Animals, Environment and Climate

A friend posed the following ethical question regarding animal rights and the environment.

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I found this article this morning, and the first thing I thought was, “I wonder what Paul’s response to this would be”. Personally, the claims in this article make me ill, but I desire the opinion of one more seasoned in the environmental movement. The article (linked below) basically claims that keeping pets is as bad for the environment, if not worse, than other common culprits. It ends with the frustrating statement: “Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table. ‘Rabbits are good, provided you eat them,’ said Robert Vale”. My fear in this instance, though, is that this is just my own particular sensitivity to rabbits clouding my potential for objective reasoning (after getting to know this species so well, my heart sinks at the idea of anyone ever utilizing them as a source of food).

 

As someone with several pets, I find all of this very troubling. While I have a hard time supporting any environmentalist that advocates eating meat at all, some of these claims are hard to refute (although, for others, there are easy solutions—such as not flushing cat litter/feces, and using more environmentally-friendly products, like Yesterday’s News, or cleaning up after one’s dog while on walks). Targeting pet owners over those who, for example , drive the gas-guzzling SUVs, seems quite unfair to me, but at the same time, I don’t want to simply shun information that I find inconvenient (which is just as bad). Generally, I’m more inclined to side with those who advocate the healing capacity of pets (although I worry about those who focus too strongly—or perhaps, solely—on this, as it leads to mere objectification: animals simply as means to yet another, purely human, end). I personally think that there are few more potent ways of cultivating the connection between human and animal life than by bringing a truly loved, cared for, respected and admired animal into one’s home as one’s friend and companion.

 

Anyway, here’s the link to the article:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091220/sc_afp/lifestyleclimatewarminganimalsfood

 

I welcome any feedback you may wish to provide.

 

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I’ve heard this one before, and the answer is complex.

 

First, saying that we ought to get rid of existing animals because of their carbon footprints is both speciesist and an example of what animal rights philosopher Tom Regan would call “environmental fascism.” As with the human overpopulation issue, it is far better to first get rid of lifeless cars than creatures endowed with life and therefore entitled to it.

 

That having been said, many animal rights activists are against the breeding of more animals and will adopt and spay/neuter homeless “animal companions” (the term “pets” is not PC to them).

 

I thought about this also with respect to cows. Gedankenexperiment in ethics:

 

Premise one: one cow represents the same greenhouse gases (in methane) as an SUV (in CO2)—and that’s a lot. There are about one billion cows worldwide, adding up to a major global impact on climate change.

 

Premise two: we need to get rid of factory farms to mitigate climate change, and the whole world agrees to this.

 

Ethical dilemma: what do we do with the cows? If we believe in animal rights, we cannot kill them; but if they continue to exist they will contribute to killing everything else.

 

The animal rights answer is, of course, to not kill or eat them, to let them live out their days while disallowing them to reproduce and finding humane ways to capture the methane. Of course, if we are prepared to do this with cows—to stop their reproduction for humane reasons—then I think we also should be prepared to do the same with our species, which has grossly overpopulated the planet. I say no reproduction for a number of years until enough of us have died of old age to live more sustainably.

 

The same also goes for pets/animal companions – no more dog or cat reproduction. This is the most humane answer, I think. What is not acceptable is continuing to let them reproduce and killing those that do exist.

 

As for the use of hens for eggs: again, a complex answer. This represents the instrumental use of an animal, for which reason most animal rights folks don’t eat eggs. However, I know of a farm sanctuary at which the eggs are eaten because they would just sit there and go to waste if they were not. The problem with having a hen just for eggs is that it tempts people to use the hens just for this purpose, which is an instrumental use of animals – precisely what animal rights stands against, and which has led to factory farming. Many people in cities are buying hens for this reason.

 

The article referenced above is specieist through and through because it views non-humans as existing merely for humans’ sake. If animals do produce greenhouse gas, they should not pay for this with their lives or their freedom. This more abolitionist view is much more consistent with mitigating climate change than killing or using animals because it is grounded in the sanctity of all life, which is precisely why we ought to mitigate climate change—not merely to save our own skins.

Why the Gap?

 

Why is it important that we think about the connection between animal rights and climate change issues? There is a growing, worldwide movement to address the approximately 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by factory farms and agro-business (about 18% of which issues from factory farm related emission). Environmental non-profits have traditionally avoided discussion of meat-eating, preferring to focus on such things as renewable energy, climate-change policy, energy conservation, air pollution and wilderness conservation. This is because many of those in the ENGO’s eat meat and many of those whom they had hoped to appeal to for funding also eat meat. Clearly this needs to change. The environmental impact of the use of animals must be given center stage in climate change discussions, along with energy issues.

