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Excerpt Chapter 3: Half of the earth's land mass is grazed by livestock. ... Ninety percent of all soy and 80 percent of all corn grown in the United States is fed to livestock. ... A dairy cow produces around 120 pounds of manure and urine per day. These wastes are flushed into "lagoons," and from there they are often sprayed with high pressure nozzle guns onto open fields. The stench is so overpowering that neighbors are often forced to move away. ... Slaughterhouses produce an endless supply of blood and intestinal manure that is washed into rivers and estuaries. Half of all fresh water consumed in this country goes directly or indirectly to raise livestock. Certain aquifers are being permanently depleted; water that accumulated during the last Ice Age is being "mined." ... Mangrove forests are found in river mouths' and estuaries throughout the tropics, from Taiwan to India to Central America wherever sand dunes do not build up. I have swum through shallow mangrove estuaries in Mindinao. Mangrove forests are the nursery of aquatic life. Remove the mangroves, and the wild fish have no place to lay their eggs, and you eliminate all the wild fish. Half the world's mangrove forests have being ripped out and replaced with shrimp farms. ... Visionaries talk of converting much of the West back into a buffalo commons. The West would be able to produce more income for its residents as a place for tourism than as grazing land. Tourists would come from around the world as they come to the wild life parks in Africa. ... Although the human population of the world is 6.0 billion, the farm animal population of the world is around 15 billion: 1.3 billion cattle, 2.7 billion pigs, sheep, goats, horses, buffaloes and camels, and 11 billion fowl. ... Every time you drink milk, eat cheese or ice cream, put butter on your potato, or eat beef, pork, or chicken, you are doing your small part to further the world's environmental degradation.
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