The Environment & Animals Don't Care About Our Discomfort With These Topics

What are some of the consequences of animal consumption that inspired you to start the website Meat Your Future?

All of the foods we eat require resources to produce. Everything – from chocolate, to almonds, to potatoes – requires resources like land, water and energy. However, producing animal foods requires disproportionately more resources, in part, because of the inherent inefficiency involved in raising animals, since they consume more calories than they contribute back to the food system. This results in animal products being far more resource intensive compared with eating plant foods directly.

At a time when our collective human footprint is wreacking havoc on the planet, the fact that humanity is choosing to still feed itself with a diet that includes animal products is exacerbating and multiplying our damaging impact, with animal agriculture being a leading driver of biodiversity loss, deforestation, water use and water pollution.

Eating animal foods also exacerbates global food insecurity, because the production of these products reduces the total amount of available global calories. Additionally, the demand for the enormous amounts of animal feed drives up the price of basic food staples that poorer countries desperately need.

Last, but definitely not least, if we’re honest with ourselves about it, it’s easy to see that there’s no way to humanely kill an animal who does not want to die. For the animals, their lives are a real life horror story, one in which they fight for their lives with futility and then ultimately are killed against their will. Our choosing to eat animals, to deprive these complex and sentient individuals their one and only precious life, for our fleeting sensory taste sensation and convenience, is cruel, unnecessary – and, an unmitigated disaster for the planet on which we all depend.

In your recent video The Betrayal of Ignoring Human Overpopulation, you assert that humans are engaged in an act of betrayal. Can you discuss who and what is being betrayed by our denial of the overpopulation issue? 

Our recent population growth – literally going from 2 billion to almost 8 billion in less than 100 years – is unprecedented and has had a ripple and catastrophic effect on all environmental fronts, from the toxification of our environment to the obliteration of our forests, and the annihilation of the animals who once lived there. The fact that our numbers continue to grow by about one million every five days does not help this already perilous overshoot situation.

However, most people have no idea about this. And they, therefore, don’t give a second’s thought to having a child, or to the impact their family size has on the planet. This is because most environmentalists and environmental organizations refuse to discuss and raise awareness of this (apparently very unpopular) topic, despite the fact that the impact our population growth has had undeniable. I believe this silence constitutes a betrayal.

That silence perpetuates the tragedy we and future generations are facing, and hinders any meaningful progress on any environmental front, from the climate crisis to continued depletion of natural resources. This is betraying, first and foremost, the poorest people in the world as their countries are ransacked of resources to sustain wealthier countries (all of them being already overpopulated and unable to support themselves). We are also betraying the non-human animals of this planet as biodiversity loss continues its freefall due to all of our impacts (from roads, to pollution, to land use). We are betraying future generations, and we are also betraying ourselves, because – lest we forget – we too depend on the environment we are so thoughtlessly and rapidly destroying.

What is the connection between human overpopulation and animal exploitation?

When humans started farming about 11,000 years ago, it is estimated there were around one million people on the planet. Today, we are almost 8 billion people. Our gigantic growth has corresponded to a gigantic increase in demand for animal foods, with tens of billions of domesticated animals now being continuously bred for the knife (and even more billions of marine animals continuously being extracted and killed from our oceans). This is a scale of death that is almost incomprehensible.

But, because our sheer numbers are so large now, the impact of everything we use – from our vegetable oil, to plastic – is also threatening and killing wild animals all over the planet. From the wood used to build our homes, to the toilet paper we use to wipe ourselves, the scale of how much we collectively use is obliterating wildlife – so much so that biologists classify our time as the Sixth Mass Extinction in Earth’s history. This is why caring about animals means more than just not consuming animal products – it also means working towards a smaller population.

What concrete steps do you consider most important for individuals to take in order to create a sustainable future?

Consider the planet when planning your own family. Deciding to be child-free, or adopting instead of having a child, is something that reduces our environmental legacy more than just about anything else we can do (environmental legacy is not only about what your personal impact is, but also what the impact of your children and their progeny will be).

Also, there is a false dichotomy where people sometimes think we need to address either our overpopulation OR our overconsumption. But it’s not “OR” – it’s “AND.” We need to attend to both and ASAP. Even if our population somehow magically stops growing today, it is still too large and unsustainable currently, and it will take time for it to gradually shrink to a sustainable level. This is why decreasing our consumption is absolutely imperative too, especially in wealthier countries. This means decreasing our consumption overall wherever possible, and eliminating animal foods from our diets (which is something we can all do starting today in our very next meal).

They say you can’t be an environmentalist and a meat-eater, and I agree. But I would add to that, right now, given our overshoot, you also can’t be an environmentalist and not address our overpopulation.