 

I can think of many examples of the failure of environmentalists to address this topic. David Suzuki eats fish and when asked why, he has said it is because he is Japanese, which evokes laughter but fails to address a serious lack of concern for an important way we can help save the world’s oceans from collapse. In his book, Heat, George Monbiot tells of attending a barbecue held for environmentalists where they served meat. A professor who writes on the future of food states emphatically that “the future is NOT vegan” and that local food sources should include goats and chickens. Organizers of a climate change conference on food refuse to invite a vegan speaker. A climate change conference at a university serves meat. These are all examples of the environmentalists and climate change policy people purposely ignoring an important way in which climate change can and should be mitigated.

 

Another example that portrays the contradictory attitude of environmentalists can be found in the popular book, The 100 Mile Diet. Not only are there recipes that include meat, it also focuses merely on transportation greenhouse gas emissions. Most importantly, the book fails to address the amount of emissions coming from the methane expelled from farm animals, the immense water consumption of these animals, and the amount of additional emissions caused by pesticide use in their feed (as pesticides are petroleum-based products). The fact is that soybean crops provide a great source of protein and can be grown locally or traded locally in most parts of North America. Even if food goes local worldwide, it is still possible to rely on plant-based proteins, if there is a will to do so.

 

 

The Food Link

 

Increasingly, political campaigns on climate change and conferences on climate change are addressing sustainable food issues. They even refer to themselves as “foodies.” They sometimes (but not always) refer to the necessity to reduce meat eating, not out of consideration for animals but to mitigate climate change and unsustainable use of water and land. For example, David Suzuki, to his credit, advocates reducing meat consumption to once per week. However, by and large, these campaigns and conferences avoid the topic of animal rights altogether, and for this reason their conclusions lack the moral conviction needed to convince the target audience why they should give up their favoured foods.

 

The issue of the environmental impact of food is THE perfect opportunity to raise the issue of animal rights, and it is my argument here that concern for animal rights ought to inform that discussion because environmental concern and concern for animals rights are both ethically grounded in concern for the other. The other is both human and non-human, both living now and in the future, both local and global. The other is all of us because we are all interdependent. The illusion of individualism and separateness is precisely what is killing the life systems of Earth. We exist on this Earth to do more than merely serve ourselves: our purpose includes compassion and concern for others. This is fundamental. And it is also extremely practical …

 

Modern Motivations

 

A person is less likely to become a vegan out of concern for what will happen in 50 or a 100 years as a result of climate change than become vegan out of consideration for pain and suffering of fellow creatures here and now. Contributing in some small way to the suffering of some person in the future by buying supermarket meat, while knowing that at the same time the Alberta tar sands do more damage in a few seconds that a person does in a whole lifetime of meat-eating, is simply not as moving as knowing that by not eating the meat one has directly and immediately saved a life – the life of the creature whose flesh is sitting before you in the package.

 

Living in cities, we are so often removed from natural environments that it is hard to imagine why we might have an obligation to them. Animals rights brings environmental concern into the here and now by reminding us of the right to life of non-humans, who breath and feel and exist as we do. They are a reminder of something basic. We share the same genetic material as them. We bleed as they do. We can feel pain as they do. To feel pain is be reminded of who and what we are: natural beings. To hurt other beings like ourselves is to desecrate ourselves.

 

There is something powerful and direct about animal rights that one also feels in relation to human rights or local environmental destruction, such as clearcutting: we feel it viscerally, in our gut. It is powerful. We feel the need to stop the injustice of killing and to protect life, which is precious. As environmental concerns become more widespread they are at risk of losing their visceral immediacy; they become abstract, and bogged down in statistics and complex policy decisions. The animal rights movement is informed by the heart and it is from the heart that this world can and must change for the better. Without this compassion we lose our way.

 

The hard reality is that, with the change anticipated due to rising oil costs (due to peaking oil supplies), dwindling fresh water supplies, the prospect of worldwide famine due to rising food prices, and the necessity to mitigate climate change caused by factory farming, we need to draw on any and all available cultural resources that currently exist to reduce meat consumption. One of the most powerful resources that now exists worldwide is the global movement for animal rights. The level of organization and commitment of AR activists should serve as an inspiration to environmentalists everywhere. A merge of the movements is long overdue.

