People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India wants to know what a groundbreaking 2006 UN report concluded: 'Raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, ships and planes in the world combined.' That is why the group will display on Tuesday (World Earth Day) of 'polar bears' with 'bloody' wounds and with forks stuck in their chests standing in front of a picture of a melting polar ice cap. The backdrop will include the tagline 'Climate Change: A Matter of Life or Death - Go Vegetarian and Save the Earth'. It may be mentioned here that Polar bears are threatened because Arctic ice is melting. The UN report also stated that the meat industry is 'one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every scale from local to global'. Rajendra Pachauri, a Nobel laureate and chief of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, has suggested that the world should curb its meat consumption to counter climate change. The UN'' food agency has estimate that the greenhouse gas emissions from meat production comprises 18 per cent of total emissions, which is a higher share than the total emissions generated by the transport sector. Meat-eating habit is devastating to animals and human health. Consumption of meat and other animal products has been conclusively linked to coronary heart diseases, strokes, diabetes, obesity and several types of cancer. On factory farms, animals are kept in overcrowded stalls, cages and sheds, and they are often unable to turn around or take a single step in any direction. Farmers frequently give them inadequate veterinary care and deprive them of everything that is natural and important to them. According to Pachauri, we need to reduce our meat consumption if we want to solve problems such as climate change and habitat destructin that result from raising raising cattle and other animals. It is easier to change our eating habits than to change the way we ship our products and get around, he said. Studies have concluded that a projected rise in ocean levels caused by climatge change could cost Mumbai alone up to $38 billion. Animals and agriculture produces more than 100 million tonnes of methane a year. About 85 pr cent of it is produced by livestock. The effect that the hundreds of millions of livestock around the world have on the environment when they release methane is enormous. The best way to reduce climate change is to reduce or eliminate the consumption of animal products. By going vegetarian, we can help eliminate one of the major sources of methane emissions and drastically reduce climate change.