"I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other..." Henry David Thoreau
Since I became a vegetarian and learned more about sustainability issues, especially now in the context of climate change, I have thought a lot about the future of factory farms. If you look at the predictions made by climate scientists, most omnivores won't get much of a chance to eat meat in the future. According to Livestock's Long Shadow report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 18% of the total greenhouse gas emissions come from global meat production.
Richard Schwartz, director of Veg Climate Alliance, had this to say about it:
"It stands to reason that raising 60 billion farmed animals for slaughter worldwide annually under modern intensive factory farm conditions would require far more land, water, energy and other valuable resources and contribute far more to pollution, species extinction, soil erosion and depletion, deforestation and global warming than eating plant-foods directly. Over 40 percent of the grain produced in the world are fed to factory farmed animals, while over a billion of the world's population suffer from chronic hunger and an estimated 20 million of the world's people die of hunger annually.
"There is an abundance of evidence at our web site and in many other sources that the world is rapidly approaching an unprecendented catastrophe from climate change and a major shift to plant-based diets is essential to help shift our imperiled planet to a sustainable path."
Thoreau's prediction about man's destiny may just come true, though by default. It makes me sad that hubris will effect a meat-free future rather than humanity.
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