Eating to Save the Planet, Avoid Cruelty and Reduce the Risk of Pandemics

Transcript

• 00:00Good evening my friends.
• 00:02My name is Mark Mercurio.
• 00:04I'm the director of the Program
• 00:06for Biomedical Ethics at the Yale
• 00:08School of Medicine and Welcome to
• 00:10our Evening Ethics Seminar series
• 00:12in a very special session tonight.
• 00:14Doctor Professor Peter Singer from
• 00:17Princeton an from Australia and
• 00:19coming to us tonight from Australia.
• 00:22Tonight's session will be
• 00:23moderated by Doctor Sarah Hall.
• 00:25Dr Hall is associate director of our
• 00:28program and on behalf of Doctor Hull,
• 00:30another associate director,
• 00:31Jack use an R manager turn cold by I welcome
• 00:35you and thank you so much for coming tonight.
• 00:38The way these sessions will work is is
• 00:41that Sarah will introduce doctor professor,
• 00:43singer Ann.
• 00:44Professor single will speak for about
• 00:4645 minutes, plus or minus a little bit,
• 00:49and then they'll be a chance for a Q&A and.
• 00:52Doctor Hall will moderate that session,
• 00:56so Sarah Hall.
• 00:57Receive their education at Harvard and
• 00:59then pen and while at Penn getting her MD,
• 01:02she also got a Masters degree in bioethics,
• 01:05and she came to us at Yale to
• 01:07learn how to be a cardiologist.
• 01:10And she's now in our cardiology faculty.
• 01:12Ann is also service.
• 01:13Thankfully,
• 01:13as associate director of our program here,
• 01:16and is very well known within Yale for
• 01:18being one of our most prized teachers.
• 01:21And so I'm very happy to turn this
• 01:23session over tonight and the introduction
• 01:25of Professor Singer turn it over.
• 01:27Doctor Sarah Hall Sarah take it away.
• 01:30Thank you so much Doctor Mercurio
• 01:33and thank you professor Singer for
• 01:35coming to speak with us tonight.
• 01:37I know I'm not alone in saying that
• 01:39the topic that you're going to speak
• 01:42about is of incredible importance
• 01:44and to have you really lead us
• 01:46through this really important work.
• 01:48I think we're just really privileged
• 01:50and honored to have you.
• 01:52So just as a brief introduction for
• 01:54those of you who aren't familiar
• 01:56with Professor Singer and I assume
• 01:58that's a vanishingly small number,
• 02:00but.
• 02:01Peter Singer is sometimes called the world's
• 02:03most influential living philosopher.
• 02:04Although he thinks that if that is true,
• 02:07it doesn't say much for all the other
• 02:09living philosophers around today.
• 02:10He has also been called the father
• 02:12of the modern Animal Rights movement,
• 02:14even though he does not base his
• 02:16philosophical views on rights.
• 02:18Professor Singer is known especially
• 02:19for his work on the ethics of
• 02:21our Treatment of Animals and for
• 02:23his controversial critique of
• 02:24the Sanctity of Life doctrine,
• 02:26bioethics,
• 02:26as well As for his writings on the
• 02:29obligations of the affluent to aid
• 02:31those living in extreme poverty.
• 02:33He was born in Melbourne,
• 02:35an educated at the University of
• 02:37Melbourne and the University of Oxford.
• 02:39After teaching in England the USANA
• 02:41Australia in 1999 he paid he became
• 02:43Iroda Camp Professor Bioethics in
• 02:45the University Center for Human
• 02:47Values at Princeton,
• 02:48where he spends part of the year teaching,
• 02:51and he spends the rest and the other
• 02:53part of the year in Australia.
• 02:55He he first became well known
• 02:58internationally after the publication
• 02:59of Animal Liberation in 1975,
• 03:01and in 2011 time included animal Liberation
• 03:04on its all time list of the 100 Best
• 03:07Nonfiction Books published in English
• 03:09since their magazine began in 1923.
• 03:12Professor Singer has written Co,
• 03:14authored, edited or coedited more than
• 03:1650 books including practical ethics,
• 03:17the expanding circle.
• 03:18How are we to live?
• 03:20Rethinking life and death?
• 03:21The ethics of what we eat?
• 03:23The point of view of the universe.
• 03:25The most good you can do ethics in
• 03:28the real world, and utilitarianism.
• 03:30A very short introduction and his most
• 03:32recent book Why Vegan was just published
• 03:35in the Penguin Great Ideas series.
• 03:37And finally, his book,
• 03:38The Life You can Save First Publishing
• 03:412009 led him to found a nonprofit
• 03:45organization of the same name.
• 03:47So without further ado.
• 03:48Chester Singer take take it away
• 03:50and thank you so much again.
• 03:52Thank you very much darker Hal and
• 03:55of course thank you Doctor Mercurio
• 03:58for the invitation for this event.
