KUDOS TO VEGETARIANS AND VEGANS
YOU ARE AHEAD OF YOUR TIME
We are living in a world that is threatened by multiple dangerous forces beyond our control, such as an invisible killer pandemic, environmental pollution, climate change emergencies, political squabbles, suffering and dying of human beings as well as animals that we raise to consume their meat.
Kudos to vegetarians and vegans, you have knowingly (or unknowingly) contributed mightily to lessen the effects of these dangers. Despite humanity’s insistence to continue to stay on the wrong path, nor listening the sound advice of science, or lack of high caliber world leadership, you made the right choice.
Let’s look at your contributions more closely. It is fact that when humans become richer, their appetite and demand for meat increases dramatically. Meat not only tastes very good, it is packed with all of the essential nutrients, minerals and vitamins our body need and requires. To satisfy this huge demand for meat, studies have shown that global meat production has drastically increased from 71 million tons to more than 340 tons in recent years. Big agricultural companies have formed and created an “industrial animal agriculture system,” by turning animals to technology. This includes selective breeding of animals to make them grow faster, crowding them together in sprawling industrial operations, pumping them with antibiotics to prevent illness, with hormones to fatten them, feeding them with artificial nutrients, GMO grains and animal remnants, without any concerns of animals’ sufferings and welfare.
It is estimated that about 75 billion of land animals are raised each year and slaughtered for their meat. The industrial scale of animal agriculture, while profiting handsomely to supply meat for masses, has significantly contributed to climate changes for the following reasons:
1. About half of all the world’s habitable lands have been given over to agriculture, with about 75% dedicated to animal agriculture. In some countries, people cut trees, burn forests and wilderness areas to clear more land for more agricultural use, thereby preventing forests to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere to produce O2.
2. Billions of cows emit tons of methane gas, which is much more potent than greenhouse gas than CO2. It is believed that 25% of greenhouse gases are emitted by animal agriculture. Other sources of methane emission come from rotten organic compounds in garbage dumps and landfills. The rest comes from the fossil fuel production processes.
Even industrial scale animal agriculture is not enough to satisfy the human appetite for meat. We keep intruding deeper into wilderness areas, trying to trap or kill all kinds of wild animals for their meat and selling them in open markets. By doing so, we are getting in contact with wild animal viruses. The U.N. Environmental Program states that 75% of new infections comes from close contact with wild animals. It’s widely believed that this present novel coronavirus, which is killing us by the millions, jumped from bats-to-humans. Just like Swine Flu jumped from pigs-to-humans and the Avian Flu jumped from birds-to-humans.
Let’s think or imagine a world in which half of its population is vegetarian or vegans. What kind of impact would it have on our living environment, on the wilderness, and on wild animals and domestic animal population?
Let’s also imagine, one day, we would be able discover an alternate source of animal protein and meat, without animals. This is not science fiction, it is already happening. There have been remarkable advances in plant-based meat and milk production. Animal meat could be produced in laboratories from animal stem cells. Actually, right now, some restaurants in Singapore have been serving lab grown chicken meat, that is indistinguishable in taste and texture from real chicken.
So, it seems that our future is promising for a better world for our grandchildren, if we believe in science and follow a scientific path for our future.
