EATING OURSELVES TO EXTINCTION
I stopped eating meat over thirty years ago. This was before there were so many vegan
products on grocery shelves, before there were so many factory farms and before
we knew the damage animal agriculture does to our planet. I stopped eating meat because torturing and
killing another living animal is barbaric.
With every bite of meat, we lose a piece of our humanity.
Now we know the damage animal agriculture is doing to our
planet. It is causing 51% of greenhouse gases and 91% of rain forest
destruction. Two-thirds of our land mass is used to either raise or feed
livestock. Animal agriculture is depleting our natural water supply and
polluting our oceans, rivers and lakes. All of this causes more severe weather
patterns, wild fires, flooding and other disasters. Bee populations are rapidly
declining, leading to food losses. We
are on the verge of the sixth major extinction just because humans eat other
earthlings.
There are 7 billion humans on earth and about 1 billion
suffer from hunger. Every day 21,000 children
die of starvation. Yet, most of the food
we grow is fed to animals that will be killed and eaten. It takes 16 pounds of food just to make one
pound of meat. 96 billion animals and 3 trillion fish are killed every year for
food, but 80% of that goes back into feeding livestock. How insane is this
system?
The very thought that some lives are more important than
others is creating violence in this world. The thought “I am a human; I am more
important than others” leads to “I am white; I am more important than others”
or “I am a man; I am more important than others.” Fear causes us to excrete
adrenaline into our systems. Animals are no different than us. When we eat other
earthlings, we are eating their adrenaline excretions. This, along with the hormones added to animal
feed, makes humans more aggressive. If we continue with all this violence and
wars, we soon will wipe ourselves out.
We have to start thinking of future generations, our
children, our grandchildren. What kind
of world do we want them to live in? Scientists have predicted that if we
continue on our current course, humans could be extinct in less than 100 years.
We can end violence. We can reverse global warming. We can feed the world. All
it takes is for each of us to take one small step—go vegan.
