Eating the Amazon
Mass meat consumption begets mass animal cruelty: Day in day out, 32.9 million/day, 1.37 million/hour, 22,830/minute, 380/second. But most people block it from our minds. Out of sight, out of mind.
STEVEN KRICHBAUM: ‘Catastrophic fires have been burning all over the world, not just in Amazonia, but also in Siberia, Indonesia, and the Congo basin. These fires are ecological weapons of mass destruction and displacement resulting in habitat destruction and extermination of other species, violent land grabs from Indigenous peoples, murder of forest protectors, and climate refugees. Most of the disastrous fires in the Amazon are the result of clearing forests for cattle pasture or for crops to feed the cattle.
In response to the intentional conflagrations in the Amazon, the actor Leonardo DiCaprio was chided recently for daring to suggest a way to significantly deal with the destruction: People can simply stop eating cattle. The knee-jerk reaction to his common-sense statement makes clear that, though its harmful impacts are obvious, Big Meat is the great untouchable in America. One writer even accused DiCaprio of “blaming cows”. Cattle, however, are neither starting the fires nor voluntarily throwing themselves on the butchers’ blocks. Nor are the fires being set because people love cattle so much and want to provide them with habitat.
No, the burning and looting are done to cater to those who eat the cattle. Mr. DiCaprio is not blaming cows. He simply recognizes that much of the burning, land theft, and ecosystem destruction in Amazonia would not be happening if cows were not being eaten… Globally, almost 80% of all agricultural land is dedicated to grazing or croplands for livestock feed, making it the largest user of land resources. In the US, around 75% of the grains and soybeans grown are fed to livestock. However, when the corn, soybeans, wheat and other crops currently fed to livestock are directly consumed by people, only a fraction of the acreage currently devoted to livestock feed would be necessary…
This would free-up hundreds of millions of acres of land previously used to feed billions of Chickens, Pigs, Cattle, and Turkeys, that can instead be replanted with hemp, orchards, tree plantations, or allowed to recover to native habitat, all of which would significantly reduce deforestation… Does the mass production of dead flesh involve respect and compassion for all those individuals involuntarily providing that flesh? In the USA alone, over 10 BILLION Chickens, Turkeys, Pigs, and Cattle are slaughtered every year, to say nothing of the billions of fish and other “sea food”.
Day in day out, 32.9 million per day, 1.37 million per hour, 22,830 per minute, 380/second. Mass consumption by hundreds of millions of people demands the horrific abuses inherent in a system of mass imprisonment and mass destruction and mass disassembly. These will not and cannot be regulated away… Most of us don’t want to inflict cruelty upon animals, we simply don’t know the reality of the situation or block it from our minds. But mass consumption begets mass cruelty; and those supplying the consumption know it. Why else do the laws prohibiting cruelty to animals specifically exclude farmed animals? Why else have so many ‘ag-gag’ laws been passed that insulate purveyors of industrial-scale abuse from scrutiny? Out of sight, out of mind’. SOURCE…
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