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SAVE OUR PLANET … Accounting for nitrogen in food sustainability. In a recent study,
University of Pittsburg environmental scientists Dr. Xue Xiaobo and Professor Amy Landis in
Pennsylvania, USA calculated the “nitrogen footprints” of various foods. They then
compared this measure of environmental impact with the same foods’ carbon footprint. Nitrogen
pollution is created from nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizer runoff as well as nitrogen contained
in livestock manure, both of which are washed by rain into rivers and out to bays and the
ocean, where they spur the growth of algae, which dies and is then consumed by bacteria.
The oxygen depriving effects of the bacteria create the often-massive dead zones such as
the 8,000-square-mile area near the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Of all the foods
measured by the scientists, meat and dairy products topped the list as the most nitrogen-damaging
to the ecosystem, while plant-based foods had the lowest impact. Our appreciation, Drs.
Landis and Xue for helping us to understand the environmental damage caused by nitrogen
and its primary source in animal products. May such insights motivate us all to adopt
the truly eco-friendly plant-based lifestyle.
During a November 2009 videoconference in Washington, DC, USA, Supreme Master Ching
Hai explained the harms of livestock waste to both the environment and lives while suggesting
the simplest way to reverse the problem.
Videoconference with Supreme Master Ching Hai
“Humanity’s Leap into the Golden Era” Washington, DC, USA – November 8, 2009
Supreme Master Ching Hai: Livestock produces 130 times as much waste as the human population
in the US. Can you imagine that? In Virginia State, even the poultry farms are producing
1.5 times polluting nitrogen, more than all the people living in the same area. We are
killing ourselves. One time, an 8-acre large, such pig manure lagoon burst in North Carolina,
spilling 25 million gallons of this poisonous waste, twice the volume of the notorious Exon-Valdez
oil spill. Hundreds of millions of fish in the state’s New River were killed instantly
due to the nitrates in the waste, with further harmful effects once the contamination reached
the ocean. Not only that, we have the enormous dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, the size
of New Jersey, which suffocates all marine life there. And this is overwhelmingly due
to the nitrogen runoff from the Midwest, from the animal wastes and the fertilizers for
the animal feed crops. This waste is toxic. It contains antibiotics, hormones and pesticides,
and 10 to 100 times the concentration of deadly pathogens like E. coli and salmonella compared
to human waste. There is a very good reason to abolish meat, fish, eggs and dairy –
all the animal products altogether. We must stop animal production now and at all cost
if we want to keep this planet. �