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Some quotes from Divine Nature A Spiritual perspective on the Environmental Crisis by Michael A. Cremo & Mukunda Goswami  Killing animals for food, fur, leather, and cosmetics is one of the most environmentally destructive practice taking place on the earth today.  Neal D. Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (USA) says, “If you are a meat eater, you are contributing to the destruction of the environment, whether you know it or not.”  Jereme Rifkin warns in his widely read book Beyond Beef:  “Today, millions of Americans, Europeans and Japanese are consuming countless burgers, steaks, and roasts, oblivious to the impact their dietary habits are having on the biosphere and the very survivability of life on earth.  Every pound of grain-fed flesh is secured at the expense of a burned forest, an eroded rangeland, a barren field, a dried-up river or stream, and the release of millions of tons of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane into the skies.”  About half the world’s grain is consumed by animals that are later slaughtered for meat.  This is a very inefficient process.  It takes 16 pounds of grins and soybeans to produce 1 pound of feed lot beef.  If people were to subsist on grains and other vegetarian foods alone, this would put far less strain on the earth’s agricultural lands.  About 20 vegetarians can be fed on the land that it takes to feed 1 meat eater.  80 % of the corn raised in US is fed to livestock, as well as 95% of the oats.  Altogether, 56 % of all agricultural land in the US is used for beef production.  If all the soybeans and grain fed yearly to US livestock were set aside for human consumption, it would feed 1.3 billion people.  [Our Vedic scriptures tell us that Bhoomi (earth) is one of our ten mothers.  Therefore, I request, let us please the mother by becoming a vegetarian and promoting vegetarianism.  -SV]