Climate change: 'We've created a civilisation hell bent on destroying itself – I'm terrified', writes Earth scientist
Factory Farms Create the Perfect Conditions to Spread Viral Infections Like COVID-19
Josh Balk, vice president of farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States
Earth/Food/Life a project of the Independent Media Institute
March 2020
As the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States grow and the government scrambles to address the virus’s spread, it’s important to reflect on its source and discuss the role that consumption of animals plays in the spread of the disease.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 likely originated in bats, and the first outbreak in Wuhan, China, has been linked to a live animal market. These markets, known as “wet markets,” allow the sale of wild animals and put people in close proximity to both live and dead animals with little or no regulatory oversight. Wet markets are also thought to be the place where other deadly diseases like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) crossed the species barrier.
COVID-19 and SARS are not the only diseases that began in animals and now infect humans. An alarming 75 percent of new or emerging diseases start in animals. Researchers have found 13 zoonoses (diseases transmitted between animals and humans) which cause 2.2 million human deaths per year. Most of these infections can be traced to farm animals such as chickens, cows, pigs and goats. The World Health Organization notes that some of these diseases, like avian flu, which originated in chickens and spread to humans, are more deadly than standard flu viruses.
It’s not just live animal markets that put the world at risk by being breeding grounds for disease. Because Americans eat more meat per person than almost any other country, most farms have shifted into large-scale animal factories. Each of these operations is packed with animals—sometimes hundreds of thousands—creating the perfect conditions for spreading disease.
While governments and companies worldwide are canceling conferences and events in an attempt to stop the human-to-human transmission of COVID-19, we’re simultaneously cramming billions of animals together, effectively creating the same opportunity for disease transmission between these animals, which may then spread to humans.
Furthermore, in an attempt to keep animals alive in these filthy conditions until they reach “slaughter weight,” factory farms commonly give them antibiotics. Often these antibiotics are medically important for treating human diseases, and their overuse and misuse in animal farming is contributing to the antibiotic resistance crisis. Leading health care organizations plead that without urgent action to reduce antibiotic use in all settings—including in farm animals—we will be facing a time when these drugs no longer work for people or animals.
In addition to viral spread from these animal factories, high consumption of the products that these facilities produce—meat, eggs and dairy—creates a greater risk of chronic illness. Over and over again, studies link diets heavy in animal products to higher rates of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and types of cancer.
As we attempt to fight the spread of COVID-19, now is the time to think critically about how we want to continue to feed ourselves here in the U.S. and around the world. Clearly, this is a serious problem that seems to be of our own making. It’s a cruel irony that as we’re killing animals for food, it’s killing us, too.
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A mutant bird flu 90 times deadlier than Covid-19* is 'poised to emerge in humans' from factory farming, a new report has warned. According to Viva!, the death rate of those infected by coronavirus is thought to be 0.66 percent. The death rate for those infected by a mutant H5N1 strain could be 60 percent. This equates to a H5N1 infection death rate 90.9 times higher.
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There are many great reasons people change to vegan living, whether for better health, not contributing to the animal abuse, the environment, or for more food that can be produced to accommodate more, as people are starving to death now as it is, or even for dealing with climate change.
Plant-based whole food eating is the healthiest, there are studies and results showing this conclusively! Dairy and eggs were not helping your health, the industries for those products from animals cannot even claim they are healthy for human consumption with basis, neither would processed foods be helping your health.
www.forksoverknives.com.
Not using any animal products is the only way to not contribute to the harm and abuse to animals in farms and the industries using them, and it is the way to not contribute to harming natural environments, not contribute to global climate change with food choices, and leave more food for others. It is better not using animals for what we have from them. There isn't justice in using them still. This is just the way it is, a good choice for how to live.
Our optimal health does not depend on animal products. There is not mere survival without animal products, people thrive without those. Anyone should get vitamin B12 supplements if they just get store bought food, it is too easy to not get enough otherwise, whether having animal products or not. This vitamin is only produced from some soil bacteria, animals and people can get the vitamin from food they get in natural environments, but any of the bacteria for it or the vitamin are missing from what animals used in the industry are fed.
We should see what is needed for everything involved to grow, harvest, process, and transport the plants that animals being used eat.
This includes:
Land required to grow plants
Water for the plants
Pesticides used on growing plants
Transport of plants
Preparation and packaging of plants
Water to drink
Deforestation of land for the plants
Animals killed by pesticides and commercial agriculture
Rearing Animals Requires Considerably More Land Use Than Plants
The Water Needed For An Omnivorous Diet Is Up To 7 Times Higher Than Plant-Based
Eating Plants Gives Us A Chance To Slow Down Greenhouse Gas Emissions & Cool Off
Animals Produce A Devastating Amount Of Agriculture’s Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Less Cattle Grazing Means Less Methane Loaded Cow Burps and Farts
Reduction In Chemicals Required To Grow Soybean Monocultures
Slowing The Spread Of Ocean Dead Zones Due To Chemical Run Off
Keeping The Oceans From Dying
Eliminating Massive Monocrop Farms That Destroy Biodiversity
Slowing Deforestation Caused By Clearing Forests For Cattle Ranching
Saving Our Vital, Fertile Topsoils
God gave food directly to certain people at times. When God did so, it was food from heaven, not using any animals. Manna to the people of Israel coming from the slavery under Egypt was such. We may not know what Elijah ate all his life. What I know was mentioned in the Bible is that God fed Elijah when he fled into the wilderness, with cake of some sort and water provided, 1 Kings 19:5-8.
Cruelty is involved in all animal use. Do not let others lead you to believe there are exceptions, it is that way in animal agriculture. Cruelty is wickedness.
Psalm 66:18, If I regard wickedness in my heart, Yahweh will not hear.
This is certainly true, and we should know it and remember that according to Proverbs 12:10, those who do not have regard for the life of their animals are wicked. It should be obvious that people who continue to eat animals knowing of this do not have regard for the lives of those animals.
God did not create sentient animal creatures in this world to just use as food continuously, they desire to live too, and feel and have terror of their oncoming death, and there are all the other reasons why it is not as good to use food from animals. It simply is not according to the perfect will of God and God is not intending for use of animals for food to last, there are scriptures showing this and none showing it was to keep continuing.
If we are Christian believers, spiritual fruit showing what was modeled for us, including love, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, and grace, should grow among us, without us resisting with limiting those still.
