A
 recent National Research Council report revealed the environmental 
effect of every 1 degree Celsius increase in global average 
temperatures. These include up to a 10% rainfall reduction in arid 
regions such as southwestern North America, the Mediterranean and 
southern Africa, along with forest fires that would consume three times 
more land in the United States alone. 
River basins could 
experience up to 10% less stream flow, and certain crop yields in the 
US, Africa and India would be reduced by 15% for every degree of 
temperature rise. 
In addition, the scientists warned that because 
the greenhouse gas CO2 dissipates so slowly, its concentrations in the 
atmosphere, and thus its warming effects, would increase even with 
emissions kept at current levels. 
Dr. Susan Solomon of the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) explained, 
『Because carbon dioxide is so long-lived in the atmosphere, it could 
effectively lock (the) Earth and future generations into warming not 
just for decades and centuries, but literally for thousands of years.』 
In
 related research, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 
scientists have reported on the significant global warming effect of the
 greenhouse gas methane. 
Updating the 2006 United Nations 
report, 『Livestock’s Long Shadow,』 which estimated that livestock 
creates 36% of human-caused methane, US researchers calculated these 
numbers to be 57% higher. 
As methane’s warming potential is 
approximately 72 times more than CO2 when averaged over 20 years, and 
its rate of dissipation much shorter at about 12 years, reducing levels 
of this greenhouse gas would have a relatively immediate cooling effect.
Thank
 you, Dr. Solomon, National Research Council and other scientists for 
helping us to become better informed of the consequences of our choices.
 Let us quickly heed such urgent information in making the optimal 
changes to ensure a livable planet for future generations. 
Supreme 
Master Ching Hai has often addressed the detrimental tolls of global 
warming, as during a September 2009 videoconference in South Korea in 
which she also confirmed the importance of methane reduction as the most
 efficient way to cool the planet.
Supreme Master Ching Hai:
 The effects of global warming are already being felt on a daily basis 
by the vulnerable throughout the world, the poor and the helpless 
already, the children in every corner of our planet. 
Scientists 
are saying that the methane and other gases from livestock raising are 
responsible for more than 50% of all global warming. So if we want to 
stop the most contributor of all global warming, then we have to stop 
meat production.
The good news is that methane is shorter lived, 
so if we stop producing it, this gas will disappear quickly from the 
atmosphere, unlike carbon dioxide, which can last for thousands of 
years. 
So there are many, many practical reasons to be veg, 
aside from the compassionate nature that is cultivated by preserving all
 life. 
http://news.discovery.com/earth/new-study-charts-effects-of-each-degree-of-warming.html http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12877 
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