It’s time for all of us to take to stand against the unethical treatment of animal factory farming. This not only applies to the animals but also to our planets future. The treatment of animals in large factory farms presents a scene so disturbing many of us can’t even imagine the scenes behind closed doors. It’s a trend that doesn’t seem to be getting better since the public seems to take no interest. They either don’t want to believe it to make themselves feel better or are completely ignorant. Global warming is increasing at a rate never seen before due to the activities of humans. Animal farming is a hidden polluter and many people do not realize the terrible effects it has on our environment. People today have a double standard when it comes to animal rights. We would never dare eat our house pet but will have a steak for dinner and not think twice about it. Education is power but you need to be able to accept new ideas even if they contradict everything you were raised to believe. Everyone on earth needs to end the suffering of billions of animals for human consumption. Eating meat has so many consequences that go unnoticed from the exploitation of animals, massive pollution, and the unethical practices at play.
The factory farming of animals is nothing more than exploitation of animals. The meat and dairy industry cares more about profits and producing the largest animals in the smallest amount of space. These animals never get the chance to experience any freedom to roam or let alone see daylight. They instead “spend months on end crammed inside barren, often windowless sheds, standing in their own feces and urine and breathing in toxic, choking fumes from accumulated waste. The least fortunate animals — egg-laying hens, mother pigs, and baby cows — spend most or all of their days inside cages so small they can barely move.” (OneGreenPlanet) How can we as human beings consider this acceptable? These animals are raised in some of the worst conditions and have no way to fight back. They are born into an endless cycle of death. They are killed within a fraction of their natural lifespans. The average farm animal lives naturally anywhere from 8-20 years. (Dickstein) However, in the slaughterhouse time is money and animals are killed as soon as possible. The average “veal calves” is killed within 1-24 weeks compared to its natural life span of 15-20 years! (Dickstein) The average chicken is slaughtered within 5-7 weeks with a natural life span of 8 years and the average dairy cow is killed after 4 years just after it stops producing milk. (Dickstein) The endless suffering of animals is happening in front of our eyes every day. We create agencies to stop the abuse of certain animals but who choses who decides which animals to protect? The meat industry acknowledges the abuse in slaughter houses and sends lobbyists to push and pass anti-gag laws forbidding whistleblowers to speak or bring anything to light. (Bailey) These laws criminalize anyone who “possess and distribute such recordings” showing the cruelty behind closed doors (Bailey). There is nothing natural about the meat we eat today. Animals today are bred only by artificial insemination and genetic engineering. They select the largest animals repeatedly until they have a largest super mutant. The author Temple Grandin in Animals in Translation writes that “Today’s poultry chicken has been bred to grow so rapidly that its legs can collapse under the weight of its ballooning body.” These poor chickens not only spend their entire lives in terrible conditions but also in extreme pain and in their excrement. Animals raised on factory farms are treated like nothing more than just a pile of meat. Their life means nothing to the workers and are thrown around like rag dolls. At birth, almost all the young are immediately separated from their mothers and either sent right into the grinder or sent to live months in agonizing pain. (Dickstein)
Global warming is a central issue facing the world but many just look to cleaner energy and cleaner transportation methods. We don’t realize how much pollution and resources that get diverted to raising livestock and the subsequent food needing to be produced. As our climate changes, we are seeing an increased drought trend worldwide. What is most surprising is half of all water used in the United States goes towards raising livestock (Boehrer). Let’s look at the numbers. It takes 518 gallons of water to produce one pound of chicken, 1,847 gallons for one pound of beef, and 381 gallons to produce one gallon of milk (Boehrer). Compare that to only 302 gallons of water needed to produce a pound of tofu (Boehrer). Only 1% of the worlds drinking water is clean enough to drink and yet while many don’t even have access to clean water we will allocate half of the clean water to raise animals that are killed within a fraction of their true lifespan. The production of meat and dairy is extremely inefficient when looking at the production of food to keep us all fed. It’s estimated that about 40% of the worlds land is used for agricultural of which 30% is used to grow grains to feed the livestock we eventually eat (Walsh). In the United States, it’s estimated 80% of all agricultural land is used to grow grain to feed animals (PETA). Just think about all the added pollution and resources that go into transporting these crops to slaughterhouses instead