You Can Kill Your Pet

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Helena Lopes on Unspalsh

Emma, a healthy dog, was brought into a shelter in the U.S. State of Virginia on March 8. Her human companion had passed away and there was apparently no one else to care for Emma. Although the shelter could have easily found a new home for Emma, who was a Shih Tzu (of the sort pictured above), they just held her because whoever brought Emma to the shelter did not have the authority to sign her over to the shelter.

So Emma remained at the shelter until March 22, when the executor of the dead woman’s estate came to the shelter and stated that the deceased had left a directive that Emma was to be killed and cremated , and that her ashes were to be placed in the dead woman’s coffin.

And that is what was done. Emma was killed. Notice that I did not say that she was “euthanized.” Euthanasia is when death is for the benefit of the being who is killed. If, for example, an animal is suffering from cancer and no longer has any quality of life, killing the animal would be described as an instance of euthanasia. But Emma was healthy. It was not in her interest to die. She was not euthanized. She was killed. She was cremated. Her ashes were placed in the casket of the dead woman and buried.

Many people find this to be outrageous. Emma was a healthy dog. What could possibly explain why it was alright to kill her?

The answer is simple: Emma was the property of the dead woman. The dead woman was her owner.

Most of us think that animals matter morally. That is, we reject the idea that animals are just things that have no moral value.

But the reality is that, despite what we think, animals are just things as far as the law is concerned. That is, they have no intrinsic or inherent value; like all other property, they have only an economic or extrinsic value. They have no value except the value that we, their human owners, accord them.

As property owners, we have the right to accord our pets a high value and treat them as loved and cherished members of our families just as we have the right to accord them a low value and use our dogs as little more than living burglar alarms or our cats as mouse catchers. As long as we provide minimal food, water, and shelter to the animal, we may treat the animal pretty much as we choose. We cannot inflict physical harm on the animal for no reason whatsoever but we may legally inflict physical harm incidental to a purpose of use. For example, physical force/punishment may be used to train a dog to be a guard dog. An owner may apply physical force/punishment to a dog who jumps on visitors. And owners can choose to value their pet’s life at zero and take the dog, cat, or other animal to a veterinarian to be killed. or to a shelter where the animal will be killed if another home is not found.

Make no mistake about it — many, many dogs, cats, and other pets are not accorded a high value by their owners. They have terrible lives and often very unpleasant deaths. The idea that most pets have loving homes for their entire lives is very wrong.

The status of animals as property is of such importance that the human owner gets to value the animal’s life even after the owner is dead and even when the animal could easily have been placed in another home. It is ironic that Emma’s owner probably had a strong bond with Emma. She wanted them to be buried together. But because the dog was property, her life was entirely within her owner’s control. It was the owner’s right to have her killed.

Every year, millions of people surrender healthy animals to shelters. They sign over ownership of those animals to the shelter. And every year, millions of those animals are killed if the shelters are unable to find new homes.

My partner and I live with several dogs we rescued from shelters where they would have been killed if homes were not found. We have one dog who is blind and deaf. He is the product of a breeder who bred two merle shelties in an effort to produce a “white” merle, which can fetch a hefty price. The problem is that about one in four double merle puppies is born blind, deaf, or both. But it’s perfectly legal to breed these animals knowing these disabilities will result. After all, they’re just property.

It’s not just our pets who have the status of property. Just about all the animals we interact with are someone’s property. The approximately 70 billion land animals we eat every year are the property of the farmers who raised and killed them. These animals are then sold to stores, who own their slaughtered carcasses, and then they are sold to us.

If you want to know why food animals are so badly treated, the answer is the same: they are property. It costs money to protect their interests. Farmers generally protect those interests only to the extent that it is economically efficient to do so. Providing greater protection will result in a product that costs more to produce. And someone has got to pay for that increased cost. There are places that sell supposedly “higher welfare” animal products but the reality is that the most “humanely” produced animal products involve treatment that would, were humans involved, constitute torture. It’s a simple matter of economics.

I suspect that we will hear the opportunistic animal welfare groups call for laws — “Emma’s Law “ has a good fundraising ring— to prohibit including pets in the burials of deceased humans. These groups have a real talent for tinkering with campaigns that keep donations coming in but do nothing to change the status of animals as property. Even if “Emma’s Law” passes, it won’t make any real difference. Human owners will still be allowed to have their animal property killed or to dump them at shelters.

