The Meat Crisis: The Ethical Dimensions of Animal Welfare, Climate Change, and Future Sustainability

Abstract

The Meat Crisis is not the lack of meat to feed an increasingly carnivorous human population, but the absolute impossibility of sustaining the earth if we do not begin to limit our consumption of animal products. This paper explains why there is a crisis and it also offers equitable policy options to deal with this crisis. Most human activities have an ethical dimension. In farming, there are ethical issues regarding care of the soil and natural resources. Livestock farming carries an extra ethical dimension as it deals with the lives and well-being of other sentient beings. In view of the threat from livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), it is important that agriculture adapts and mitigates its negative impacts. Some promote the view that industrialisation of livestock farming is the best way forward. However this proposed partial solution is myopic and totally fails to take account of the growing body of scientific research on the health and welfare of farm animals. The ethical question may be: Is it right to push farm animals to ever greater levels of productivity if this undermines their well-being? Seeking ever greater levels of productivity of meat and dairy products may also lead to adverse health effects on humans from over-consumption. Increasing the levels of obesity and allied diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, colon cancer and heart disease may place a great strain on the health systems of developing countries. In fact greater productivity and increased consumption are at the root of the unsustainable Meat Crisis. To overcome this crisis we need to seek ethical answers that promote agricultural systems in order to benefit the environment, protect the welfare of animals and produce health-giving products for our populations.