The Best Way to Celebrate Earth Day

Published by PETA.

Happy Earth Day 2011! If you rode your bike to work today or planted a tree, that’s fantastic. But if you’re passing on meat and dairy products today to help the planet, that’s even better.

For damage to the environment, meat takes the icky, Earth-destroying first-place prize. Consider the following:

  • Producing a single pound of meat emits the same amount of greenhouse gases 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 make one calorie from plant protein.
  • Animals raised for food in the U.S. produce 89,000 pounds of waste per second without the benefit of waste-treatment systems.
  • 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 half a million cars off of U.S. roads.

Celebrate Earth Day today by opting for delicious, meat-free dishes and sharing this with your eco-conscious Facebook friends.
 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

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 Ingrid E. Newkirk

“Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?” READ MORE

— Ingrid E. Newkirk, PETA President and co-author of Animalkind

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