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Further thoughts on “Industrial fear and loathing” (Emilio Rodriguez, October 29)
In 2006 the United Nations reported that animal agriculture is “one of the top two or three most
significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every scale from local to global.”
In short “factory” or “industrial” animal agriculture creates “more deadly greenhouse gases than all the
SUVs, Hummers, cars, trucks, planes, ships, and other forms of the transportation in the world
combined.” Likewise, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production reports that nearly 90
percent of the freshwater in the U.S. is used in growing farm animal feed crops. Nearly 80 percent of
the agricultural land in the United States is used to raise feed for the 10 billion farm animals slaughtered
annually. Besides the waste of land and water and the environmental damage, the government pays
huge subsidies to this industry (which is not a farm in any way) which in turn makes a profit shipping
meat overseas and not just selling it in the U.S. Make no mistake agribusiness is a nightmarish horror
for the living creatures imprisoned in factory farms recent documentaries or reports will show you that.
And if it wasn’t why would neither the federal government nor agri-business corporations want America
to know about what goes on behind “closed doors” in huge warehouses were animals are confined and
abused beyond imagination. There’s a reason that these corporations have fought so hard for “ag-gag”
laws preventing undercover reporting and whistleblowing by employees. In fact, if the anticruelty laws
that protect pets were applied to farm animals, many of the nation’s most routine farming practices
would be illegal in all fifty states.
I believe that most morally decent human beings would be horrified if they knew the filth, horrific
cruelty, and suffering that went into the industrial production of the meat, eggs, and dairy that they put
on their tables and feed their children. If one is going to eat non-human animals then perhaps the moral
(and sane thing health-wise) is to take a close look at the information and pictures that can be found on
highly reputable websites and then think about the environmental cost, the subsidies cost, and the
unmeasurable cost in suffering. As a professor of history I frequently have students express their
indignation about past human actions with the question of “how could people have possibly done such a
thing?” Hopefully before another century passes, students will be asking with the same shock and
indignation that very question about a then defunct system - factory farming. In the words of Albert
Schweitzer, “We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals.
Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on
them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to
all living things, humanity will not find peace.”
Jacqueline Barbara Carr
DELETE FOLLOWING:
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no
moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal
compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality