Good news. Several environmental, vegetarian, and animal advocacy groups have just joined forces to form the Veg Climate Alliance. Their goal is to teach people that “a global shift to vegetarianism is necessary to avoid rapidly approaching catastrophic climatic conditions and other environmental threats.”

Amen to that. There is overwhelming evidence linking meat and other animal products to climate change. Of course, the alliance is facing an uphill battle regardless. Global warming has been a hot topic (pun intended) for more than three years now, yet many people—including noted “environmentalists” like Al Gore—still largely ignore the “inconvenient truth” about meat and climate change. The fact is: you have to stop eating animal products if you want to combat climate change and have a livable planet. Here’s why:

• A United Nations report revealed that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes in the world combined. The “livestock sector” is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions—all potent greenhouse gasses.
• In a February 2009 Canwest News Service article, Chris Weber, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Pennsylvania’s Carnegie Mellon University, said, “Switching to no red meat and no dairy products is the equivalent of (cutting out) 8,100 miles driven in a car … that gets 25 miles to the gallon.”
• The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook by David de Rothschild states that “refusing meat” is “the single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint.”
• Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, urges people to have at least one meat-free day a week to help halt global warming but ultimately to go vegetarian.
• When responding to criticism that measures to tackle climate change are partly to blame for the rise in food and energy costs, Yvo de Boer, the head of the United Nations climate agency, said, “The best solution would be for us all to become vegetarians.”
• An American Journal of Clinical Nutrition report by David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel indicates that it takes more than 11 times as much fossil fuel to make a calorie of animal protein as it does to make a calorie of plant protein. When you think about all the energy-intensive stages it takes to produce meat, eggs, and dairy products, you’ll understand why going vegan makes sense.
• Researchers at the University of Chicago have even found that switching to a vegan diet is more effective in combating climate change than switching from a standard American car to a Prius.

To learn more about climate change and the other ways in which meat, egg, and dairy production degrades the environment, see GoVeg.com.