for ally, (note: i am not pushing you to renounce all meat, i just thought you might want to see this :))

from http://www.becnet.org/ENews/98SpSuVeggie.html

About one half of the earth’s land mass is grazed by livestock which is the leading cause of topsoil depletion. Since grazing land is constantly being used up, forests are continually being cleared to make room for more cattle grazing. Every year a forest the size of Pennsylvania is destroyed to make more room for cattle grazing. An estimated 125,000 square miles of rainforest in Central America and the Amazon are destroyed annually, with over 1,000 species per year becoming extinct as a result. So basically speaking, each burger costs approximately 55 acres of forest.

Two hundred gallons of fossil fuels are burned annually to produce the beef currently eaten by the average U.S. family.

from the vegetarian youth network:

* A lot more water is required in animal agriculture than in plant agriculture. It takes only about 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat and around 390 gallons to produce just one pound of beef. In fact, It takes less water to produce the food that a pure vegetarian needs for one year than to produce the food that a meat eater needs for a month.

so yeah, this is a big reason why i eat the way i do, outside of it's being healthier for me. it makes me feel like i can do something to help, even if i am just one little person.