Body-Painted Pair Resembling Planet Earth Call for Vegan Meals Ahead of Earth Day
PETA India volunteers – a man and a woman painted blue and green to resemble the Earth – took to the streets of Pune to remind passers-by that raising animals for food is one of the biggest sources of pollution and the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to the climate catastrophe. The duo, bearing signs that read, “Save the Earth – Try vegan!” encouraged anyone eager to protect the environment to choose delicious vegan meals.
Meat, egg, and dairy production are leading causes of pollution and the resulting ocean dead zones, habitat destruction from land use, and species extinction. Animal agriculture uses one-third of the world’s freshwater resources and, by some estimates, creates more greenhouse gas emissions than all of the world’s transportation systems combined. Researchers at the University of Oxford found that each person who goes vegan lowers their food-related carbon footprint by up to 73%, making it the single biggest way to reduce one’s negative impact on the planet.
Going vegan also directly benefits human health. COVID-19 is largely believed to have first infected humans through a live-animal market. Similarly, SARS, swine flu, bird flu, and other diseases have stemmed or spread to humans from confining and killing animals for food. And according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, vegans are at reduced risk of dangerous health conditions, including heart disease, type-2 diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancer, and obesity.
Vegan eating also helps animals. As PETA India reveals in its video exposé “Glass Walls”, chickens used for eggs are confined to cages so small they can’t even spread a wing. Cows and buffaloes are crammed into vehicles in such large numbers that their bones often break before they’re dragged off to the slaughterhouse, and pigs are stabbed in the heart as they scream. On the decks of fishing boats, fish suffocate or are cut open while they’re still alive. Newborn male chicks are ground up, burned, or buried alive in the egg industry since they can’t lay eggs, and male calves in the dairy industry are commonly abandoned, left to starve, or killed since they can’t produce milk.
