Report: Industrial animal farming huge risk to health, environment
We all know that factory farms are bad news for the cows, pigs and chickens who live out their short, crowded lives in these animal Auschwitz' , but evidence is mounting that the system is pretty unhealthy for the human population as well. A report from the Pew Commission says that the current methods of industrial animal farming pose "unacceptable risks" to human health and the environment.
On the health front, the report notes that animals today are packed together far more closely than they were a few decades ago, significantly increasing the risk of transmission of dangerous pathogens amongst themselves and across to the human population. Moreover, overenthusiastic use of antibiotics is creating drug-resistant bugs that could emerge as an even greater threat.
From an environmental point of view, these massive farms are the source of a variety of unpleasant byproducts, including hormones, pesticides, heavy metals like zinc and copper, and of course antibiotics, most of which eventually end up in the water table and your kids bloodstream. Beyond that, raising animals for food is estimated to be the cause of about 18% of the manmade greenhouse gases that are currently making the earth so delightfully balmy.
For the record, I'm not vegetarian myself and it doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy to think that my meat jonesing may be killing not just innocent livestock, but the whole planet. Until I kick the habit, I guess I'll stick to organic and free-range only.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-02-2008 @ 6:28PM
Mushi said...
A little journalistic integrity, please!
This photograph is from a Flickr account that states "Pigs at Pineywoods School farm, Mississippi. They were actually really freindly, as far as pigs go," and not one of "these animal Auschwitz'" (a little more drama, please. I'm sure those that lived through such an event wouldn't mind the comparison at all) you imply.
The Piney Woods School http://www.pineywoods.org ("Changing the World ... One Student At A Time") "is the flagship of the four remaining historically African-American boarding schools in the United States. With thousands of alumni who have come from all over the United States and the world."
Please, do a little more legwork. I'm sure you could have found a more accurate photograph doing a Google search.
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5-11-2008 @ 5:58PM
Sean said...
The comparison to the Holocaust, while perhaps inappropriate in so short a piece where greater context is lacking, is accurate and justifiable. To call factory farms "animal Auschwitzs" does not in any way demean or lessen the experience of the millions who died during the Holocaust but rather underscores the scale of the suffering that is par for course of modern animal agriculture. One can site numbers like 10 billion animals raised and killed in the US every year or 40 sq inches of space for five battery cage hens, but without a point of reference, these statistics are meaningless to the average person. The death camps provide that crucial piece of context, an example in which one group of humans tried to systematically destroy another's dignity and ultimately their lives, just as we did then and continue today with animals.
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