Is it wrong to eat animals? Open your eyes and decide for yourself.
It’s pretty freaky growing up human. We get taught alot about right and wrong and sometimes it just doesn’t fit with what we feel. Truth is we have to make up our own minds about most things. The excitement of learning to be ourselves is part of the fun in life on a planet that is sometimes really weird. And the more truth we discover, the more we can discover ourSelf.
Most people today would tell you that although eating animals has an ugly side (called factory farming) it’s necessary. 200 years ago in London most people would have told you that though slavery has its ugly side, it’s necessary. Sometimes we need to reevaluate the situation, just like 200 years ago the world was examined and improved. I think this is a responsibility of a human.
Anyways, this teeny little question has totally massive implications for the planet and all its people. So inform yourself:
Hunger
An unimaginable mass of food is grown for animals. By the time that we eat them, only about 10% of this energy and nutrition has been carried to our plates. Of all the grains and cereals grown in the world, about half is fed to animals. We already have 1 billion starving people. The world’s consumption of animal products is predicted to double within the next 40 years (if current trends continue). What does this mean for billions of the world’s poorest? It means less food. There are improvements needed besides what we eat, but it would be a head start to avoid meat and diary.
Climate Change
Climate change is real, deal with it. By the way, that’s not going to happen without a complete change of eating habits. Methane is created by organic processes like decay (forests cleared for animal feed and grazing) and digestion (the gasses belched and farted by the animals themselves – yes I know it’s getting cliché, but like that other cliché, the polar bear swimming around looking for ice to climb on, it’s real).
Animal production is responsible for half or more of the climate change problem, using realistic ways of adding up the problems (a high global warming potential for Methane) and the latest info from the best climate nerds like James Hansen. By using more and more land (animal agriculture already uses 30% of the ice free planet surface) carbon that could be sucked into vegetation and soil is kept in the atmosphere.
It’s not a matter of reducing emissions. If we continue to emit even at less levels than today, we’re still screwed because we’re still adding to the problem. All the technology in the world, even if we want it to and actually attempt to make it work for climate change, will be meaningless if we continue to eat the way we do, and if the developing world joins us, which they are. Without going veggie, plant-based diets, we have no chance of leaving a world worth living in. Climate change will destroy the world as we know it.
Ethics
Here’s the really subjective part. You need to forget what you think you know about which animals are okay to eat and not. Who decided this and why? Is killing a pig really different from killing a dog? We have empathy when our pets are in pain. We know whales are intelligent and peaceful creatures and we kick up a fuss when someone goes around spearing them. But what about the BILLIONS of animals that are abused in dark, dank and dirty metallic environments, bred for one purpose, to spend his or her last moments in a death queue, and for no reason because we don’t actually need to eat animals at all. It’s indisputably proven, not in medical journals or by prejudiced people, but in real life by the millions of healthy vegans and vegetarians in the world.
