animalsalvation.blogg.se

I recently read a blog about a farmer who claimed that animals are needed but he felt bad when he had to kill them. His solution was to become self-contained. I thought to myself that this sounds very double standard.

Farming has been around for decades but the farming we have today was not the same 200 years ago. Water supply and climate have been the driving factors in the past. With the growth of humanity, we have intentionally dented the ecosystem which wildlife depends upon. If you look at below table, we are growing rapidly and the future cannot get any darker. The world population clock is overly increasing and sits today at this hour at 7,486,103,370 billion people. With this comes responsibility, something that we humans take for granted that we are. Per numbers from worldometers, approximately 748 million people are undernourished at this very moment which matches the statistics on multiple sources. These people are undernourished because of humanity, not because of nature.

This farmer claimed that farming is part of the ecosystem but farming is also a large contributor to climate change and the future can only show you that we are failing. We are already witnessing rising sea levels and extreme weather i.e. heat waves, floods, droughts, and storms. It will only get worse before it will get better.

We invented the idea that we can both make money and produce food by investing into mass production within the animal sector. We didn’t need review the risks for the animals nor the impact on environment. Farmers who claim that they are not part of the industry but think it is a good idea to be self-containing forget one thing, how does this benefit the rest of the people on the planet? We cannot all drop our line of work and become farmers, modern society would collapse, you would no develop, you would retrogress.

We can easily contain domesticate animals within the industry into three categories.

The first one is animal rights which is that all animals deserve a humane treatment. Has anyone bothered to contain the meaning of humane? Characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals, especially for the suffering or distressed. Acting in a manner that causes the least harm to people or animals. Without any doubt, we can state that we are neither humane to humans nor animals. Just read my blog backwards from today and it will be the hardest slap in the face that you have ever felt.

The second one is your health. Meat- and dairy products are indirectly considered poisonous and has a negative impact on your body, making you more receptacle to disease. They also cause a worldwide obese problem. In addition, due to the vast amounts of antibiotics that we pump into the animals, a certain percental portion of this end up in your body, thus severely impacting your resistance for your body to battle disease. Both Drs. Campbell and Esselstyn have proven this over the years in their joint research. Two out of every three of us are overweight, not in all countries but generally every country has rising statistics of obese. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially amongst our younger population. About half of us are taking at least one prescription drug. Major medical operations have become routine, helping to drive health care costs to astronomical levels. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the country’s three leading causes of death, even though billions are spent each year to “battle” these very conditions. Millions suffer from a host of other degenerative diseases.

The third one is the environmental impact. Raising animals for food requires massive amounts of land, food (i.e. soy and corn), energy, and water. A staggering 51% or more of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture, per a report published by the Worldwatch Institute. Per the United Nations, a global shift toward a vegan diet is necessary to combat the worst effects of climate change. There are three primary bandits; fossil fuels, transport sector and the meat- and dairy industry.  

It takes an enormous amount of water to grow crops for animals to eat, clean filthy factory farms, and give animals water to drink. A single cow used for milk can drink up to 189 liters of water per day or twice that amount in hot weather and it takes 2585 liters of water to produce just 4 liters of milk. It takes more than 9084 liters of water to produce 0.5 kilos of beef, while producing 0.5 kilos of tofu only requires 923 liters of water. By going vegan, one person can save approximately 829,000 liters of water a year.

Animals raised for food produce many times more excrement than does the entire human population. Animal sewage that lack processing plants, is most often stored in waste “lagoons” or it gets sprayed over the fields. What people need to remember is that before the meat- and dairy industry, which bloomed in the late 19^th century, this was not the norm. Today to be Eco you need to user manure and if not that, you use fertilizer, neither benefit anyone involved in the process. Farmers that lived along the coast, used to utilize seaweed but since humanity has polluted our oceans this is not practiced globally anymore. Runoff from factory farms and livestock grazing is one of the leading causes of pollution in our rivers and lakes.

Using land to grow crops for animals is vastly inefficient. It takes almost 20 times less land to feed someone on a plant-based (vegan) diet than it does to feed a meat-eater since the crops are consumed directly instead of being used to feed animals. Per the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, it takes up to 4.5 kilos of grain to produce just 0.5 kilos of meat, and in the United States alone, 56 million acres of land are used to grow feed for animals, while only 4 million acres are producing plants for humans to eat. Sweden has worked to turn this around but only because Sweden has started with a massive investment into importing which does not reduce pollution and supports other countries consumption of land. Per numbers from 2015; 0.5 million acres of land are used as pastures while 2.5 million acres of land is used to grow feed. In total, out of the 3 million acres, 70% of the culture is used to feed animals. The problem with Sweden and other countries is the import of animal feed, it has declined in Sweden but we still import 250,000 tons of animal feed every year.

More than 90 percent of all Amazon rainforest land cleared since 1970 is used for grazing livestock. In addition, one of the main crops grown in the rainforest is soybeans used for animal feed. The soybean is the “king of beans”. It contains 38% protein and when dried it also contains 18.4% unsaturated fat. Between 1961 and 2009, global soy production expanded nearly 10-fold, and it has doubled since the mid- 1990s. On an average, each European consumer eats 87kg of meat and 250 eggs per year. To produce this, 400 m² of land per person is needed. Approximately 75% of soybean is used for animal feed. By far, China is the largest importer, 61% of total imports or 55 million tons. In 2007, the EU-27 countries together imported 24.8 million tons of soy meal, 15.5 million tons of soybeans and 1 million ton of soy oil. At an average pork consumes 263 grams of soy per kilo of meat, chicken consumes 575 grams, beef 173 grams and eggs 307 grams. These import statistics just keep rising and rising.

While factory farms are ruining our land, commercial fishing methods such as bottom trawling and long-lining often clear the ocean floor of all life and destroy coral reefs. They also kill thousands of dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, and other “bycatch” animals. Coastal fish farms release feces, antibiotics, parasites, and non-native fish into sensitive marine ecosystems. In addition, since most farmed fish are carnivorous, they are fed massive quantities of wild-caught fish. For example, it takes up to 1.3 kilos of fish meal to produce every 0.5 kilo of farmed salmon.

These statistics are gathered from animal right organizations as well as governmental reports and media investigations. Clearly there is a problem with supporting the meat- and dairy industry due to various reasons and by promoting self-contained farming as a solution, it is a selfish reaction that only benefits yourself and the people you invite within your closest surrounding. In addition, to show remorse when executing animals to satisfy your greed for meat- and dairy products is a double standard that is unacceptable. The impact is clear and consistent, the way forward contains many challenges but with our amazing speed of developing solutions, this should not be a challenge. As earthlings we carry a responsibility and today we are failing earth and its inhabitants. 

Share this video with people, to raise awareness!