If animals are going to matter morally, we must stop treating them as things. And as long as animals are property, they cannot be anything more than things. But if we recognize the right of animals to not be property, then we must reject animal exploitation. We cannot justify eating, wearing, or otherwise using animals for human purposes, particularly in situations in which there is no plausible claim of necessity. We don’t need to eat animals to be healthy. That is clear. But we must also reject the institution of pet ownership. If animals are property, then, as a practical matter, they will be at risk being killed in a shelter or otherwise having their interests discounted or ignored.

And even the ones we love may end up being killed and placed in our coffins.

Originally published on Medium.

Extinction Rebellion: Shame

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Over the past few weeks, I have written several essays about how the Green Party and various environmental groups, including Extinction Rebellion, are continuing to ignore that we about twelve years left and we need to be promoting a widespread transition to a vegan diet in order to avert climate catastrophe.

I have discussed how the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than all transport exhaust. And the U.N. estimate is lower than most others. The Worldwatch Institute claims that animal agriculture is responsible for 51% of greenhouse gasses.

I have discussed recent work at Oxford that has made clear that a vegan diet is the single most significant thing we can do to avert climate catastrophe. Other recent work at Oxford found that a massive reduction of meat consumption is necessary to avert climate catastrophe. We are talking about everyone eating 75% less beef, 90% less pork and half the number of eggs. Because many people won’t reduce to that level, the obligation falls on those who do care about the issue to eliminate animal foods entirely.

I have discussed a recent study by Harvard University showing that the U.K. would be able to sustain itself and combat climate change by returning land used for animal agriculture back to forest: “[c]onverting land currently used for grazing and growing animal feed crops back to forest could soak up 12 years’ carbon emissions.”

All of this points in one very clear direction: although a widespread shift toward a vegan diet may not be sufficient to avert climate catastrophe, it is certainly necessary as a practical matter given the time in which we need to act. A transition toward a vegan diet is the only thing that we can do that does not require technological innovation, which is very uncertain, or government action which, by attempting to compromise in the way that will best serve corporate interests, usually makes matters worse.

I have been disappointed that people who claim to be environmentalists ignore the issue of veganism as a general matter. It seems, however, that Extinction Rebellion not only does not promote a widespread transition to a vegan diet, but is hostile to those who point out the fact that animal agriculture is an ecological disaster.

On May 2, XR posted this on its Facebook page:

In the article posted, chocolate production and mining are identified as causes of deforestation. Deforestation can be driven by various things depending on the area. But there can be no doubt that animal agriculture is, as a general matter, the leading cause of deforestation in terms of loss of land mass.

So on May 4, the role of animal agriculture was pointed out to “DW Croft,” who posted a comment expressing surprise over the role of chocolate to which he received a straightforward, accurate, and respectfully stated reply by “Jet Volare”:

And Extinction Rebellion agreed with the indisputably accurate statement of Jet Volare, right?

Wrong.

XR reprimanded Jet Volare:

“Shame”? In what way did Jet Volare “shame” or attempt to “shame” DW Croft?

That is a rhetorical question. Jet Volare very clearly did nothing of the sort.

XR takes positions on all sorts of things: fossil fuels, air travel, fracking, etc. If Jet Volare engaged in shaming, then so does XR — pretty much all of the time, starting with the opening post, where, if presenting facts constitutes “shaming,” they “shamed” people who like chocolate.

Jet Volare responded:

I shared this all with longtime macrobiotic teacher and ecologist, and vegan, Bill Tara, author of Eating As If All Life MattersandNatural Body Natural Mind. I quote his reply to me in part:

The cognitive dissonance is ringing loud and clear. The corporate givers that fund the big environmental NGO’s are very nervous about any shifts in the buying habits of “consumers” (formerly known as people). Neo-Liberal groups want to keep everyone in the marketplace as defined by them. A shift in food habits would not only produce huge positive environmental results but would also start an enormous shift in the world food web (the biggest single financial sector). The sponsoring funds that support all the big environmental NGO’s do not want the system to change and they don’t want people to really act on their own buying habits — they want controllable solutions like carbon trading, high tech energy solutions and fake meat.

Tara’s comments are spot on.

It seems that these days, expressing a position, however civilly and however well documented, can be met with the silly claim that the person promoting the position is “shaming” anyone who disagrees but has nothing of substance to say in response.

And that is exactly what happened here. XR has nothing to say to the claim that we need to be promoting a widespread transition to a vegan diet as a central part of our strategy to avert climate catastrophe. So they claim that those who present the fact that animal agriculture is an ecological disaster are “sham[ing]” those who disagree but have no substantive grounds for their disagreement — except, perhaps, that promoting a vegan diet may have a negative impact on fundraising and support from the NGO/corporate community.

It’s a shame. And it’s shameful.

Postscript added May 6, 2019: I watched a video of an XR founder, Roger Hallam. Hallam stated that XR was a group that “really wanted to get stuff done” but that there are those who sacrifice “political effectiveness” for a “pure approach” and “don’t want to get things done.” They just want perfection. They will “grind…down” the supposedly politically effective efforts of groups like XR. He identified “extreme vegans,” “the hard left,” and “extreme intersectionalists” as in the problematic category. He claimed that “extreme vegans” take the position that “you can’t have a movement until everyone is vegan in the movement.”

First of all, Abolitionists do not maintain that we cannot have a movement until everyone is vegan. Abolitionists maintain that the animal movement ought to take the position that if animals matter morally, we cannot justify exploiting them, however “humanely” we claim to do so. If animals matter morally, we have a moral obligation to be vegan. The movement is a movement to promote that idea in creative, nonviolent ways.

Second, Hallam’s position is no different from the large animal charities, which claim that we need to promote “happy” exploitation or “reducetarianism” (or whatever) to be “effective” rather than be “purists” who promote veganism. That is nonsense. It not only does not work as a matter of moral theory; it does not work as a matter of practicality. A movement that promotes “happy” exploitation is never going to get beyond that.

It is clear that XR is all about greenwashing with respect to climate change. I am not surprised that Hallam promotes humane washing where animals are concerned.

The bottom line XR is hostile to veganism on different grounds, none of which is valid. If you take veganism seriously for moral reasons or ecological reasons (or, hopefully, both), you should be aware that XR doesn’t.

Originally published on Medium.

An Open Letter to Caroline Lucas, M.P., Jonathan Bartley, and Siân Berry

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23 April 2019

Caroline P. Lucas
Member of Parliament
Jonathan Bartley
Siân Berry
Co-Leaders of the Green Party of England and Wales

Dear Caroline P. Lucas, Jonathan Bartley, and Siân Berry:

We are facing a climate catastrophe. The United Nations estimates that we have about twelve years to act to avert this catastrophe.

I know that you appreciate the urgency of the situation. But I do not understand why the Green Party is not advocating a widespread transition to a vegan diet as necessary to avert climate catastrophe.

The scientific evidence is about as clear as it could possibly be. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than all transport exhaust.

According to Worldwatch Institute, animal agriculture is responsible for 51% of greenhouse gasses.

These figures do not take account other environmental impacts of animal agriculture, such as the amount of water required to provide animal products relative to the amount required to produce plants. A study from Cornell University states that one kilogram of animal protein requires about 100 times more water than does 1 kilogram of grain protein. According to another, more recent study, one kilogram of beef requires 15,415 liters of water; sheep meat (lamb and mutton) 10,412 liters; pork 5,988 liters; and chicken 4,325 liters. A kilogram of apples requires 822 liters of water; bananas 790 liters; cabbage 237 liters; tomatoes 214 liters; potatoes 287 liters; and rice 2,497 liters. Between 1,000 to 2,000 gallons of water are needed to produce a gallon of milk.

Recent work at Oxford has made clear that a vegan diet is the single most significant thing we can do to avert climate catastrophe. One of those involved in that work, Dr. Joseph Poore, stated: “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use.” He added that going vegan “is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.”

A recent study by Harvard University showed that UK would be able to sustain itself and combat climate change by returning land used for animal agriculture back to forest: “[c]onverting land currently used for grazing and growing animal feed crops back to forest could soak up 12 years’ carbon emissions.”

I understand that you might be inclined to say what many environmentalists say about this issue: “Of course, we must reduce our intake of meat.” You might then discuss the importance of “reducetarian” efforts.

But that can’t work.

First of all, it’s not just meat that is the environmental culprit. Dairy also has significant adverse environmental impacts. Second, we are not talking about “reducetarianism” as that term is normally used to support measures like “Meatless Monday” or “Vegan before Six.” Another Oxford research team found that massive reductions of meat consumption was necessary to avert climate catastrophe. We are talking about everyone eating 75% less beef, 90% less pork and half the number of eggs.

Now when you consider that many people aren’t going to reduce at all, much less reduce by those sorts of percentages, it becomes important that those of us who do care and want to avert climate catastrophe to eliminate completely these ecologically devastating products and try to persuade everyone we can to do likewise.

I may be missing something and, if that is the case, I apologize sincerely. But when I went to the Green Party website, I was unable to find your promoting veganism as any sort of necessity. In the sections on animal rights and food and agriculture, you talk about reducing the consumption of animal products, eliminating intensive farming in favor of more “sustainable” farming, and making “vegetarian and vegan” food more available. But there is no statement that I was able to find informing people that a widespread transition to veganism was, in effect, necessary to avert climate catastrophe and calling on people to transition to a vegan diet as a crucial part of a survival strategy.

Intensive farms are, indeed, an environmental nightmare for many reasons. But “sustainability” solves nothing. “Sustainable” grazing animals may consume less grain but they drink more water because they are more active; they still produce methane gas; and they require more grazing land. Locally produced animal products have a much greater environmental impact than plants that have been grown somewhere else. According to a study in Environmental Science and Technology, transportation accounts for only 11% of the carbon footprint of food with 83% attributable to production. So the idea that you’re doing more for the environment by eating animal products produced locally rather than imported vegetables is just wrong.

We really can’t get away from a simple fact: if we want to avert climate catastrophe, we are going to need a widespread transition — sooner rather than later — to a vegan diet.

Let me say that I think that there are other compelling reasons to go vegan that follow from Green Party policies. For example, social justice is an important part of your philosophy. The Cornell study found that livestock in the United States consume 7 times as much grain as is consumed by the entire U.S. human population and the grains fed to U.S. livestock could feed 840 million humans who had a plant-based diet. How can we justify consuming animals and animal products when we could feed many, many more people if we consumed the plants directly rather than feeding them to animals? How can we possibly justify animal agriculture as a practice when, in addition to the ecological destruction it causes, it involves such a horribly inefficient — and unjust — use of resources?

The Green Party opposes the the exploitation of animals for human pleasure, such as in zoos, circuses, or racing. I assume that is the case because you accept that it is wrong to impose unnecessary suffering and death on animals. But how is palate pleasure any different morally from any other pleasure? We do not need to eat animals for optimal health. Indeed, The U.K. National Health Service says that a sensible vegan diet can be “very healthy,” while mainstream health care professionals all over the world are increasingly taking the position that animal products are detrimental to human health. In any event, using animals for food is no more “necessary” than using them for sport or other “entertainment.”

But these involve other considerations. For right now, I am focusing on one and only one thing: the fact that we are facing a catastrophic situation and we have little time left to find a solution. We simply don’t have time to find, test, tinker with, and implement some “magic bullet” technological solution, such as a solar shield.

The idea that the government is going to empower “Citizens’ Assemblies” is as implausible as the idea that “Citizens’ Assemblies” will figure out a solution in time to avert catastrophe. Moreover, the fact that Extinction Rebellion is deliberately not promoting veganism based on the very confused idea that veganism involves the “personal” and they seek a “political” solution is compelling evidence that they just don’t get it. In any event, the idea that government is going to do anything significant in a fairly short period of time is fanciful at best.

The best hope we have is for entities like the Green Party to educate and to lead an effort to shift the paradigm. Nothing less is needed.

I am asking that the Green Party take the lead here and launch an educational campaign to explain to people that, if we want to avert a climate catastrophe, we have to eliminate animal products from our diet. This campaign should emphasize that this move is necessary to avoid climate catastrophe. Yes, people ought to do more; they ought to limit transport, recycle, etc. But they need to stop ignoring the elephant in the pantry as a primary matter.

I recognize that this will be unpopular with the public at first. But if the Green Party presents the facts and makes the case for necessity clearly, and emphasizes the already readily-available information to show people that a vegan diet can be varied, delicious, easy to prepare — and invariably cheaper than a diet that includes animal products — public opinion will change. Yes, the large corporations that profit from animal agriculture, as well as farming interests small and large, will object, and this may have a political downside. But isn’t survival worth the political cost?

The Green Party has a unique opportunity to lead in a situation where the cost of the absence of leadership will be disastrous. And if the Green Party takes the lead, the large environmental groups will follow. They will have no choice. The scientific information is clear: a widespread transition to veganism may not be sufficient to avert disaster, but it is certainly, in effect, necessary — and it is the very best shot we have.

We are at a crossroads. We need to decide now whether we are going to allow our continued anthropocentrism to result in an unfathomable disaster or whether we are going to stop the violence once and for all.

Thank you for your consideration of my views, which are my own. I would be pleased to help you in this effort in any way that I can.

Respectfully,

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University
Visiting Professor of Philosophy, University of Lincoln (UK)

Originally published on Medium

Vegan or Die: The Importance of Confronting Climate Change

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We are facing an imminent climate catastrophe. A recent study from researchers at the University of Oxford concluded that avoiding meat and dairy is the most effective way to reduce our inflicting harm on the earth. According to an article in The Guardian about this research:

“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.

This is not new news. We’ve known for a while now that animal agriculture is an ecological disaster. But it can no longer be doubted:A massive shift to veganism may not be sufficient to avert climate catastrophe but, as a practical matter, it is certainly necessary.

Adopting a vegan diet is the one thing we can do right now. It does not involve any technological innovation. It does not involve any legislation or government regulation.

So are serious environmental groups promoting veganism or, at least a vegan diet, as necessary? No. For the most part, these groups (1) criticize factory farms and promote “sustainable” and “local” animal products; and (2) promote reducetarianism.

Let’s be clear: both of these strategies — “sustainable” animal agriculture and reducetarianism — will not succeed in averting climate catastrophe.

Factory farms are, indeed, an environmental nightmare for many reasons. But “sustainability” solves nothing. “Sustainable” grazing animals may consume less grain but they drink more water because they are more active; they still produce methane gas; and they require more grazing land.

Locally produced animal products have a much greater environmental impact than plants that have been grown somewhere else. According to a study in Environmental Science and Technology, transportation accounts for only 11% of the carbon footprint of food with 83% attributable to production. So the idea that you’re doing more for the environment by eating animal products produced locally rather than imported vegetables is just wrong.

What about reducetarianism? Any reduction that is going to be meaningful from an environmental perspective is going to have to be severe and represent something much more approximating complete elimination. That is, “Meatless Monday,” “Vegan Before 6,” “flexitarianism,” and all of those other gimmicks are not going to cut it.

Moreover, preliminary data indicate that reducetarians don’t seem to reduce very much anyway. And even if many people really seriously reduced their intake of animal products, we know that many people won’t. Therefore, those of us who completely eliminate animal products are helping to deal with the deficit caused by the non-participation of others in that serious reduction.

But wait, what about the Extinction Rebellion (XR) folks? They’re “radical,” right? Surely, they’re willing to go vegan and to promote veganism? Apparently not. Like all of the other environmental groups, XR rejects veganism as any sort of imperative.

How can this be?

I have seen many comments from XR people to the effect that XR is deliberately not focusing on asking individuals to do anything other than make demands directed toward the government. For example, in response to one of my Facebook posts on the matter, someone who claims to be a full-time volunteer at Extinction Rebellion, and who admits to not being a vegan, replied:

XR resurrects the personal/political distinction that we all thought was rejected in the 1960s.

So it would be a “distraction” for people who are concerned about climate change to do the single most important thing anyone can do to reduce their impact on the earth? That is nonsense. It is analogous to saying that we should demand that government end discrimination but that it would be a “distraction” to ask people who are concerned about discrimination to stop engaging in racist, sexist, etc. behavior. XR apparently embraces the “personal/political” distinction that every progressive movement for the past 50 years has rejected because common sense tells us that you cannot ignore the role of the individual in creating and perpetuating social problems.

Let’s be clear: the personal is the political. The idea that we don’t see as relevant our own obligation to do the most effective thing that we can do and do easily as individuals because that supposedly isn’t “political” is beyond absurd. Going vegan and promoting veganism are political acts. Veganism is disruptive. It is not, as is claimed, a “distraction.” What is a distraction is claiming to be an eco-radical when, as a non-vegan, you are refusing to do the single best thing you could do to address the problem.

Moreover, even if we assume (unrealistically) that the government will respond favorably to XR demands and will do so before it’s too late, it makes no sense to say that we should ignore a strategy that represents the single biggest thing we can do to reduce our environmental impact.

It is wrong to analogize promoting a massive shift to a vegan diet with corporate or governmental attempts to deflect finding solutions to the public. Such a massive shift would be the exact opposite of what the government and corporations have promoted historically.

XR apparently wants to have the government recognize a “Citizens’ Assembly” that will democratically identify what steps need to be taken. We no more need an Assembly to tell us that veganism is necessary than we would need an Assembly to tell us that not smoking cigarettes is a necessary step to achieving healthy lungs.

The bottom line is clear: we are facing imminent disaster. If we really want to save the planet from climate catastrophe, we must promote a grassroots effort with a clear normative directive: stop eating animal products and adopt a vegan diet.

Originally published on Medium.