A: It will adopt the eating habits of Americans—specifically, our pork-eating habits. Already, China (which essayist Charles Lamb credited with being the birthplace of pork barbecue) consumes about half of all pork produced worldwide. According to a 2010 U.S. Department of Agriculture report, Chinese pork consumption jumped from 22 million tons in 1990 to more than 50 million tons in 2009—and it is only expected to grow.

How will this destroy the world? China doesn't have enough land to grow all the corn that's required to feed the increasing number of pigs who will in turn be needed to feed the country's growing mu shu pork habit. This means that China will go from importing no corn in 2008 to 15 million metric tons by 2014, according to one industry estimate. Much of that corn is expected to be grown in South America, where pristine savannahs and grasslands will be converted into cornfields. Not only will the razing of these grasslands release greenhouse gasses, the nitrogen fertilizers that will be used to grow the corn will release even more. And then there's all the energy that's used to raise and harvest the corn and ship it halfway around the world.

Nor does China have enough land to continue to raise pigs on small farms, which means that it will start converting its family farms to hugely polluting factory farms as well as importing more meat from such models of agricultural responsibility as Smithfield and Hormel.

All this adds up to an environmental headache bigger than the Great Wall of, well, you know where.

But all is not lost. PETA Asia and its army of Lettuce Ladies are feverishly trying to turn the tide by persuading Asians to eat green (in more ways than one). Will the leafy lovelies be able to save our planet in time? Stay tuned to this bat channel to find out.

Via Grist

Written by Alisa Mullins

Pleple2000 / CC by 2.0

Earlier this week, we told you the cautionary tale of a pork rind–munching trucker who nearly choked to death. Now we turn your attention to a report about a man who, after shooting and butchering a domestic pig, took a bullet himself after his dog stepped on the loaded rifle that the man had placed on the front seat of his pickup truck. The man is expected make a full recovery.

So here's some food for thought: If pig-eaters aren't concerned that their habit is cruel to animals. and dangerous to their own health and the environment, will the increasing threat of cosmic justice convince them to drop the chops? Your thoughts?

Written by Karin Bennett

When I was 16 years old, I was invited to a picnic. When I arrived, I was shocked to realize that I'd actually been invited to a pig roast—big difference. The sight of a whole charred pig turning on a spit with an apple stuck in his mouth was all I needed to convince myself that I'd never eat pork, i.e. pig, again.

The pig was already dead, and I knew nothing about his journey from his mother's womb to the fire pit. I didn't need to—after all, I called myself an "animal lover," so it was a simple, logical decision. If I wouldn't eat my dog, I wasn't going to eat a pig.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that pigs and other animals on factory farms routinely endure horrific abuses, millions of people continue to happily chow down on hot dogs and ham. Today, Fox News offers food for thought—the Web site is featuring exclusive undercover video footage taken by Mercy for Animals at Country View Family Farms, one of Pennsylvania's largest pork producers and a Hatfield Quality Meat supplier.

The video shows a slew of horrors, including workers as they hurl baby pigs and slam them into transport carts, pick piglets up by their ears and tails, cut off the animals' tails with pliers, and rip off their testicles with their bare hands without any painkillers. (The sound of screaming piglets in the video made my skin crawl.) Their squealing mothers are shown scrambling to escape workers who slam spiked mallets into the animals' sides. Many pigs bear sores from their constant confinement—one mother pig suffered an excruciating prolapsed rectum for at least 13 days before she was killed.

Folks, this video is tough to view (I had to pause it three times), but as caring people, we owe it to ourselves and the animals it shows to watch it and then pass it on to others—along with a link to GoVeg.com. You can share the video and the link via e-mail, via a link on your Facebook page, and via "tweets." Anyone you know who still needs convincing that animals suffer on factory farms won't question it after they've watched this footage.

Written by Karin Bennett

aact / CC

Thanks to global pandemonium revolving around swine flu, almost everything has ground to a halt in Mexico; schools in New York, California, and Texas have closed; Europeans are being urged to postpone travel to the U.S. and Mexico, and sore throat sufferers everywhere are dialing their doctors to ask, "Is it really just my allergies … or have I got swine flu?"

You know who's to blame? Yup, filthy factory farms. A headline in Vera Cruz's La Marcha points the finger at gi-normous pig-breeding farms operated by a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, the world's largest hog producer. Local residents reportedly believe that feces from the pig farms has contaminated the water and the air, spreading the virus to people. Another article in the Huffington Post quotes La Jornada newspaper, which points the finger at a factory farm in La Gloria, saying, "Clouds of flies emanate from the lagoons where Granjas Carroll discharges the fecal waste from its hog barns …." Yup, knew all that.

Because human consumption of meat is the sole reason that these factory farms exist, PETA has fired off a letter to Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard urging him to encourage residents to go vegetarian, noting that such an action could help prevent future outbreaks. We're also shipping emergency Spanish-language copies of our "Vegetarian Starter Kit" in case residents need helpful tips when making the shift.

If you live in the U.S., encourage members of Congress to stop the spread of these diseases by ending factory farming.

Written by Karin Bennett