In March 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report warned policymakers, “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all…The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years.”

Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that industrial animal agriculture harms our planet, factory farming continues to intensify. According to the latest USDA census, the number of U.S. farms has dropped while the number of farmed animals across the country has risen. 

World leaders must take swift, meaningful, and cooperative action to address the climate crisis we’re all facing. But we can each do our part as individuals, and you can start today.

When you choose a plant-based diet, you will:

A 2021 report by think tank Chatham House named agriculture a threat to 85 percent of the 28,000 species in danger of extinction at that time. Today, the total has skyrocketed to 44,000 species facing extinction—and almost 7,000 are at immediate risk from climate change, which is worsened by animal farming.

Alarmingly, a 2016 report published in Nature had already named agriculture a more significant danger than climate change to almost 75 percent of the world’s threatened species, including the African cheetah.

There is hope, though. By choosing a plant-based diet, one can help to ease pressure on our overfished oceans, oppose the pollution caused by factory farms, fight the loss of forest habitats and other land (see more below), and more.

The Chatham House report urged a global shift to “diets based more on plants” in response “to the disproportionate impact of animal farming on biodiversity” and other environmental harms.

Animal agriculture produces as much as 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is the top cause of U.S. emissions of methane—a GHG far more potent than carbon dioxide. 

Luckily, the power of plant-based foods to reduce emissions is impressive. The United Nations (UN) has reported that switching to a vegan diet can slash an individual’s carbon footprint by over two tons annually. The UN writes, “With the availability of meat substitutions, vegan chefs and bloggers, and the plant-based movement, eating more plants is becoming easier and more widespread with the additional benefits of better health and saving money!”

Animal agriculture has been linked to 80 percent of the 15,900 U.S. deaths related to air pollution from food production each year—an avoidable tragedy. 

Industrial animal farms also produce a massive amount of animal waste. This manure is often stored in open-air “lagoons” that can seep into groundwater or, during storms, overflow into waterways. It is usually stored until being sprayed as fertilizer, often impacting surrounding communities.

Furthermore, factory farms are often located in low-income neighborhoods and among communities of color and disproportionately impact the people who live in these areas. For example, three North Carolina counties whose residents are predominantly Black, Latine, and Native American contain the largest number of the state’s pig factory farms—and the Environmental Working Group found that from 2012 to 2019, the number of farmed birds in these same counties increased by 36 percent.

What does plastic pollution have to do with consuming animals? Well, the UN Environment Programme writes, “Abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear is the deadliest form of marine plastic” and threatens 66 percent of sea animals.

The fishing industry is also responsible for about 46 percent of the plastic in the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive amount of debris accumulated in about 618,000 square miles of the North Pacific Ocean.

Switching to a plant-based diet, recycling, and avoiding single-use plastic items can help address this issue.

Agriculture uses half of the world’s habitable land—and animal farming takes up the vast majority of that agricultural land usage, almost 80 percent. Even as it takes up so much of our Earth, the industrial agriculture industry is always greedy for more and continues claiming vital forests. 

Deforestation is the clearing of forestland, and agriculture—primarily animal agriculture—is the most responsible for this environmental destruction. Our forests are crucial to biodiversity, and, like the oceans, they play a key role in producing the oxygen we breathe. 

Beef production is the worst culprit, accounting for 41 percent of tropical deforestation, and grazing results in nearly the same amount of forest loss overall. Soy production also contributes, but animal agriculture is again to blame: Over 77 percent of the world’s soy goes to farmed animal feed rather than feeding humans directly.

The good news is that researchers have found that a global shift to plant-based diets would slash land use for agriculture by 75 percent!

Three out of every four emerging infectious diseases originate in animals. Despite the public health risks posed by zoonotic pathogens (those that can be transmitted between animals and humans), factory farming continues to expand in the U.S. as many experts warn that to prevent pandemics, we have to address this harmful industry.

At first glance, this issue may seem unrelated to the environment, but our risk of zoonotic illness increases with worsening climate change and environmental destruction due to rising temperatures and habitat loss, which pushes humans and wildlife closer together. 

The continued spread of bird flu throughout the poultry and dairy industries exemplifies this danger. Already, a variant never before found in humans has emerged, and as the virus continues to mutate and agribusiness chooses not to respond, bird flu could become more of a threat to the public. By opting out of consuming animal products, you will not be supporting the factory farming system that facilitates the spread of disease in filthy, overcrowded facilities.

And so much more.