Every once in a while a statistic jumps out and grabs you.  This one recently grabbed me:

The greenhouse gas emissions arising every year from the production and consumption of cheeseburgers is roughly the same as the emissions from the 16 million SUVs currently on the road in the US.

This startling fact comes from the web site www.greenandsave.com 

Personally, I eat red meat once in a while.  I cut back for health reasons, but the more I read about factory farming in general and meat production in particular, the more obvious it becomes that unless we smarten up and realize the devastating effects of red meat consumpiton, the the closer we get to environmental collapse. 

A great movie shown at the Woodstock Film Festival, "Big River Man," is the fascinating story of the first man to swim the entire length of the Amazon River.  At one point in the documentary, the camera captures a big chunk of the Amazon Rain Forest cleared away for cattle raising. 

One of the main reasons California is running out of water is because of all of the cattle drinking from the Colorado River which is the one of its major sources of water.

And it's well known that cattle flatulence is a leading contributor to CO2 overload.

I just got back from visiting my former college roomate (we graduated over 30 years ago).   We remembered going to Tad's Steak House two or three times a week for the $1.49 steak dinner and to the neighborhood coffee shop for late night cheeseburgers.  Today, red meat is still relatively inexpensive thanks to government subsidies and sweetheart deals for MacDonald's, Wendy's, etc.  It's literally insane.  

As the statistic offered above reveals, even reducing our meat consumption by a chesseburger or two a month can have dramatic benefits for the environment. 

Check out www.greanandsave.com--an excellent resource.