Dedicated to all of the animals with whom we share this beautiful
planet, and to all of the children who will inherit the consequences of our
choices.
Animal Agriculture is Immoral is a collection of short scholarly
essays assembled in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic to explore the
question of animal production and consumption through the lens of social and
religious history and contemporary information about the state of the planet
and the moral implications of how we treat each other and our fellow forms
of life. Contributors ask, “How much horror do we want to contribute to this
world?” Why do we subject innocent, defenseless creatures to “such cruelty,
anguish, and grief”? Can we create “a new normal of compassion and care for
everyone – animals and the planet included”?
Many of us have hoped that the global coronavirus pandemic that erupted into
public consciousness in early 2020 would awaken people to the myriad dangers
posed by global animal agriculture and the immorality of this massively
destructive system in which billions of land animals and aquatic animals
suffer in surrealistic misery and filth. The coronavirus responsible for
covid-19 originated in Chinese “wet” markets, where wild and domestic birds,
mammals, reptiles, fishes and virtually every creature that can be caught or
raised jostle together in squalid shops where customers pick out animals and
all manner of carnage to consume.
But it isn’t just them. The exact same squalor characterizes the
industrialized confinement buildings and slaughter complexes, commonly
called factory farms, that arose in the 20th-century United States and
Europe to replace traditional farming. Factory farms pollute the planet and
spread diseases, including novel zoonotic diseases and strains of old
pathogens that infect the animals and the humans who handle and consume them
and their “products.”
One difference between factory farms and live animal markets superficially
is that the live animal markets, situated in ethnic neighborhoods in U.S.
cities and elsewhere, hide nothing, whereas factory farms hide everything
that takes place before the final products appear in restaurants and
supermarkets, “sanitized” and dissociated from the living creatures whose
suffering, however invisible, is incorporated into every bite and swallow.
Even so, with the Internet, we can no longer assume that mainstream people
“don’t know.” The growth of vegans/vegetarians and vegan/vegetarian food
products in the past 20 years can be traced in large part to Internet
revelations and social media. By contrast, if you follow the mainstream
media, you will not learn from them what animals or their slaughterers go
through. Rather, you will hear about “meatpackers,” and “poultry processors”
and “essential workers” and “euthanasia” – a rhetoric signaling the
corporate advertisers to whom these outlets are beholden.
Animal Agriculture is Immoral cites religious bases for a vegan
world, particularly in ancient Hebrew teachings. A Muslim contributor makes
a passionate plea to people to “be brave and advocate for a transition from
animal agriculture to horticulture.” These pleas for justice, compassion and
a cared-for planet reflect sorrow for the Earth and its creatures in our
contemporary world. Contributors, including myself and UPC projects manager
Hope Bohanec, maintain that “supremacy” doctrines – not just White Supremacy
but the arrogant speciesist belief in Human Supremacy – are a curse. The
question is whether we care enough to change or whether we’re content to
continue down our dark path and drag every living soul down with us.
Dr. Sailesh Rao has over three decades of professional experience and is the Founder and Executive Director of Climate Healers, a non-profit dedicated towards healing the Earth’s climate. A systems specialist with a Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Dr. Rao worked on the internet communications infrastructure for twenty years after graduation. During this period, he led the transformation of early analog internet connections to more robust digital connections that also ran ten times faster, at 1Gb/s. In 2006, he switched careers and became deeply immersed, full time, in solving the environmental crises affecting humanity. Dr. Rao is the author of two books, Carbon Dharma: The Occupation of Butterflies and Carbon Yoga: The Vegan Metamorphosis, and an Executive Producer of four documentaries, The Human Experiment (2013), Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014), What The Health (2017), and A Prayer for Compassion (2019).
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