 

The animal rights movement argues against meat, dairy and egg consumption and overall against the instrumental use of animals for human desires (not needs). They base their foundation on the premise that it is morally wrong to harm other living, feeling beings. This same moral foundation correlates with the motives of many environmentalists who are concerned with preserving biodiversity, endangered species, and nature that is non-human. When the environmental movement does not follow this ethical foundation, it loses its way and easily encourages the very forces that are causing environmental destruction. From this we can see the merger between many ENGO’s and fossil fuel corporations, for example. Without an moral core informing it, environmentalism can get co-opted, corrupted, gutted of meaning and purpose and transformed into little more than “greenwash” and public relations.

 

 Stumbling Blocks, and Moving Beyond Them

 

A strong, ethical foundation has historically informed environmentalists, who are motivated by the concern for humanity, since our species is as much endangered by environmental catastrophe as with any other species. One would think that the radical concern for the welfare of others would simply extend from human beings to other species. Among young children this happens quite easily, but among older children and adults who have been conditioned to block out concern for animals and to view them as objects to be used by our species, a very strong cultural bias against animal rights occurs even among those who are genuine altruists and morally good people. Consequently, some of the same people who might be concerned with future generations who will suffer from drought caused by climate change and will selflessly devote their lives to this cause, will not extend that same concern to non-human species. We need to address that and discover how to reach the environmentalists who have such good intentions but who have not extended their concern beyond one species.

 

Being faced with the necessity of addressing unsustainable food production, the transportation of food, and having to rethink how the cities of the world will get their food supplies, we as a species are given the incredible opportunity to re-think our relationship with other species and with nature as a whole. It is often said that we are not separate from nature, but what does this really mean in terms of our relationship to the non-human world? The animal rights movement has blazed that trail and environmentalists need to learn from it. Of course the two movements are not separate: most AR folks are also environmentalists on some level, but the same certainly cannot be said of most environmentalists, many of whom still eat meat. This is where we need to focus our attention if we are to save both humanity and non-humanity from perishing, due to the excesses of industrial civilization.

 

Tipping Point

 

Given that we are likely to exceed the much feared “tipping point” of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, many believe it is too late already, but Dr. Danny Harvey, a professor of geography a noted climate scientist at University of Toronto says, “Much has been lost but there is still much that can be saved.” His remarks refers not only to the loss of the coral reefs, such loss that is irreversible, but also to the many trillions of animals and plants that still do exist but need us to stop their continued destruction. Many species still can be saved, if we act to save them. Many animals and people will die needlessly unless we mobilize all these movements into an overpowering force for social and political change. This can still happen, and it must.

 

Synergistic Cooperation

 

The animal rights movement has a solid moral foundation of concern for others. For this reason, it has the potential to invigorate and strengthen the environmental movement, which suffers from self-interest and specieism. There is very little time left to act to effectively mitigate climate change before we reach a tipping point of 450 parts per million atmosphere CO2, which could trigger a “tipping point” of positive feedback reactions in the atmosphere, lead to catastrophic climate change, and effectively spell the end of human civilization and most of biodiversity. Ironically, in order to save our civilizations we must learn to be concerned with something beyond it: the non-human other.

 

It is often said that people only do that which is in their own self-interest—certainly that is true of many people. However, there are many powerful social movements in history that lay their focus on concern for the other, including the abolitionist movement against slavery – which the animal rights movement most resembles. That particular movement, although numbering a small percentage of the population in 19th century America, had drawn from an extremely powerful force and performed incredible feats. The philosopher Kant called it “the moral law” and Gandhi identified it as “soul force.” Martin Luther King Jr. referred to both terms in his writings. This force is capable of moving people so profoundly that they will give their lives to it. We see this force in both the animal rights and environmental movements. It can change the world.

 

Looking Ahead

 

The articles that I will write for this blog have one purpose: to show the connection between these two movements and the issues they are concerned with, and why these movements should merge and inform each other and why the growing movement against agro-business can and should include an animal rights perspective. This is an end which is by no means guaranteed, at this point, since many of those who advocate that position still eat meat or are otherwise biased against animal rights. There is a discernible fear and aversion to animal rights discourse among some climate change policy advocates, as though it might taint their discussions. My argument is that without animal rights informing climate policy, it is doomed to dry formulations and pathetic targets, and purposely avoids discussion of one of the most important sources of emissions: factory farms.

