Page 21 - UK The Official Veganuary Starter Kit
P. 21
THE OFFICIAL VEGANUARY STARTER KIT
WATER SHORTAGES
Those of us who have abundant fresh water
at the turn of a tap rarely give a thought to
worldwide water shortages, yet 844 million
people have no access to clean water, and
300,000 children die each year of diarrhoea,
linked to dirty water and poor sanitation. The
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situation is expected to worsen as the effects
of climate change hit home, with
the world’s poorest most likely to suffer
the consequences. POLLUTION
Without water, nothing can live but just three Animal farming is a key polluter of air,
per cent of the world’s water is fresh, and just land and waterways.
one-third of that is readily available for human The air inside animal farms contains high
use. We must be careful how we use this levels of organic dust, which is known to lead
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precious resource. to respiratory problems. Such farms may
Globally, agriculture uses an astonishing also emit air pollutants into the atmosphere,
70 per cent of all available water, but it is including ammonia and hydrogen sulphide,
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animal agriculture that demands the most. as well as microorganisms and toxins. Both
This is because it takes a staggering 9,000 farm workers and neighbours can be seriously
litres to produce one pound of beef but just affected. 29
60 litres to produce one pound of potatoes. Land is polluted by the vast amounts of slurry
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The largest pig farms use enough water to produced by billions of farmed animals.
supply an entire city. 26 It is known to be noxious and should be
Switching to a plant-based diet is probably stored securely but all too often it is either
the biggest thing we can do to save water. 27 deliberately spread on the land or accidentally
leaks onto it. (Half of all slurry storage facilities
in the UK are thought to be inadequate. )
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Either way, the effects can be devastating. 31
“A vegan diet is probably the single
biggest way to reduce your impact Slurry and other agricultural pollutants
on planet Earth, not just greenhouse regularly contaminate rivers, where they
gases, but global acidification, eutro- poison the water and decimate aquatic life.
phication, land use and water use.” 28 Pollution incidents are recorded every week
in the UK, and most of them involve dairy
JOSEPH POORE,
RESEARCHER AT THE UNIVERSITY farms. Worldwide, farmed animals’ slurry
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OF OXFORD, 2018 is a key factor in the growth of ocean
dead zones.
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