Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Most people care about the environmentat least enough to say they do on a study.

  • And most people have faith that the top environmental

  • agencies in the world are fighting the good fight to remedy the wrongs of humankind, certain

  • that they're focusing on the core issues with the greatest impact. Well, today we're

  • going to look at the top issues championed by the environmental agencies and the vast majority

  • of environmentalists and see why they're wrong. Soverywrong.

  • Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget, the first of the

  • everything wrong withseries. Way back in the day I did a video comparing the effectiveness

  • of all the commongo greentips to eating a vegan diet. That video's up there if you

  • want to check it out later. Unfortunately it was before I was very rigorous with citing

  • my sources and I haven't had time to cobble them back together for that post. So today

  • is a bit of a revamp with new numbers, many even more incredible.

  • I'm going to move more quickly in this video than usual but citations for every fact I

  • state and additional information are available on the blog post for this video which linked up

  • there and in the video description. I will also track any errors that I or anyone else finds in this

  • video there as well. I will also be far more sarcastic in this video but do not mean to

  • say that other environmental issues have no importance. You have been warned. Let's

  • get the tally of wrongness up [which you'll see is more of an art than a science] and

  • start the clock after….

  • Issue One: Climate Change

  • Environmental agencies focus on fossil fuels as the big bad baddy of greenhouse gas emissions

  • leading to global warming, suggesting alternative energy, carpooling, hybrid cars, and biking,

  • but animal agriculture accounts for more CO2 per year than all transportation methods combined.

  • A conservative 2006 study by the United Nations Food and Agricultural organization placed animal

  • agriculture at 7,516 metric tons per year or 18% of annual global GHG emissions with

  • a far more thorough 2009 World Watch study taking into account overlooked livestock respiration,

  • land use, methane and other oversights of the FAO, with the ultimate outcome of at least

  • 32,654 million tons of CO2 per year coming from animal agriculture. That's 51% of all

  • global emissions compared to the 13% of all combined transportation.

  • And what do the environmental agencies point to: reducing fossil fuel usage.

  • If we completely stopped all use of gas, oil, fuel, electricity, et cetera, and never used

  • them ever again, we would still exceed our carbon equivalent greenhouse gas emissions

  • of 565 Gigatons by the year 2030 just with the impact of livestock alone.

  • So not using fossil fuels at all, which would be the wet dream of every environmental agency, we're

  • still gassing out the planet with the one contributor, the main contributor, which they

  • refuse to even address.

  • In a similar vein, the focus is always almost exclusively on CO2 but methane is 25-100 times

  • more destructive than CO2 and has 86 times the global warming power.

  • If we do reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere as all the organizations are calling for, it will

  • take around 100 years to see an actual decline, whereas reducing methane shows results almost

  • immediately with significant results within decades. So the proposed solutions are even

  • farther from the mark than the actual constructive change.

  • Additionally, livestock is responsible for 65% of all emissions of nitrous oxide – a

  • greenhouse gas 296 x more destructive than carbon dioxide and which stays in the

  • atmosphere for 150 years.

  • Put in comparative terms, your average car produces 3-12 kg/day of CO2. but to clear rainforest

  • to produce beef for one hamburger produces 75 kg of CO2. Eating one pound of hamburger

  • does the same damage as driving your car for more than three weeks.

  • But is animal agriculture ever mentioned by any of the top environmental organizations

  • or environmentalists in relation to global warming? No. They focus on alternative energy

  • when converting to wind and solar power will take 20+ years and roughly 43 trillion dollars,

  • and going vegan takes seconds and can be even cheaper than being non-vegan.

  • Issue Two: Water Conservation

  • Environmental protection agencies recommend to use less water, take shorter showers, use

  • a low flow shower head. Now here is where you'll find the greatest variation from

  • my original calculations based on a 5 gallon per minute shower head. This time around I

  • found that the typical shower head after 1980 emits 2.5 gallons/minute with the low flow

  • emitting no more than 2gpm. If you take daily 15 minute showers with a low-flow shower head

  • you'll be saving 2,737.5 gallons per year. If, instead, you forgo one pound of beef one

  • time, you'll save 2,500 gallons of water for ONE POUND OF BEEF. That is a conservative

  • number as figures range all the way to over 8,000 gallons of water for one pound of beef.

  • 477 gallons of water are required to produce 1lb. of eggs; almost 900 gallons of water

  • are needed for 1lb. of cheese. and 1,000 gallons or liters of water are required to produce 1 gallon or liter of milk.

  • Environmental agencies focus almost exclusively on curbing home water usage, but only 5% of

  • water consumed in the US is by private homes, while 55% of water consumed in the US is for

  • animal agriculture, and 20-33% of all fresh water consumption in the world today. That's

  • up to a third of the planets water for animal agriculture.

  • If you didn't consume beef, eggs, milk, or cheese, not even counting other meats or

  • other dairy items, based on American consumption habits from 2000

  • and the conservative figures of water per pound, you'd save 222,345 gallons

  • of water that year.

  • But the environmental agencies prefer saving 1,825-2,737.5 gallons a year by using a low

  • flow shower-head.

  • Oh and the little trendy Greek Yogurts out there? 90 gallons of water for a

  • 6 oz. serving. And one stick of butter takes 109 gallons.

  • If we added all forms of dairy and meat for the average American in 2000, which is

  • less dairy and more meat than the data I had for my first video, and use a very conservative

  • average of 1,500 gallons per pound for the remaining meat as each type varies and

  • even more conservative 600 gallons for the remaining dairy, a vegan year would save approximately

  • 724,925 gallons.

