Source: www.washingtonpost.com
WASHINGTON D.C., November 16, 2009: James E. McWilliams, is an associate professor of history at Texas State University at San Marcos and a recent fellow in the agrarian studies program at Yale University.
McWilliams spoke in South Texas recently on the environmental virtues of a vegetarian diet. He noted: “The livestock industry, as a result of its reliance on corn and soy-based feed, accounts for over half the synthetic fertilizer used in the United States, contributing more than any other sector to marine dead zones.”
He continues, “It consumes 70 percent of the water in the American West — water so heavily subsidized that if irrigation supports were removed, ground beef would cost $35 a pound. Livestock accounts for at least 21 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions globally — more than all forms of transportation combined. Domestic animals — most of them healthy — consume about 70 percent of all the antibiotics produced. It takes a gallon of gasoline to produce a pound of conventional beef. If all the grain fed to animals went to people, you could feed China and India.”
McWilliams is also the author of “Just Food.” For the full article see source above.