Planetary Emergency
(2009. Feb 02.)
“We are so close to the red line we may wake up tomorrow and discover there is nothing left to save.”
Maneka Gandhi, former Indian Environment Minister
If the future of the world depended on me, what would I do?
Did you know?
Greenhouse gases – who produces most?
Livestock produces 40 % more Greenhouse gas emissions than global transportation
Amazon forests releases 20 billion tones of fresh water into the atmosphere every day
24 hours of deforestation releases as much CO2 as 8 million people flying from London to New York
Every second, rainforest the size of a football field is destroyed to produce 257 hamburgers
More than 90 % of Amazon forest cleared since 1970 is used for livestock pasture
18 month to halt deforestation to preserve life on this planet
(May, 2008, His Royal Highness Prince Charles)
16 pounds of grain needed to produce one pound of beef
Factory farm cows never die of hunger – YET (!)
A child dies from hunger every 2.3 seconds
1.2 billion people suffer from hunger – another 1.2 billion people are obese
Every year 760 million tones of grain fed to livestock – it could solve global food shortage 14 times
Grain fed to animals for livestock loses 90 % of the energy from the original grain
1 hectare of land produces:
Potatoes for 22 people
Rice for 19 people
But only
Lamb for 2 people or
Beef for 1 person
1.1billion people live without clean drinking water – that’s 1 in 6 of us
19,737 liters of water are needed to produce 1 pound of beef – this is enough water to take a 7 minute shower every day for an entire year
Livestock in U.S. produce 86,000 pounds of excrement per second – that’s 130 times more than the entire human population
While you are reading these sentences
226 football fields of rainforest cleared.
2090 cows,
9150 pigs,
334120 chickens are killed.
100 children died of hunger.
But… you have the power to stop this now…
…it’s on your plate…
Go veg, be green.
RESOURCES: www.MEATtheFACTS.org
Please visit:
www.MEATtheFacts.org
www.goveg.com and watch the video “Meet your Meat” to form your own opinion!
www.peta.com
www.peta2.com
www.peta.de
www.peta2.de
www.greenpeace.org
www.stopanimaltests.com
www.animalsasia.org
With my own words…
Most of you know that I am living on a vegetarian diet. Sadly I have been attacked for that a hundreds of times during the past few years. That is why I finally decided to acquire myself a bigger knowledge about the vegetarian way of life and everything that is connected with it in my rare free time. And what started a long time ago because of my honest compassion for animals, became much more than that: a real responsibility and philosophy of life.
Due to my intensive investigations I gained shocking insights into the tragic situation of our planet and – as an inevitable consequence of that – into the unbelievable crimes of mankind against our Earth and its living things. I have seen a million faces of death; mind blowing cruelty done to children and animals; things, that are far beyond our imagination – I have seen the sad and shocking reality. A reality, none of us can escape from. It is far too late for that.
Slaughter-houses; fur-farms; brutal laboratory experiments on animals under the guise of “science”; deforestation; butchering of millions of animals; extermination of thousands of animals, which are important to keep the ecological balance of our forests and oceans; children, who are nothing but skin and bones; global warming: climatic disaster, drought, hunger, thaw, “boiling” oceans… - what will become of it?
In an interesting way most of us still believe, that our species is the most intelligent species on Earth. If we are, how can we ignore the red lights, destroy our planet and pull ourselves and every living thing into the catastrophe? The “pride of creation” turned out to be nothing more or less but the biggest and most merciless killer of all times – a fatal misunderstanding for every creature sharing Earth with us.
At the beginning of the 21st century the vegetarian way of life is no longer a question of faith or even a fashion phenomenon but a number one topic, that gets more attention worldwide than ever before. Saying “yes” to a vegetarian diet is an essential, responsible decision, which concerns all of us, if we want to save our planets future. It no longer matters whether you do without meat because of your honest sympathy for animals or because you want to help to stop global warming – the only thing that counts: feel responsible, go vegetarian!
Don’t think one single person can’t change anything! Here is what you can do for your planet:
- every vegetarian saves the lives of more than 100 animals every year
- one single vegetarian household saves up to 4.5 tons of emissions per year
I bet you did not know you could really change the world – all alone.
I could not sum up how many times people tried to convince me that the bad condition I had been in during the season of 2008 would result from the vegetarian diet I am living on. Well, as I mentioned before and many of you already know I fell ill with Lyme disease at the beginning of the season. Though I went from one doctor to another it took more than half a year, till a specialist finally detected the reason for my weakness.
In my desperation I consulted various nutritionists in the meantime and there was one thing, all of them were agreed on: my immunodeficiency does not result from the vegetarian diet I am living on – on the contrary (!): it is recommended to athletes to abstain from meat. Did you know?
Doing without meat can have a lot of positive effects on the human body:
- Lower blood pressure
- Lower cholesterol levels
- Reduce type 2 diabetes
- Prevent stroke conditions
- Reverse atherosclerosis
- Reduce heart disease risk – 50 %
- Reduce heart surgery risk – 80 %
- Prevent many forms of cancer
- Stronger immune system
- Increase life expectancy up to 15 years
- Higher IQ
RESOURCES:
www.MEATtheFACTS.org
Vegetarian Diets (American Dietetic Association)
Preventive Medicine Research Institute
There Is a Cure for Diabetes The Tree of Life 21 Day Program (DiabetesDietFood.net)
High IQ link to being vegetarian (BBC News)
I know from my own bitter experience, how it feels when people try to persuade you to do with or without something – some of them can get quite nasty. I do not want to make the same mistakes!
I am very grateful for having the possibility to speak to a lot of people only because I am who I am. But I really do think that being a person in the public eye is a gift each one of us should use to help saving our planet.
Being a successful athlete does not make me blind. Open your eyes.
Save the planet. Go veg. Be green.