of being shipped directly to super markets. The long supply chain contributes to continuous CO2 pollution at every stage. It starts with the transporting of grain, then the pollution the animals themselves create (manure, emissions, and by-products), followed by the transporting of animals to the slaughter house, and lastly the distribution to a local supermarket. The industry uses a lot of energy and resources that could be put to better use. The farming of animals is very dirty with animals producing three times more manure than all humans (PETA). That’s over 500 tons yearly! (PETA)This by-product of factory farming animals poses a huge public safety health risk. The problem is unlike the sewer systems set up for human waste. We have no such system to deal with all this extra manure in a sanitary manner. (PETA) The EPA has conducted multiple studies and notes that excess manure contaminates groundwater and is subsequently carried into streams. (PETA) Animal farms have so much manure that many have lagoons completely full of manure since they have so much excess it can’t all be used as fertilizer. (PETA) A study by the California State Senate “showed that [animal waste] lagoons emit toxic airborne chemicals that can cause inflammatory, immune, irritation and neurochemical problems in humans.” (PETA) Meat production is a double-edged sword, polluting the environment at every turn and negatively affecting human health. The production of meat requires vast amounts of land to run smoothly, uses up an enormous amount of water, constantly pollutes the air, and contaminates water supplies.
When examining the meat industry, it’s hard to wrap your head around the ethics and mind games that are at play. In the United States, around 7%-10% of the population is vegetarian and 2%-5% identifies as being vegan. (Bailey) Yet 49% of Americans supposedly are in support of a ban to end the factory farming of animals. (Bailey) It boils down to American’s either being ignorant or completely unaware of where the food we eat comes from. Melanie Joy is famous for coining the meat industry as the “invisible system.” She states that “carnism leads people to participate in irrational, inhumane practices, without fully realizing what they are doing.” If you walk into your local supermarket and walk to the meat section all we see if perfectly packaged meat. We never see the animals we eat or even know where they were raised and killed. Instead meat producers distance themselves from the animal all together. We title meat “beef”, “poultry”, and “veal”. This is to psychological makes us feel better about the purchase. As Loughnan writes in, How Are We Able to Love Animals and Love Eating Animals, “Meat eating is morally problematic because it contrasts our desire to avoid hurting animals with our appetite for their flesh. This tension – to love animals and to love meat – is the essence of the meat paradox. “(Loughnan) The meat paradox is what enables the eating of select animals to be accepted and never thought of again. We pass laws protecting house pets and other laws to protect the slaughter house’s violence from being exposed. It is so embedded that even the slaughterhouse workers who work on the assembly line believe they don’t kill animals. (Jan Dutkiewitz) A slaughterhouse is full of low wage employees that are easily replaceable and a just a small piece of something so much bigger. (Jan Dutkiewitz) It’s so automated that workers just herd animals where they need to go and all the killing is done by one person behind the curtains known as the “200 workers +1 kill room worker” effect. (Jan Dutkiewitz) Since only one person is doing the killing the other workers tend to believe they have no part in the animals’ death and continue as normal. The invisible system is a way of life for every meat eater in the United States. When you look at the entire US population only 17 million are hunters. (Larue) That means 85% of the population doesn’t kill the meat they eat! (Larue) That is amazing when you see how far the meat industry has distanced themselves from violent killing of animals for human consumption.
Everyday millions of animals suffer for human’s personal pleasure. These consequences go unnoticed and life continues without a second thought. All animals deserve equal rights and protection to live a life worth living since we all share this earth. We shouldn’t have a double standard when it comes to animal rights and every animal is equally as important. The practices we do today will last for generations and we need to be less selfish and look at the bigger picture. The climate continues to be strained on all fronts and the population of the world isn’t slowing down. It’s time to use earths land and resources in more sustainable and efficient ways. At our current pace our food system will have a breaking point as land becomes more valuable and resources become scarcer. The meat industry has become an invisible system that we all need to own up to. We can’t hide behind pretty supermarket packaging and it’s time to make a conscious educated decision on how and what we consume. The consumer has all the power and can choose who they support. Money is everything and if you hit the industry’s pocket book it will force change and action. It’s time to demand the questions, acknowledge the poor treatment, and make the switch to exclude meat from our diets.