Activism

Tammy Panoussopoulos
2 min readMay 28, 2021

Development & refection (10)

Be aware; this is a controversial topic — even though it should not be — .

I am a convinced vegetarian since the age of 10. From the day I understood the processes and impacts of the meat industry, it was an evidence that I was not going to participate in this nonsense and cruelty.

Just a couple of numbers:

  • about 15'000 liters of water are needed to produce 1kg of beef alone
  • meat industry uses more than 8 % of global human water use
  • 25 % of global land use, land-use change, and forestry emissions are driven by beef production, including conversion of forests in the Brazilian Amazon
  • livestock industry is responsible of 70 % of previously forested land in the Amazon is used as pasture
  • One-third of global grain production — enough to feed 4 billion people — is fed to livestock
  • livestock are responsible for 18 % of greenhouse gas emissions, (40% bigger share than that of ALL transports reunited— planes, trucks, ships, cars, etc. — )
  • the USA livestock and feed crop agriculture are responsible for 37 % of pesticide use, 50 % of antibiotic use, and a third of the nitrogen and phosphorus loads in freshwater resources
  • 100 million tons of grain used for biofuels, more than seven times as much grain (760 million tons) is fed to farmed animals so that people can eat meat
  • The risk of developing heart disease among meat-eaters is 50 % higher than it is among vegetarians
  • Vegetarians are about 40 % less likely to get cancer than non-vegetarians, regardless of other risks such as smoking, body size, and socioeconomic status
Livestock industry in the US.

All this without mentioning all the cruelties and mistreatment that we inflict to these sensitive and social creatures.

I want to deliver and build awareness about these dark sides of society and their impacts on health and environment. I am currently thinking about an ingenious manner of addressing these major issues through my art practice.

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