For Immediate Release:
05 June 2024
Contact:
Sanskriti Bansore; SanskritiB@petaindia.org
Hiraj Laljani; HirajL@petaindia.org
Agra – In honour of World Environment Day (5 June), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India is placing billboards in Agra and other cities across the country with a stark message about what scientists say is the single most effective thing individuals can do to save the planet: go vegan.
The billboard in Agra is located on Mahatma Gandhi Road, Nehru Nagar, Civil Lines.
“Our planet is in danger because the meat, egg, and dairy industries bulldoze precious forests to make way for the animals they use and kill and the crops to feed them while spewing greenhouse gasses that worsen the climate catastrophe,” says PETA India Manager of Vegan Projects Dr Kiran Ahuja. “PETA India’s billboard urges everyone to save animals and the Earth by embracing vegan eating.”
The United Nations states that animal agriculture is responsible for nearly a fifth of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions and that raising animals for food is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global”. The production of meat and dairy, including curd and cheese, accounts for about 60% of all food-related greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers at the University of Oxford found that not consuming meat and dairy can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint from food by up to 73% and that a global switch to vegan eating could save up to 8 million human lives by 2050 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds.
Eating vegan spares animals immense suffering, including in the dairy and egg industries, in which male calves and chicks are commonly killed since they cannot produce milk or eggs. Unwanted chicks are killed by gruesome methods such as through drowning, burning, or crushing. Globally, an estimated 92.2 billion land animals alone are slaughtered every year, and most of them are raised in extreme confinement. Chickens exploited for their eggs are kept in cages so small they can’t spread their wings, male piglets are castrated without painkillers, and fish are yanked out of the water and crushed, suffocated, or cut open and gutted, all while they’re still conscious.
PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview – offers a free vegan starter kit packed with tips, recipes, and more. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
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