Henry Mance: Meat comes at too high a price, author argues
We’re killing millions if not billions of animals and we’re trying to do at very low cost. The way we treat animals in their final moments, and also for some parts of their lives on big farms, is really not acceptable and not consistent with our values.
CONOR POPE: Journalist and author Henry Mance’s new book “How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World” examines ethical and environmental costs of meat production… In the book, Henry Mance becomes a slaughterhouse worker and – with absolutely no training – is charged with skinning lambs, it is impossible to shelter from the painful reality that our relationship with animals on virtually every conceivable level is so often simply wrong. His thesis is that unless we change how we see animals we will make the climate catastrophe even worse than it is going to be and the lives of all animals even more immeasurably bad then they are now. In short, it is a book which should be read by anyone who cares about animals or the planet…
Mance said he was motivated to write the book after the birth of his children. “Having liked animals all my life, loved animals, I suddenly found myself surrounded by animals. You’ve got the storybooks, you’ve got the teddies, you’ve got the cartoons on TV.” His children were getting the idea that “not only do we love animals, but we’re not embarrassed about our relationship with them, that we must have found some kind of way to treat them nicely”. So, with that in mind he started asking himself a tricky question. “Animals have done so much for me, what have I done to make their lives any better? What have I done to make sure that they’re still there in 10 years or 20 years?”…
And so the book was born. In it, he expresses incredulity that 95 per cent of us eat meat and so few people actually ask where it comes from. “It’s a question of circularity. The people in the slaughterhouse do their job because they know that somebody wants to buy that meat. And farmers will produce pork or chicken or eggs or beef in a certain way because they know someone wants to buy it. And then we buy it in the supermarket because we say, well, farmers produced it. So it must be okay.” He wonders why nobody looks at the situation and asks: “Is this system necessary? And is it sustainable?”…
“I don’t think we can keep on eating meat and animal products in the way we are. I mean, I think that the environmental cost is huge. And I also just don’t think it fits with how we really want to treat animals. Across the world we’re killing millions if not billions of animals and we’re trying to do at very low cost. I think the way we treat animals in their final moments, and also for some parts of their lives on big farms, is really not acceptable and not consistent with our values”…
He pointed out one critical reason: “There are millions animals at risk of extinction is because we’re cutting down forests… Habitat loss is the number one threat to animals species. and agriculture is the number one component. We just produce our food in an incredibly inefficient way. I mean, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions but also in terms of the quantity of land needed”…
“This is not a book to try and make you feel terrible about things . . . moving in small steps is definitely what I would advocate. I mean, I gave up fish, and then I gave up meat. And then my wife told me, if you go vegan, it’s divorceable and then I went vegan, and I’m still married. So you know, that worked out. Okay. But you know, small steps is definitely the way”…
He stressed that people should not think they are powerless to change the system or even make it a bit better. “If you think there’s nothing I can do, I’m just one individual, then I would really urge you to try going vegetarian for a week or two weeks and see the conversations it starts in a good way. People will often say: ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too.’ And, you know, right now there are some really great meat-free burgers, the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Burger and those companies were started by vegans. The fascinating thing is that their personal commitment then becomes a ripple effect that led them to create these businesses, which can now change how everybody’s eating.”
Only about 5 per cent of people in Ireland follow a vegetarian diet – the number of vegans is much lower again. “I would like to get to a position where 20 or 30 per cent of people are opting out of meat and then you can get to more interesting policy discussions. I’ve definitely had more people come up to me to say they have gone vegan or vegetarian much more often, that they’re convinced of the case. And they’re just making the changes at their own pace. And I’ve been really heartened by that”. SOURCE…
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