Animal Agriculture: Our Health and Our Environment

  • Aysha Akhtar
Chapter
Part of the The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series book series (PMAES)

Abstract

Even if we could, no matter how unlikely, contain the pathogens running amok among factory farms, we are still faced with a much larger problem. This is because there are just too many animals being produced for food: animals grown for meat and dairy products account for 20 percent of the world’s terrestrial animal biomass.1 To sustain this massive production requires unprecedented quantities of water, energy, land, pesticides and feed crops (crops fed to farmed animals). In exchange for all these depleted resources, we get polluted water, air and land, and perhaps one of the most significant climate transformations in human history.

Keywords

Global Warming Animal Product Meat Consumption Percent Probability Factory Farm 
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Notes

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Copyright information

© Aysha Akhtar 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • Aysha Akhtar
    • 1
    • 2
  1. 1.Oxford Centre for Animal EthicsUK
  2. 2.US Food and Drug AdministrationNorth PotomacUSA

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