What Will Happen to the World If Everyone is Vegetarian?

What would happen to the world if everybody decided to be vegetarian? Will it benefit humans and animals more or will it cause otherwise?

It was said that the number of people following a vegetarian diet is fairly low, with just 4-5% in the United States and Canada and approximately 30% in India. As demand for meat changes, production for such will also change in order to meet the demand of the consumers. There are currently a lot of poultry animals such as cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep in different countries all over the world. However, farmers fear that with these domestic animals will start to disappear if the demand for their meat continues to decrease.

According to the video from asapSCIENCE, the decrease in the population of these animals will free a wide portion of land which is currently used for pasture. Part of the land area is also used for growing crops used to feed these animals, while other parts are used to grow additional vegetable crops. Most of the land that is used as pastures is too dry to grow crops, and without any human cultivating the land, this could turn into deserts.

It has been found that the disappearance of CO2 absorbing trees is one of the major reasons why this carbon is increasing. Timeforchange.org stated that farm animals like cows and pigs contribute to climate change through huge amounts of methane found in their excrement. Methane is known to be 25 times more powerful in warming the planet than CO2.

If forests are loss, livestock production will be responsible to approximately 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions which is so much more than all the cars, buses, airplanes, and trains combined.

The things mentioned above are all good for mother Earth, but there are still some negative effects of following a vegetarian diet. For one, people will be left without a cheap source for by products of livestock like leather or animal fats used in cosmetics, candles and detergents. Also, there are at least 1 billion small scale farmers in the world, and although some are able to move to producing milk and other vegetable crops, an increase in vegetarianism would make their way of life obsolete.