After Canada's House of Commons passed a budget bill that strikes down several environmental protection laws, PETA's blue-painted supporters hit Ottawa's Parliament Hill to rock the government's world—almost literally—and to urge eco-conscious Canadians not to despair because they can still help save the planet by eating plant-based foods.

According to the United Nations, the meat industry is in large part responsible for some of the most serious environmental problems that we face today, including climate change. So even if you aren't daring enough to strip down to bodypaint (although if you are, let PETA know), don't feel blue—you can still help protect the Earth by choosing healthy, humane vegan meals.

Today marks the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day. To celebrate, PETA presents the top 10 surprising ways that helping save the planet saves animals, too:

10) Reduce companion animal overpopulation.

Most of the puppies that pet stores sell are trucked or flown hundreds of miles from puppy mills, creating a Great Dane–sized carbon pawprint. But animal shelters in every city are full of locally grown companion animals you can tuck into your Smart car before taking the short drive home.



9)   Sea yourself away from water pollution.

SeaWorld isn't just hard on orcas—it's also hard on the environment. The marine park was in a fine mess after it got hit with a fine for messing up San Diego's Mission Bay after violating effluent limitations numerous times.

8)   Make like Miss Piggy and love a frog.

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Ecosystems are being decimated by biological supply houses that catch huge numbers of frogs to be dissected. If you're a student or parent, urge your local school district to switch to a virtual dissection program instead. 

7)   Talk about the elephant in the room.

Ringling logs more than 25,000 miles every year dragging animals across the country chained in boxcars and trucks. Don't give the "cruelest show on Earth" your green until it goes green and retires its animals to sanctuaries.

6)   Make the skies friendlier.

Primates are torn away from their jungle homes and flown to the U.S. from as far away as China, Cambodia, and Indonesia to be used in experiments. Ask the few airlines that still transport primates to laboratories to stop—for animals and the planet.

5)   Be green, not mean.

We know that only mean people wear fur, and only ungreen people wear the toxic soup of chemicals that it takes to keep the fur from rotting off their backs—chemicals such as ammonia, formaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, and chromates.

4)   Be good to your body: Be good to a bunny.

There are so many luscious body-care product lines out now that are made without harsh chemicals and without harsh animal tests that it's easier than ever to be a green goddess. Check out PETA's shopping guide for a list of cruelty-free companies. 

3)   Lime sludge and sulfides are not sexy.

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Neither are the other chemicals you'll find en masse at leather tanneries, such as formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and cyanide-based finishes. Wearing dried-up animal skin is all dried up.

2)   Take a shower. Please.

Meat production requires so much water that you save more water by not eating one 16-ounce steak than you do by not showering for six months. So by going vegan, you can help save the Earth and keep it a pleasant-smelling place.

1)   Pop open a cold one.

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Now that you've saved the Earth and animals, relax with a beer. If you recall PETA's notorious "Got Beer?" campaign, you know this beverage choice won't contribute to the massive climate change, exploitation of resources, and water and air pollution that the dairy industry is responsible for.

Spread the green! Share this post on social-networking sites and help other aspiring environmentalists go green for animals' sake.

If your tofu has turned green, you'll probably want to toss it. But the results of a recent study show that our tofu is so green that it's a cause for celebration!

The findings of this new study reveal how vegan foods, such as veggie dogs, tofu, and seitan, contribute little to climate change compared to meat. For example, only 350 grams of carbon dioxide are released for each kilogram of soy "meat" produced, while an equivalent amount of ground meat is responsible for around 7,200 grams of carbon dioxide. If my math is correct, that means a hamburger patty causes more than 20 times more harmful greenhouse gasses to be released than does a veggie burger of the same size.

PETA's always said that "meat's not green" because of the severe environmental damage caused by factory farming—which releases massive amounts of the greenhouse gasses that cause climate change.

With a growing focus on our responsibility for maintaining our planet, there's still no better way to go green than by going vegan.

If you're one of those people who need a deadline to take action, here's one for you: five years. That's how long analysts with the International Energy Agency give the world's governments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and reverse climate change "before it's too late." Governments have their role, but there's an important lifestyle change that every individual can make to ensure that our planet doesn't become a giant sauna: Go vegan.

A plant-based diet is not only healthier for you but also better for the entire planet. Consider the following statistics:

• Producing a single pound of meat emits the same amount of greenhouse gasses as driving 40 miles in an SUV.
• It takes 10 times as much fossil fuel to produce one calorie from animal protein as it does to produce one calorie from plant protein.
• If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and opted for plant-based foods instead, the carbon-dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.

In addition, raising animals for food in the U.S. alone produces 89,000 pounds of waste per second. Much of that untreated waste ends up polluting our land and waterways. 

There's no time to delay switching to a healthy, vegan diet. Check out PETA's vegetarian/vegan starter kit, and share it with friends and family. On behalf of everyone who's become rather fond of Earth's inhabitable qualities, thank you.

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan

This might make you blue, but red and white meat isn't green.

That's just as true halfway around the Earth as it is here. That's why these members of PETA Asia-Pacific went earthy from head to toe: to ask the folks in that part of the world to dump their Earth-wrecking addictions to meat.

A leading contributor to climate change is the emission of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon-dioxide emissions and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous-oxide emissions. We now use 30 percent of the Earth's land to raise animals for food. And the excrement-riddled runoff from factory farms pollutes our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined.  

Now it's your turn. You know what I'm about to say: Go blue, go green, go vegan!

