Most people try to help combat the issue of climate change by recycling plastic, using energy saving light bulbs, walking and cycling to work instead of driving, however these measures are simply not substantial enough. Consequently, we are ignoring the larger issue at hand: the production of animals and its detrimental impact to climate change. Animal agriculture is extremely energy intensive, it includes the processing and transportation of animals and cutting of forests to facilitate the pasture lands which releases greenhouse emissions bigger than every form of transportation combined, be that cars, trucks, airplanes, or even rocket ships.
Not knowing where our food is sourced from is a recent phenomenon. With animal products so readily accessible and packaged for us at supermarket, consumers often do not think to ask where their food is sourced from. While animals have always lived symbiotically with humanity for most of human history, the dynamic between the food producers and animals has shifted dramatically. In the old days, people were generally aware of where their food came from; meat and dairy were locally sourced from a neighbor’s farm. However, since the industrial revolution things have changed dramatically regarding the production of our food, namely factory farming.
The culture which drives factory farming is one, which is wholly profit orientated; animals are tortured and slaughtered in the most inhumane conditions with the aim to sell to millions of customers. This calculation of maximum feed to meat conversion take precedence over everything and anything else; this includes the exploitation of animals and the appalling conditions by which they live in and the civil rights of the workers who work may work in unsafe work environments. which is another result of cost cutting strategies. Animals live in hostile situations where they are crammed together in small cages, chickens with their beaks cut off so they can’t peck each other in their discomfort, also unable to stand properly because of the weight of the body they have been bred into, male chicks which are gassed because they have no use for the industry, animals flayed alive during the slaughter process.
One of the biggest contributors to climate change ‘at every scale from local to global’ is animal agriculture. We cannot ignore the reality that some of the ways we produce meat are not only very inhumane and cruel but also unsustainable, we are pushing limits both on our natural resources and the atmosphere. The most powerful and effective step at this point is to cut back on animal and dairy industry and not to support an industry that is fundamentally driven by a culture and set of values so different from our own.
Check out these sources for more information:
What the Health (Also available on Netflix)
Conspiracy (available on Netflix)
Okja ( available on Netflix)
The Animals Right Foundation of Florida 101 Reasons to Go Vegan
Eating Animals- Jonathan Safran Foer
Forks Over Knifes (available on Netflix)