The National Cathedral’s BotA; Episcopal Cafe article ‘Climate Change, Hunger and Industrial Animal Agriculture’
Click here to watch a news video on the Blessing of the Animals at the National Cathedral
Click here to read an article posted on Episcopal Cafe:
“Climate Change, Hunger and Industrial Animal Agriculture”.
(There are links to related topics at the end of that article. Please check them out.)
This is for my non-vegetarian visitors:
My math is bad, and I am estimating based on numbers that are thrown out there about slaughter statistics. Some day I’ll add links to substantiate what I’m saying. For now, these are my thoughts:
It is estimated that over 10 billion land animals are slaughtered for food in the USA every year, and over 9 billion of them are chickens.
If every non-vegetarian living in the US would go one (additional) day per week without meat, and without making up for it another day or switching species, it would spare [reduce the number of "farm" animals needing to be raised and slaughtered] 1,424,657,534 animals each year.
If every non-vegetarian living in the US would cut their total meat consumption in half (without switching species), it would spare 5,000,000,000 land animals per year from being “born to die”.
On one site I found, it is estimated that 9 billion chickens are raised in this country each year either by the the egg industry, or just for meat. (And a similar number of male chicks are killed each year by whatever method is most convenient and economical — suffocation, live burial or by being ground alive to be mixed into feed) Other sites I found estimated that over 300. or 340 million hens are raised by the egg industry each year (I’m surprised it isn’t much higher) — and most spend their lives cramped in battery cages the until sent to slaughter.
If every person living in the US gave up eating eggs, or drastically reduced their egg consumption, (even without giving up meat), it would not only dismantle the cruelest animal agricultural practice (cruelty and numbers-wise), but spare 300-340 million chickens (x 2, including the male chicks that are killed at the hatcheries) each year.
Not that I’m advocating organic meat (because there’s no such thing as “humane slaughter”) but at the very minimum, if non-vegetarians limited their meat consumption to organically-raised animals, not only would it be necessary for the animals to be raised in better and healthier conditions (and not be fed antibiotics, growth hormones, GMO feed or by-products of their own species) and might actually have some freedom of movement, but it would create huge and immediate changes in the way grain and other feed/food is raised. Since it takes 10 times more land to raise crops to feed “food” animals than it does to feed vegans, the demand for organically-raised meat would mean a huge increase in organic farm land in general. That alone would “clean up the environment” quite a bit — the earth and the water supply — and reduce the cancer rates in farmers.
It might even put a huge dent in the profits of the corprations that are responsible for the toxins that are generally used in conventional farming.
Where are you willing to start?
How much are you able to give up?
Would you be willing to tell others what you’re doing, and why?
Added 10/20/2007:
I just received the following blurb in a JVNA e-newsletter, from FARM-USA:
Latest Report of Annual Farmed Animals Death Toll
Forwarded message from FARM (Farm Animal Reform Movement):
[US] Annual Farm Animal Death Toll Drops for First Time
Posted by: “FARM” farm-usa@…<br />
Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:34 pm (PST)
FOR RELEASE ON 10/17/07…
ANNUAL FARM ANIMAL DEATH TOLL DROPS
The total number of land-based animals killed for food in the U.S. this year is projected to reach 10,378 million, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. This represents no significant change from the 2005/2006 mean of 10,381 million, and a 1% drop in the per capita figure, in light of the 1% annual U.S. population growth.
The number of fishes and other aquatic organisms killed for human and animal consumption is not reported by any agency, but is likely to exceed that number.
The 10,357 million land-based animals killed for food in 2006 includes both the 9,432 million animals reported as slaughtered by USDA and an additional 925 million, or 9% of the total, who died lingering deaths from disease, malnutrition, injury, suffocation, stress, or other deadly factory farming practices. The more egregious example are the 266 million laying hens (62% of those hatched), including 213 million males dumped to suffocate slowly in plastic garbage bags upon hatching and 53 million ìspentî females dumped on the waste pile, dead or alive, after a lifetime of laying eggs.
The 2007 total of 10,378 million includes 39 million cattle and calves (about even with the 38.7 million in 2006), 121 million pigs (up 2.6% from 118 million), 4 million sheep and goats, 10 million rabbits, 317 million turkeys (up 5% from 302 million), 28 million ducks (down 7% from 30 million), 9,409 million ìbroilersî (down slightly from 9,428 million) and 450 million laying hens (up 5% from $426 million).
In more personal terms, during a 75-year life span, a typical U.S. resident is responsible for the suffering and death of 10 cows, 34 pigs, and other small mammals, 2,535 turkeys, chickens and ducks, and uncounted numbers of fishes and other aquatic animals.
The 10,357 million animals raised and killed for food in 2006 accounted for 98% of land-based animals abused and killed annually in the U.S. Another 250 million animals were killed for ìsport,î in biomedical laboratories, in pounds, or as ìpests.î
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The report on the number of victims of animal agriculture is compiled each year by FARM, a public interest organization, in connection with the annual observance of World Farm Animals Day, launched in 1983 to expose and memorialize the suffering and deaths of animals in the world’s factory farms and slaughterhouses. This 25th annual observance was co-sponsored by In Defense of Animals and PETA. (www.WFAD.org)
(Today’s post bumped “Bringing Moos and Oinks to the Food Debate” from the home page.)