Many people choose to go the vegetarian way purely based on their religious beliefs. Others (include me in tht list) are put of by the intense inhumane way the animals are treated and slaughtered. I hope it makes an interesting reading.

It is believed that the production of meat and animal products at current and likely future levels is environmentally un-sustainable. It is also argued that even if sustainable, modern industrial agriculture is changing ecosystems faster than they can adapt. While vegetarian agriculture produces some of the same problems as animal production, the environmental impact of animal production is significantly greater. (http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/664S)

Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in many parts of the world. Overuse by humans is damaging to rivers and ecosystems and leads to salinity and desertification. A vegetarian diet uses considerably less water than a meat based diet. This is because to produce meat water must be used in the production of feed for animals, which must be fed to the animals during their entire life. The loss of water (and energy) between trophic levels is very large. When the grains go directly to humans this inefficiency is avoided. As an illustration, the water needed to produce a pound of wheat in the USA is 14 gallons whereas the water needed to produce a pound of beef is 441 gallons. More than half of the water use for all purposes in the USA is used for livestock production.

Animal protein demands greater expenditures of fossil fuel energy — eight times as much for a comparable amount of plant protein. Corliss, R. (2002, July). Should We All Be Vegetarians? Time. This is wasteful of non-renewable fossil fuels and produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Animal production also creates damaging animal waste. In the United States (the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases) livestock account for nearly 20% of total methane emissions. (http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html) One ton of methane has the global warming potential of 23 tons of carbon dioxide.

Factory farm animal production, while having a smaller land-use footprint, requires large quantities of feed that must be grown over large areas of land. Free-range animal production requires land for grazing, which has prompted encroachment on undeveloped lands and clear cutting. The move into wild lands has increased the rate of species extinction and damaged the services offered by nature, such as natural processing of pollutants. Over-grazed lands lose their ability to support animal production, which makes further agricultural expansion necessary. According to the United Nations, ranching-induced deforestation is one of the main reasons for the loss of plant and animal species in tropical rainforests.

Compare this with economic vegetarians, who consider the meat industry economically unsound.

“The cost of mass-producing cattle, poultry, pigs and sheep and fish to feed our growing population... include highly inefficient use of freshwater and land, heavy pollution from livestock feces... and spreading destruction of the forests on which much of our planet's life depends.” - Time magazine 11/8/99

"Rain forests are still being felled to graze hamburger cattle. Going vegan saves one acre [4,000 m²] of forest every year." - Cornell University

"On irrigated land, 1 lb of vegetables uses 25 gallons (200 L/kg). 1 lb of beef uses 5,214 gallons (44,000 L/kg)." - University Of California

"The world's 17 major fisheries are on the point of environmental collapse because of over-fishing" - United Nations

"If Britain went vegetarian, less than half the farm land would be needed - vegan, less than a quarter" - University of Reading

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