For the past few years, I’ve toned down the necessity for becoming vegan, pretty much letting links to sites preach the message for me.
I’m not so much an “alarmist” about Global Warming, although I was alarmed to learn that the Arctic ice cap thawed last summer, which wasn’t expected for quite a few years.
I know about the horrendous animal abuse, even in those industries that claim to care about and abide by industry “welfare standards” — which means little-to-nothing. But the meat-eaters I know really don’t want to hear about it. (We heard an excellent talk on the reasons why people don’t want to know, and I’ll dig through my notes later, and list them. It’s interesting.)
But the time has come, because of environmental reasons, if people aren’t willing to give up their privileges to stop the monumental animal suffering. I’m hearing both from the animal rights activists and from our Presiding Bishop that sea life is collapsing, and that species are going extinct faster than is being reported or expected.
The animal agriculture industry and our government (along with multi-national corporations who privatize something as basic as water in India and farm land in poor countries, and the drug industry) are corrupt beyond belief with their advertising gimmicks and lobbying power, and have too much control over not only issues that pertain directly to animals, but society in general — not only influencing public opinion, but actually affecting people’s lives in negative ways. There are probably very few places in the world where our industrial nations, and the USA in particular, don’t exploit the land or the people, but frame it as good — like “free trade” and “privatization” where the rich exploit the poor in this world — and few seem to notice.
Besides stripping the oceans of sea life, besides the methane (greenhouse gas) from animal agriculture, besides the deforestation to raise crops for livestock feed, besides the water and ground pollution from animal waste in factory farms — the E Coli that affects cash crops like spinach, tomatoes, peppers, etc. — I’ve heard that more fish go into livestock feed than we eat ourselves. I’ve heard that the killing of wolves, bison, wild horses, wild burros, prairie dogs, etc., are done because of pressure by the cattle ranchers, and that the endangered species list is not as comprehensive as it should be. We just kill and kill and kill, so people can have their animal flesh. Sooner or later, we will become the cause of our own extinction. And we will have no one to blame but ourselves. I’ll come back to this in my spare time. But it’s time for society to wake up, and start thinking critically about what we’re being fed by the powers-that-be. And it’s time for our churches who speak out against human oppression to at least dig below the surface of what we’re being fed, and start speaking God’s truth to power. Even the Animal Rights people speak out openly against the root causes of human oppression. It’s time the churches do the same. It is all related. And it all boils down to who controls our food choices, who decides what gets subsidized, and who controls the economic interests with only a pretense of ethics.
And I feel all the more strongly that people of good will should NOT be donating to humanitarian charities that promote an economy based on animal agriculture in the poor countries, for a lot of reasons, but because it will create a run-away train at a time when we need to put on the brakes world-wide.
I’m going to look up the name of the guy who gave the talk on wildlife at the AR2008 conference, and see if I can find some facts on-line. If I can, I will definitely post it here, because it is something that most people may not even be aware of.
It is time for people to wake up to the inequities that we cause in our current lifestyle, and demand that our politicians, who we vote in and out of office, start representing what’s best for all, and not for who has the most money to sway their votes. Even if we have any ethical politicians, they don’t stand a chance against the majority.
Thank God I’m an American, and am still free to say these things….
I had reason to search for this .pdf chart today, and even though it’s about 9 years old, I think the comparisons are probably about the same today as they were then.
