The animal agriculture industries are continuing to deny and ridicule the science and their spokespeople take advantage of every media opportunity to deliberately misinform, talking down and talking over any other individuals who seek to express the truth. I saw an example of this just today, a spokesman openly deriding what I know to be scientific fact, repeatedly reinforcing the myths that keep him in business....
We can no longer rely on anyone but ourselves to take action; the time has long since come for each of us to take personal responsibility for what we do and how we live. We have so little time left to halt the catastrophe that’s unfolding in front of our eyes and we will soon be past the point that stopping it is even a remote possibility. Be vegan. Do it today.
Our future as a species is on the brink of disaster with climate and
planetary collapse looking increasingly likely in the foreseeable future.
The science that confirms this is rapidly shifting from a widely ignored
trickle to a torrent sounding alarm bells in every quarter; alarms that are
impossible for all but the most wilfully determined to ignore.
Against this backdrop I find myself wondering whether those who ‘farm’ lives
and sell animals in response to consumer demands for dead flesh, eggs and
breast milk are actually aware of the disaster that they’re being paid to
cause on so many levels?
In response to the demands of consumers, The animal agriculture industries
are slaughtering more than 74 billion land animals and 2.7 trillion aquatic
creatures – none of whom want to die – every single year.
In addition, animal agriculture industries are literally killing the
consumers of the substances they are selling, with products derived from the
bodies of other animals being implicated in every one of the major causes of
premature death and disease in our species. This science-backed fact is
seldom even mentioned, and when it is, we are all encouraged to ignore it,
particularly by those who make money from our ignorance.
Animal agriculture is killing the creatures whose environment is being
increasingly turned over to consumer driven animal farming, both directly
and to grow feed for the 74 billion who are destined for our
slaughterhouses. Indigenous species are being reduced to the category of
‘pests’ and are becoming extinct, ancient ecosystems are being laid waste to
produce more animals to kill, effluent from the unspeakable numbers of
victims confined to meet demand is polluting the land and waterways, wiping
out marine environments across the globe.
Our unnatural obsession with using the reproductive systems and the dead
body parts of members of other species, a practice that demands bringing
over 2,352 land-based individuals into the world each second to replace the
2,352 who are being slaughtered this second – is literally killing the
planet. Now there can surely be no doubt left, as major health authorities,
academic seats of learning and environmental organisations alike add their
voices daily to the imperative call for a major change in the consumption
habits of our species.
Myths and wishful thinking
Yet the animal agriculture industries are continuing to deny and ridicule
the science and their spokespeople take advantage of every media opportunity
to deliberately misinform, talking down and talking over any other
individuals who seek to express the truth. I saw an example of this just
today, a spokesman openly deriding what I know to be scientific fact,
repeatedly reinforcing the myths that keep him in business.
I even heard a recent comment by a farmer about how they ‘need to eat
animals to be strong enough to do my job’. Now I don’t doubt that ‘carry on
as usual’ is undoubtedly a message many people may very much want to hear,
after all most of us – including those of us who rejected the inherent
brutality of the system and became vegan – were raised not to question
animal use; to believe that it was ‘necessary’. However, to even suggest
that as an option in today’s environmentally fragile world, to imply that
the use of other animals is somehow necessary for our wellbeing, constitutes
dangerous and deadly misinformation; and seems highly unethical when the
whole world is in peril because of this fantasy has been too long accepted
as fact.
As Upton Sinclair is quoted as saying, ‘It is difficult to get a man to
understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’
Unless of course they really don’t know…?
We have to think for ourselves
Whether they do know or whether they don’t, we can no longer rely on anyone
but ourselves to take action; the time has long since come for each of us to
take personal responsibility for what we do and how we live. The
increasingly gruesome cultural habit of a species that deludes itself that
only humans are worthy of moral consideration, has hacked and sawn and
slaughtered its way into our current mortal peril. We each have no choice
but to make a desperate attempt to secure even the hope of a future for our
children. As a parent, this is hugely important to me, and I can’t believe
that any parent could feel any different.
To live vegan is to recognise that every individual, whatever their species,
has the right to own their body and their life. The vast majority of our
nonhuman victims are sentient and their lives matter to them. Veganism
remains as it has always been; a recognition of their rights and a refusal
to create victims because it is unnecessary. However, we are now running out
of time and a new level of urgency is adding an edge to the call to end the
violence and destruction inherent in our use of members of other species.
Despite their political influence and the public funding that goes with it,
even industries as massive as the animal-use giants are demand-driven. By
becoming vegan, we remove our own consumer demands from the cycle of
destruction that non vegan consumers and those who supply their shopping
requirements are wreaking on our dying world.
We have so little time left to halt the catastrophe that’s unfolding in
front of our eyes and we will soon be past the point that stopping it is
even a remote possibility. Be vegan. Do it today.
Number of animals killed in the world by the fishing, meat, dairy and egg industries, since you opened this webpage.
0 marine animals
0 chickens
0 ducks
0 pigs
0 rabbits
0 turkeys
0 geese
0 sheep
0 goats
0 cows / calves
0 rodents
0 pigeons/other birds
0 buffaloes
0 dogs
0 cats
0 horses
0 donkeys and mules
0 camels / camelids