but please stop clinging to the one thing that is so devastating for the world while asking everyone else to drop their bad habits.

What's next, M.A.D.D. beer cozies sized to fit in your car's cup holder? Ugh.

Posted by Sean Conner

Remember that advertisement for the U.S. Army that said that folks in the Army do more before 6 a.m. than most people do all day? I was reminded of that when I reviewed some of the successes scored by the phenomenal PETA Asia-Pacific team. Check out what these superheroes for animals accomplished during a recent three-week span:

1. When PETA Asia-Pacific learned that Tanzania was going to ship elephants and giraffes to the Manila Zoo, a tiny, decrepit, and outdated facility that has nothing to offer animals except a life of deprivation, misery, and loneliness, they fired off a letter to Tanzania President Jakaya Mrisho Kitwete, pointing out that "[a]ll confined animals suffer from profound boredom—some so severely that it can lead to self-mutilation and self-destructive behavior." The president of the East African nation responded with compassion, halting the deal and saving many animals in the process.



2. Photo Credit: Gaspar Rodriguez

   When Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared a war on hunger and inequity—while also saying that she would lead by example—PETA Asia-Pacific called on the president to adopt and advocate a vegetarian diet. The letter sent by PETA Asia-Pacific explained that animals raised for food consume nearly 1 billion metric tons of food edible by humans every year—enough to feed about half the world's population. President Arroyo took the time to respond to the letter, resulting in tremendous media coverage.


3. In protest of the grueling "death ship" journeys—in which sheep and cattle are forced to endure extremely crowded, disease-ridden ships with little access to food or water through all weather extremes—dozens of men and women from PETA Asia-Pacific and Animal Liberation NSW stripped naked and sprawled on the ground in a "die-in" on Sydney's Pitt Street Mall. The protesters lay on the cold pavement (it's wintertime in Australia—remember that hemisphere thing?) for 20 minutes under signs that read, "Animals Suffer and Die in Live Export." Check out the activists in action!


4. And leaving the most sizzling for last: Kobe Kaige (don't pretend you don't know that name!)—who has graced the pages of dozens of magazines, from Playboy and FHM to Stroke MX and Maxim, and who currently reigns as Penthouse's "Pet of the Year"—recently teamed up with PETA Asia-Pacific to draw some media and public attention to the cruelty of fur. Kobe—who posed fully nude amid a snowy set holding a sign that read, "Give Fur the Cold Shoulder"—helped save animals' skins by showing some of her own.

Posted by Grace Friedan