 

I will also address the question of biodiversity and climate change and how concern for biodiversity and endangered species ought to be informed by animal rights, which is currently not the case. There is a strong emphasis on the whole species but not the individuals in it. Currently, groups like World Wildlife Federation and various zoos around the world care little for animal rights, but have become strong advocates for protecting biodiversity. I will show why this represents a fundamental contradiction, one that has its foundation in anthropocentrism and specieism, which, in fact, logically contradicts environmental concern. Concern for biodiversity necessarily entails concern for animal rights. If you try to remove one from the other, you impovrish both.

 

Drawing on environmental philosophy, we can see how this problem represents the distinction between deep and shallow ecology. I will argue that, for the environmental movement to be really effective, we must stop pandering to the mainstream bias for shallow ecology and start arming itself with a much more potentially powerful ethical foundation: deep ecology, which is consistent to a great degree with the philosophy of animal rights. Furthermore, we must abandon the notion that social ecology is somehow fundamentally at odds with deep ecology: concern for the human must also entail concern for the non-human. The separation exists in our minds more than in reality, and practically speaking the goal of both ought to be concern for life in all its forms.

 

It really is inexcusable that the animal rights movement, which represents an extremely powerful social and political force worldwide, should be systematically excluded from discussions on climate justice, environmental protection and creating a more sustainable society. This can change, however. These columns will be an attempt to bring about that change through rational argumentation. As we progress in this series of arguments for bringing together animal rights and environmental movements, and work through the various problems associated with doing so, I hope to draw on the wisdom and insights of readers to help me in this task.

 

To continue this discussion, please email your thoughts and comments to paulyork.2010@gmail.com.

 

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Paul York is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto. In addition to caring for animal rights, he is an environmentalist, human rights activist, and community organizer.

An Email Exchange

As an outspoken animal rights activist online, I get many comments. Here is perhaps the most interesting one I’ve ever received as well as my response to it.

The email is from a First Nations woman and relates in part to the disingenous rhetoric by the Canadian Federal (Harper) government in defense of the seal hunt when they invoke the Aboriginal / First Nations people. The government argues that First Nations people in Canada rely on the seal and fur trade and that animal rights efforts to hinder this trade hurt First Nations people. Some First Nations activists have lumped opposition to the seal hunt under the ”environmental racism” heading and thereby created a huge divide between animal rights advocates and environmentalists, on one side, and First Nations advocates, on the other.

I believe this approach is nothing more than opportunistic “identity politics” and is morally wrong for the reasons stated in my reply.

First Email:  A Question Presented to Me

From: _______________
To: Paul York
Subject: Wonder what you might think?
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009

We’ve never actually met, however I know u from my facebook… and agree with most of what you post. I was wondering what u might think of the statement below… A friend of mine wrote this [below] and I wondered what you might think or people of your mindset might think. I myself am an animal lover yet not a vegetarian. More recently another distant friend of mine… (non-native) posted pictures of coyotes and deer that were hunted down for sport and for food somewhere not far from ________ I believe… it sickened me… I couldn’ t sleep for a few nights after that… and still would like to post a comment to her husband, “the hunter”, knowing that I won’t be a very popular friend if i do… still i really don’t care… the coyotes were shot everywhere… clearly they suffered. Yet I myself have a collection of moccasins and don’t feel as bad knowing the natives that hunted them used everything from that kill to sustain themselves. I don’t collect moccasins anymore, and have worn all of the ones that I do have at some point. The following is from a friend on facebook that will remain anonymous. Please, if you would let me know what u think. I am very interested in your thoughts.

“Please also mention to not to confuse this with the sustainable fur trade and Aboriginal/Indigenous People, where am from they slaughtered the Buffalo and put us into prisons now referred to as First Nations, up north they are doing away with the Seal Fur, the Inuit rely on this for both food and resources even clothing it is there Buffalo, the anti fur trade is funded indirectly by the financiers behind big oil and mining companies, this way they can move in an exploit the land after the people are reliant on food flown in from down south. Look at the salaries all the executives of anti fur animal cruelty organizations are getting, always remember that animals are innocent and should not be wasted or farmed period, look at the farmed salmon on the west coast 20 yrs from now when there is no wild salmon and the Native people will have to rely on Government or maybe than oil and Gas exploration will open up, probably when the last wild Orca washes up on shore… Thnx _______ 4 post!”

Second Email:  My Reply
From: Paul York
To: ________________
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Subject: RE: Wonder what you might think?

I think the person who wrote that paragraph is deluded. Those who are against the fur trade are 99% volunteers who love both animals and human beings and believe there should be no cruelty to either. How very ironic that the Harper government, who work for the fossil fuel companies and who do defend the seal hunt by invoking the welfare of First Nations people (whom they otherwise care nothing for), are not blamed; rather, the animal rights activists are demonized and scapegoated in your friend’s statement.

