Bengaluru, Jun 4 (IANS): Ahead of World Environment Day on June 5, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India is raising the pitch for veganism.

The animal rights organisation has launched a campaign in Bengaluru and other cities across the country with a stark message about what scientists say is the single most effective thing individuals can do to save the planet: go vegan.

"Our planet is in danger because the meat, egg, and dairy industries bulldoze precious forests to make way for the animals they use and kill and the crops to feed them while spewing greenhouse gasses that worsen the climate catastrophe," says PETA India Senior Campaigns Coordinator Radhika Suryavanshi.

"PETA India's billboard urges people to save animals and Earth by embracing vegan eating."

According to some estimates, animal agriculture (the industrial breeding, rearing, and slaughter of animals) is responsible for more climate catastrophe-causing greenhouse gas emissions than all the world's transportation systems combined.

In their findings published in 'Science' researchers at Oxford University and the Swiss agricultural research institute, Agroscope, have found that cutting out meat and dairy can reduce an individual's carbon footprint from food by up to 73 per cent.

In addition to helping combat the climate catastrophe, vegan meals spare animals immense suffering.

In today's global meat, egg, and dairy industries, tens of billions of animals are raised in severe confinement every year.

In India, chickens' throats are cut while they're still conscious, cows are forcibly separated from their calves so that humans can steal the milk meant for them, piglets are castrated without painkillers, and fish are cut open while they're still alive, PETA India noted.