  • Not only does that blow every water conservation recommendation out of the water, but with

  • the new calculations, forget what I've said before about not showering. You would

  • have to not shower AT ALL for over 66 years if you took daily 15 minute showers or close

  • to 100 years if you took daily 10 minute showers, both with a water saving shower head.

  • And the advice of the supposed environmental champions: shower less, turn off the water

  • while soaping your hands, run your sprinklers at night. Because that's how we're going

  • to change the world.

  • Issue Three: Fracking, no I did not curse

  • Fracking is the new golden child of environmentalists and their leading organizations. Fracking

  • is destroying the planet! It's polluting the waters. In the United States alone, fracking

  • uses from 70-140 billion gallons of water. Keep in mind for the big numbers that a thousand

  • seconds is 17 minutes, a million seconds is 12 days, a billion seconds is 31.7 years,

  • and a trillion seconds is 31,709.8 years.

  • In the United States alone, animal agriculture uses from 34-76 trillion gallons annually.

  • Taking into account the exponential difference between a billion and a trillion, animal agriculture

  • in the United States consumes anywhere from 486 to over a 1,000 times more water than fracking,

  • the largest threat to water according to environmentalists.

  • Issue Four: Ocean Dead Zones and Over-Fishing

  • Some of the worst human-created devastation is in our oceans. 3/4 of the world's fisheries

  • are exploited. 90 million tons of fish are pulled from our oceans each year. For every

  • 1 pound of fish caught, up to 5 pounds of unintended marine species are caught and discarded

  • as by-kill. We could see fishless oceans by 2048.

  • And what's the suggestion of the major ocean protection organizations? Sustainable fishing.

  • There's no way to make 100 million tons of fish by 2050 sustainable, especially given

  • the 5 pounds of by catch for every one pound of fish.

  • Animal agriculture is the leading cause of ocean dead zones with livestock operations

  • on land having created more than 500 nitrogen-flooded dead zones around the world in our oceans.

  • Issue Five: Waste Management

  • Environmental agencies focus on industrial waste and the sanitation of human

  • waste while a farm with 2,500 dairy cows produces the same amount of waste as a city of 411,000

  • people and it is entirely untreated. In fact, every minute, 7 million pounds of excrement

  • are produced by animals raised for food in the US alone. This doesn't include animals

  • raised outside of USDA jurisdiction or in backyards, or the billions of fish raised

  • in aquaculture settings in the US and it all has no proper management system leading to

  • ground water and ocean pollution.

  • Perhaps they don't want to address the fecal issue because they themselves are full ofmoving on.

  • Issue Six: Species Extinction

  • 10,000 years ago 99% of the biomass (i.e. zoo-mass) was wild animals, today, humans and the animals

  • that we raise as food make up 98% of the zoo-mass, with wild animals comprising only 2%. Up to 137

  • plant, animal, and insect species are lost every day due to rainforest destruction, the

  • leading cause of which, as we shall see, is animal agriculture. We are currently facing

  • the largest mass extinction in 65 million years.

  • The Alliance for Global Conservation estimates 36 percent of all species on our planet are

  • in danger of extinction. And what are the major species protection organizations recommending?

  • Wildlife rehabilitation and conservation, fighting poaching, and breeding programs.

  • Way to throw a bandaid on an open artery. I'm sure it will hold.

  • Issue Seven: Habitat Destruction, Land Usage & Deforestation

  • A third of the planet is desertified, with livestock as the leading cause.

  • Nearly half of the contiguous United States is devoted to animal agriculture.

  • 1.5 acres can produce 37,000 pounds of plant-based food and only 375 pounds of meat.

  • The land required to feed 1 vegan for 1 year is 1/6th of an acre. It is 3x as much for a vegetarian

  • and 18x as much for a meat-eater.

  • You can grow 15x more protein on any given area of land with plants, rather than animals.

  • 136 million rainforest acres have been cleared for animal agriculture with 1-2 acres of rainforest

  • being cleared every second.

  • In fact animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of Amazon destruction.

  • A single quarter pounder burger takes 55 square feet of rainforest to produce.

  • But what do the major rainforest protection agencies focus on primarily? Palm oil and pulp production.

  • Now for the Too Long Didn't Watch version:

  • Animal agriculture is the leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions leading to global

  • warming, uses a third of the earth's fresh water, up to 45% of the Earth's land, is

  • responsible for 91% of Amazon destruction with 1-2 acres being cleared every second,

  • and is a leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, and habitat destruction.

  • Environmental agencies not only do not focus on animal agriculture, the absolute most devastating

  • and pervasive single cause of multi-dimensional environmental destruction, but they actually

  • refuse to even acknowledge it. And individual environmentalists, by and large, perhaps as

  • a consequence or by their own social indoctrination, aren't even aware of this issue despite

  • devoting themselves to championing the environment.

  • For the wrap up:

  • The ACTUAL problem is animal agriculture and the ACTUAL solution is a vegan diet. A person

  • who follows a vegan diet PRODUCES the equivalent of 50% less carbon dioxide, uses 1/11th oil,

  • 1/13th water, and 1/18th land compared to a meat-lover for their food, and every day

  • saves 1,100 gallons of water, 45 pounds of grain, 30 square ft. of forested land, 20 lbs of

  • CO2 equivalent, and one animal's life.

  • Given all of these facts, it's abundantly clear that veganism is THE ONLY answer to

  • the environmental crisis and the environmental organizations collective failure to recognize

  • this fact leaves them with a wrongness tally total of: qualifying them for an ultimate

  • score of More Full of Fecal Matter Than the 7 Million Tons Produced Every Second By Farm

  • Animals in the United States!

  • It's time to get real. You cannot be an e