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Best thing about PETA: ending cruelty to animals.

Second-best thing about PETA: naked guys.

Great things happen when studs meet suds. With Gay Pride starting in Las Vegas, it was the perfect opportunity to debut our first all-male shower demonstration. When our vegan guys stripped down to show passersby that meat production demolishes natural resources, even in Vegas people stopped to pay attention.

The hundreds of people taking pictures with the boys learned that the amount of water needed to produce 1 pound of meat is equivalent to six months of showers. So, not surprisingly, our "Meat's Not Green" leaflets and vegetarian/vegan starter kits flew out of the demonstrators' (slightly soapy) hands.

We can't send you the guys (sorry), but we can send you a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Finally! Someone who fights factory farm pollution has received some serious recognition. Lynn Henning, a Michigan corn and soybean farmer, has just been presented with the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize (known worldwide as the "Green Nobel") and the accompanying $150,000 award for her efforts to expose factory farms for the pollution-spewing cesspools they are. She plans to donate much of the money to environmental groups and spend a portion on water-monitoring kits. Go, Henning!

Encouraging people to recycle and use energy-efficient light bulbs is all well and good, but everyone needs to hold factory farms accountable for their dirty deeds by refusing to buy their dirty goods. Just last week, millions of gallons of manure from a dairy farm spilled into the Snohomish River. Both Perdue Farms and Hudson Farm—an 80,000-bird factory farm—were recently sued for mucking up the Chesapeake Bay.

Meat's not green, so I hope that everyone is celebrating Earth Day—and making Henning's work less lonely—by eating only vegan food.

Oh, and check out some of the winners in other countries. Most of them are also helping animals and the environment at the same time. Feel inspired?

Written by Heather Moore

This weekend, D.C. residents were lucky enough to have the chance to catch PETA's hardworking campaigners showering for a cause—not once, but twice!

On Friday, two PETA ladies decided to clean their consciences on the corner of Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Our squeaky-clean lasses wanted to let people know that the amount of water that it takes to produce 1 pound of meat could provide an individual with a year's worth of showers.

Click here to see the complete gallery of photos from Friday's event.

Then, at the Washington Convention Center on Saturday, our message got masculine (and mustachioed).

Our showering fella was at the annual Green Festival, where he let people know that meat's not green and that the easiest way to have a positive impact on the environment is to wash your hands of the stuff.

Written by Shawna Flavell

It's a hazy day here on the Right Coast. As I watch leaves fall and steam rise from my soy mocha, the mood is set for a lazy (yet highly skilled) meander through gossip rags for fun stuff. Here are my faves:

• Warning! Seals can literally cute you to death.
• Kiddies catch E. coli from petting zoo. Animals unnaturally held captive. Why is this still appealing?
• "Clucking" mad at KFC? I bet that's why this chicken wanders through its drive-through.
• The real Scorpion King creatively atones for his sins. Love this!
• Sesame Street reps tofu! The revolution is here!
• Lacking imagination and compassion, yet another "Elmer Fudd" accidentally shoots himself.
• Hug a Vegetarian Day is right around the corner. Show some love, y'all!
• This is both creepy and thought-provoking.

Thanks for stopping by! Catch you next time, and don't forget to hug all your vegetarian friends.

Written by Missy Lane

The following is a guest post from peta2's Marta.

Can a group of 11- to 14-year-olds from San Diego get people to eat less meat? The Sandy LEGO Beachbots can! The Beachbots build LEGO robots for competitions (where they sometimes give out vegan pizza), and they've also launched an initiative called Kids Keep the Earth Cool to persuade people to eat less meat by showing them the connection between animal agriculture and climate change.

We're really impressed with what they're doing and had to learn more. Check out what Brennan (one of the Beachbots) had to say:

How did the Sandy LEGO Beachbots come about, and what do you guys do?
We do First LEGO League, which is an international LEGO robotics competition. FLL involves building and programming a LEGO robot to do certain missions. These missions are based around a certain theme, and the teams competing also have to do a project on this theme and present a presentation to the judges. We have been doing this for six years now, with various team members.

Tell us about your robot design and how you incorporate veganism.
Our robot design itself isn't really related to vegetarianism—that is our solution to this year's project! The theme this year is climate change. Some of our team members (including me) were already vegetarians, so we decided to do our project on how vegetarianism relates to global warming.

How long have you been vegetarian? Do you have a favorite vegetarian recipe?
My sisters and I have been vegetarians since birth—our mom, the coach, is also a vegetarian. A favorite recipe? I don't know—there are tons of great recipes out there. One of my favorites is the vegetarian lasagne my mom makes.

Do you have a recommendation for people who are not quite ready to make the full transition to vegetarianism yet?
If you aren't ready to completely give up meat, reducing your meat consumption still has a huge effect! If you reduce your meat consumption by only six meatless days a month, it has the same affect as switching from a sedan to a hybrid vehicle.

Are there any other animal rights issues that are important to you?
I personally am opposed to the use of animals … in any way [that] harms them. There are much better ways to do things that do not involve hurting or killing the other inhabitants of this Earth!

Isn't Brennan awesome? Check out the Web site that he and the other Sandy LEGO Beachbots made—www.kidskeeptheearthcool.org.

We love what the Beachbots are doing so much that we're giving them a Compassionate Kids Award. As the Beachbots say, "Eating a bean burrito instead of meat helps save the world!"

Written by Marta Holmberg