Maybe you don't really want to know why.
The most common reactions to my decision to be vegetarian are "Don't you miss meat? I cannot live without it!" and "Why?" My primary reason is that it cuts my environmental footprint drastically. Page 7 of this admittedly propagandic PETA postcard gives some of the statistics that lead my conscience to eschew meat: Livestock meant for our plates consume vast amounts of grain that could have provided much less expensive food for the hungry; more than half of the water used in the US goes to livestock intended for people's plates; raising animals uses a third of American energy resources; and the meat industry creates more water pollution than all other industries combined, to name a few.
Our society has developed remarkable systems to hide the environmental consequences of all we do from our daily lives. Only if garbage pickup stopped would we realize how much waste we create; only if animals were raised and slaughtered in the city would we be widely aware of their mistreatment; only if the pollution emitted by power plants was blown into our own homes would we realize how horrible it is to waste energy. Our world is modern, efficient, clean, civilized, and... deceptive.
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