What’s also missing in this statement is that some of those against the fur trade are Aboriginal people themselves! I know a lady who is of First Nation origin who opposes the seal hunt and advocates animal rights because these positions are consistent with love of Mother Earth. One must distinguish between industrial murder of animals and sustainable traditional hunting for subsistence. Mass murdering marine mammals with high-powered rifles, powerboats and skidoos and then selling the fur and oil for industrial processing and consumption by wealthy white people hardly represents a traditional way of life.

The Harper government is using Aboriginal people to support the industrial sealing industry, an industry which does not really benefit the Aboriginal population. The fur trade is the beginning of the exploitation of the First Nations in Canada through the Hudson’s Bay company; to call it ”traditional” is wrong.

In a similar way, the oil and mining industry is also using and exploiting Aboriginal people in Canada; take a look at the tar sands issue and the rhetoric over “traditional environmental knowledge.” The oil and mining companies pay First Nations to accept resource extraction concessions on traditional lands while other First Nations resist and die. Divide and rule tactics.

First Nations people are the original environmentalists; many still resist industrial development and rape of the land and animals. Others (like Assemby of First Nations leader Phil Fontaine) are selling out for as much as they can get. Some environmental NGOs and some animal right NGOs do lack understanding of First Nations issues, and they themselves have sold out in their own way (e.g., WWF), but to characterize an entire movement negatively is ignorant and prejudiced.

Many people—including myself—are strongly FOR First Nations rights, human right, animal rights and the rights of nature and see no contradiction between these causes. To create divisions where none ought to exist does play into the hands of the oil and mining cartels and their servants, the Stephen Harpers and George Bushes of the world. The fur trade does not help First Nations. . . . If all the seal and animals are dead from over-exploitation to provide fur coats to rich white people, I do not see how Mother Earth is served.

Third Email:  Reply to My Reply

From: ________________
To: Paul York
Subject: Re: Wonder what you might think?
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009

Oh wow!
Excellent.

Thank you.

_______________

Paul York is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto. In addition to caring for animal rights, he is an environmentalist, human rights activist, and community organizer.

The difference between humans and non-humans is a conceptual category taught from an early age; in reality, human beings are but one species in the Animal Kingdom. We differ from the other animals insofar as we believe ourselves superior to them (and to one another), our capacity for willful cruelty and wanton destructiveness, and our ability to manipulate the environment in such a way as to systematically destroy life.

We also have the capacity for good and enlightened behaviour, if we so choose. 

Subjugation Photos

In all the of the following photos, humans and non-humans are herded, enslaved and subjugated, through the use of force by men with guns or prods.

Goats in a transport truck gasp for air.

Humans forced–like cattle–onto a cattle car to Treblinka.

A truckload of “comfort women” being shipped to the frontline for the Japanese soldiers.

Modern truck-drawn cattle car takes mammals to their death.

Palestinians being herded by force.

Factory farm scene, complete with cages similar to the standing chambers used for torture at Dachau.

Quotations from Others

“[He] spoke a eulogy for the mouse who had shared a portion of her life with him and who, because of him, had left this earth. ‘What do they know—all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world—about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.’”

—Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, in The Letter Writer

“But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.”

—Plutarch

“Put a small child in a playpen with an apple and a bunny. If s/he eats the apple and plays with the bunny, s/he’s normal;but if s/he eats the bunny and plays with the apple, I’ll buy you a new car. Somewhere along the line we must have been TAUGHT to do the wrong thing.”

—Maynard

“As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”

—Pythagorus

“All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?”

—Buddha

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

—Albert Einstein

“He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man…”

—Isaiah 66:3

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.”

—Alice Walker

In China, dogs are systematically murdered.

“Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. ”

—Mark Twain

“The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men. ”

—Emile Zola

 

Animals are skinned—sometimes while fully alive—for perceived glamor.

“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral. ”

—Leo Tolstoy

“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man. ”

—Mahatma Gandhi

“Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul.”

—Pythagoras

“The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.”

—Henry David Thoreau

“The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.”

—Charles Darwin

“All cruelty springs from weakness. ”

—Seneca

“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them, that’s the essence of inhumanity. ”

—George Bernard Shaw

“The lives of animals are woven into our very being—closer than our own breathing—and our souls will suffer when they are gone. ”

—Gary Kowalski