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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
by Isaac Blumenthal<\/p>\n
The great Mahatma Gandhi once <\/span>said<\/span><\/a>, \u201cThe greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.\u201d As a strict vegetarian, Gandhi felt a terrible sadness seeing animals suffering, most people don\u2019t understand that sadness.\u00a0 Our country must do better and eliminate raising animals strictly for food.\u00a0 Perhaps the concern for animal suffering isn\u2019t persuasive; consider the enormous negative impact the meat industry has on the environment. After all, this planet is likely our only home!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Animals raised on factory farms are treated cruelly. Their suffering is unquantifiable.\u00a0 They have no quality of life. As journalist Spencer Case <\/span>writes<\/span><\/a>, \u201cNone of these animals would exist without factory farming, but they\u2019d be better off not existing. We shouldn\u2019t cause this much death and suffering unless we have some extremely compelling reason for doing so.\u201d Factory farmers prioritize well-nourished animals to maximize their output of meat while spending as little money as possible. This rapid growth is unhealthy.\u00a0 <\/span>In chickens<\/span><\/a>, it causes acute heart failure and the inability of their skeleton to hold their weight causing movement difficulties. Jonathan Safran Foer <\/span>writes<\/span><\/a> in \u201cEating Animals\u201d, comparing this abnormal growth to that of \u201chuman children growing to be 300 pounds in ten years while eating just granola bars and Flinstone vitamins.\u201d What\u2019s worse, is this extreme growth occurs in a space of less than a <\/span>square foot to live<\/span>. To put this into context, Safran Foer <\/span>writes<\/span><\/a>, \u201cStep your mind into a crowded elevator, an elevator so crowded you cannot turn around without bumping into your neighbor. The elevator is so crowded you are often held aloft. This is a kind of blessing, as the slanted floor is made of wire which cuts into your feet. After some time, those in the elevator will lose their ability to work in the interest of the group. Some will become violent; others will go mad. A few, deprived of food and hope, will become cannibalistic.\u201d As heart-breaking as it is for the individual animal, it\u2019s also incredibly destructive for all animals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The meat industry contributes more to global warming than any other industry or form of pollution! It contributes<\/span> 40% more<\/span><\/a> to global warming than all transportation in the world combined! Farms contribute to water pollution via the billions of pounds of drug-laced feces every year generated by the animals. These feces are then thrown into waterways killing fish and polluting the water. In fact, PETA <\/span>estimates<\/span><\/a> \u201c<\/span>A typical pig factory generates the same amount of raw waste as a city of 12,000 people.\u201d In order to make room for the grain that is needed to feed these animals, there is mass deforestation. For <\/span>every pound<\/span><\/a> of meat harvested from an animal, they need to ingest up to 16 pounds of grain. <\/span>Approximately<\/span><\/a> 70% of global freshwater is used by livestock. <\/span>The collapse of the environment is only one existential threat meat production poses to humankind, the rise of the possibility of a new pandemic is another.<\/span><\/p>\n Today much of the world is struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic so I would be remiss if I didn\u2019t mention the danger eating animals poses to our health. It, along with many other deadly diseases, stem from animals. Many different strains of the flu come from birds. Jonathan Anomaly <\/span>explains<\/span><\/a> that these viruses are passed around by \u201cclose contact between different species of animals gives viruses a continuous opportunity to mutate and reassort to create new strains; …many factory farms confine animals to indoor spaces that lack adequate sunlight or ventilation, which allows viruses to survive longer without a host.\u201d As the factory farmers make sure these abused animals balloon to their market value weight, these animals are given a lot of antibiotics. When these animals are drugged with antibiotics and then eaten by us, over time <\/span>we become antibiotic resistant<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance <\/span>estimated<\/span><\/a> that \u201c700,000 people around the world die each year due to drug-resistant infections. Without action, that number could grow to 10 million per year by 2050.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We must address the existential threats from meat production, otherwise, they\u2019ll obliterate mankind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Isaac Blumenthal The great Mahatma Gandhi once said, \u201cThe greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.\u201d As a strict vegetarian, Gandhi felt a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-rights","category-college-authors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}