We are facing a crisis on a massive scale. Earth is being destroyed by the minute, and we are the ones destroying it. If we don’t start doing something now, it’s going to be too late.

How are we doing this? Well, we live on an overpopulated planet. Overpopulation increases the need for more natural resources. These natural resources are turned into food, fuel as well as raw materials for production of goods.

Each year, the demand for beef, poultry and pork increases, this increase in demand for meat for human consumption requires ever increasing amounts of livestock farms. More livestock farms needed means more land to farm on is needed, and how do you obtain that land? By chopping down trees, otherwise known as deforestation. More than 50 billion land animals are raised and slaughtered each year. Let that sink in for a moment, more than 50 BILLION each year. That’s almost 7 times the human population! So what effect does this mass farming have on Earth? The answer is a simple, climate change.

Mass farming for mass consumption, for a growing population, contributes to climate change otherwise known as Global Warming. A rise in temperatures, unusual weather activity, cyclones, you name it, are all part of Global Warming.

So get to the point right? Deforestation for animal agriculture releases 2.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. You see forests suck up the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere also called carbon sequestration, in other words the less trees we have, the more screwed we are. When we have to make way for mass farming because of overpopulation due to the increased demand for meat, we clear away these precious green filters.

Now we get back to those 50 billion land animals that are farmed. Their poop contributes to 35-40% of methane emissions, methane being 23 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide. Not to mention all the other diseases spread due to the poor conditions these animals are kept in. These diseases spread to humans causing epidemics across the globe.

These are only 2 of the negative effects that mass farming has on the environment and how it is one of the biggest contributing factors to climate change. Besides climate change it also contributes to species extinction, habitat destruction and ocean dead zones (fish farms and overfishing to support the increased demand for seafoods).

You don’t need to be vegan or vegetarian to help fight this climate crisis. Cutting down on your meat intake can help significantly. Think about it, there are 7.7 billion humans on Earth. If each person cut their meat consumption down by just 10% (that’s pretty bloody small if you think about the scale of destruction you’d be saving the entire planet and all of it’s inhabitants) there would be a significant decrease in the need for mass farming.

Action needs to be taken now, or generations to come are going to face a very grim future.