Please Do Not Tap On the Glass

I honestly do not understand how any human animal can subject any non-human animal to the torture and suffering and horrible death of factory farming – just for the sake of taste. However, if saving the planet from the overwhelming damage caused by factory farming is the only way to separate fat-ass Americans from their fast-food burgers, then let’s get on with it.

NPR’s Renee Montagne recently interviewed professor Roz Naylor, director of the Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University on the effects of factory farming pollution on the environment. The teaser for the audio interview reads: “As global demand for meat products has increased in recent years, so has awareness of the environmental damage that the industry causes. Modern meat production uses enormous amounts of energy, pollutes water supplies and creates greenhouse gases.” LISTEN TO IT.

Farm Sanctuary just published a new action alert encouraging us to “Speak Out On The Undeniable Connection Between Large-scale Animal Farming and Our Earth’s Environmental Problems.”

Industrial animal agriculture is responsible for some of the worst abuses to animals, but it’s also responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the transportation industry, making it a leading cause of global warming. Industrial animal agriculture uses up precious water resources and fossil fuels and contributes to the loss of topsoil and deforestation. Filling the air with methane, nitrous oxide, and ammonia and our waterways with chemical stimulants, hormones and antibiotics – factory farming is a significant contributor to climate change and quality of life – and the public is largely unaware of its incredible impacts.

Modern animal farming has proliferated with little concern for the impact it has on the environment and for the people and animals who suffer in its wake. The list of harm and devastation from factory farming is long and spans virtually all forms of animal agribusiness, from hundreds of cows on a dairy farm to thousands of chickens confined for egg laying:

• In California, dairies are the number one source of environmental pollution. In 2003 a spill from the Heritage Dairy spewed 1.3 million gallons of manure into the Sacramento River, tainting waterways up and down the state.
• In June 2005, the State of Oklahoma filed suit against a number of broiler chicken factory farms, including Cal-Maine Foods, for polluting the Illinois River Watershed with chicken waste, contaminating the water supply for most of eastern Oklahoma.

In order to make an impact and limit the critical effects of factory farming, the public must be educated and our laws and policies must reflect a serious intent to reduce the harmful consequences of factory farming.

You Can Help:

Please contact your state, local, and federal legislators today and urge them to introduce resolutions and support legislation to recognize the undeniable connection between large-scale animal agriculture and its devastating effect on animals, people and our planet. Contact us at campaign@farmsanctuary.org to find out how you can help support environmental and animal friendly legislation, and go to http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/legislation to see if there is legislation already pending in your state.

Because I like nothing better than driving a point like a stake through a vampire’s heart, read Your Compassion is Suspect.

Now, get busy.

s.

Filed under: animal rights, factory farming, global climate change