Hamburger Connection

Hamburger Connection

Most people like eating a hamburger. And the reason would be it is fast, cheap and easy to eat. Actually, about 200 people living in America, consume more than one hamburger in a second. If so, have you ever thought what's a hamburger made of? Bread, vegetable, fatty and sauce? It is not equal to a hamburger. For taking one piece of hamburger, we breed cattle. And for breeding cattle, we burn forest. Moreover, 2000(liter) of water used and 5 meter 2times of forest destroyed for getting 100g of hamburger meat. I watched a documentary about growing environmental problems caused by increasing consumption of beef in the world. I began to realize that a simple choice in food, not only had tremendous consequences on our health, but also environment. Therefore a further research took place, and question was: how does beef destroy our precious environment.

Most people would think that excessive use of fossil fuels in factories and transportation are the major causes for global warming, however, by resent environmental studies, excessive beef consumption and its relation to environmental damage are receiving stronger attention through the media. In particular, WorldWatch institute's research, the consumption of meat is larger-than-ever and predictions are that it will only grow in the future and has severe influence for air and global warming. The more people want to eat meat, the more Livestock are breed. They release huge amount of greenhouse gases such as Methane and Nitrous oxide, Methane made from livestock reaches 18% in whole, Nitrous oxide are respectively 25 and 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide produced by automobiles.

There are 1.3 billion cows around the world. Raising this unimaginable amount of livestock leads not only, to air pollution and global warming but also water shortages and pollution. For breeding livestock, a lot of water is required. According to statistical data provided by United Nations Agriculture, its amount reaches about 8 percent. In the world, water shortage