• 04:00Very happy to have the opportunity to speak
• 04:03to you on these important issues relating
• 04:06to what we eat relating to questions about.
• 04:10The Treatment of Animals and the climate,
• 04:14and also now very relevant today.
• 04:17The question questions about
• 04:19the risks of further pandemics.
• 04:22So what I'm going to do is to
• 04:26share my screen with you now and.
• 04:30To show you some slides as we
• 04:32go through this topic.
• 04:34And let me just. Bring that up.
• 04:38I need to.
• 04:41Change that just a minute.
• 04:47Trips that went too far.
• 04:50OK, there we are. So.
• 04:54As I say, we're going to talk
• 04:57about these three topics,
• 04:59and I'm going to start with
• 05:01questions about ethics and animals.
• 05:03I think this is the area in which
• 05:05perhaps I have the most to contribute
• 05:08specifically from the point of view
• 05:10of ethics and ethical argument,
• 05:13rather than questions about facts,
• 05:14which of course connect two questions
• 05:17about ethics and what we ought to do.
• 05:20But that's why I will begin with
• 05:23issues about ethics and animals.
• 05:25As was mentioned, I've put forward
• 05:27in my book Animal Liberation,
• 05:30which was first published in 1975 and
• 05:33I'm happy to say is still in print.
• 05:36A different approach to the Treatment
• 05:39of Animals different to what I'm
• 05:41here calling today's mainstream view
• 05:44about the Treatment of Animals.
• 05:46This view is somewhat different from
• 05:48somewhat earlier views that have been held,
• 05:51which they denied that we had
• 05:53any obligations to animals.
• 05:55We can certainly find those views in
• 05:57the Western tradition, Descartes's view.
• 05:59The animals don't feel anything.
• 06:01Thomas Aquinas is view that we have
• 06:04no obligations to animals because
• 06:06Ascential E God gave us Dominion over them,
• 06:09and Aquinas interpreted that to suggest
• 06:12that we can do what we like with him.
• 06:15But today we are, I think,
• 06:18somewhat better attitudes to animals,
• 06:20but still rather limited.
• 06:23So,
• 06:23as I say,
• 06:24the mainstream view is that we
• 06:25ought to be kind to animals,
• 06:27and we ought to avoid being cruel to them.
• 06:31And as part of that,
• 06:33we think of wanton cruelty as bad.
• 06:36So the kinds of things that just
• 06:38people being cruel to animals for fun,
• 06:41setting fire to a cat to watch it in agony,
• 06:45beating a dog with a heavy stick.
• 06:48Leaving a horse in a field where there's no
• 06:51food and the horse is starting to starve.
• 06:53All of those things we have
• 06:55no doubt that they're bad.
• 06:57So animals interests.
• 06:59Do cat on this mainstream view,
• 07:01but they don't count comparably
• 07:03to our own interests.
• 07:05And they may be overwritten
• 07:08by our own interests.
• 07:09For example, our interest in eating them.
• 07:12Or perhaps our interest in using them
• 07:15in research and other complex issue,
• 07:18which is not really my subject today.
• 07:21Now, so the mainstream view, at least in.
• 07:26Couch is like the United
• 07:29States and Australia.
• 07:31English speaking cultures condemns.
• 07:33Sports like Bull fighting or or dog
• 07:37fighting would have been another example.
• 07:40Even more clearly,
• 07:41'cause we see that as wanton cruelty
• 07:45is making the bull suffer for sport.
• 07:48But in contrast.
• 07:50We don't condemn this now.
• 07:52You probably saying,
• 07:53well, what is this?
• 07:55So this is a procedure that is
• 07:57done to every virtually every egg
• 07:59laying hen in the United States,
• 08:01and pretty much every other country.
• 08:03It's called.
• 08:04Well,
• 08:04let me say it used to be
• 08:06called when I wrote about it in
• 08:09animal liberation in the 70s.
• 08:11It was called Debeaking and when
• 08:13I say that what it was called,
• 08:15you could pick up any farming Journal
• 08:17and that was what it was called.
• 08:20Now because of the.
• 08:21Poor PR image of that word.
• 08:24The industry refers to it as big trimming.
• 08:27In fact,
• 08:28what what you've got here is a newly
• 08:31hatched chick just a couple of days old,
• 08:35with the beak being stuck into a hot,
• 08:38knifer guillotine.
• 08:39To cut off the point of the beak.
• 08:43This is a painful procedure.
• 08:44Becausw chickens have a lot
• 08:46of nerves in their beak.
• 08:48When you think how a chicken
• 08:50behaves in the farmyard.
• 08:52She's using her beak to pick up
• 08:54food to detect what is edible,
• 08:57grain,
• 08:57say or what is a little Pebble
• 09:00that it can't eat.
• 09:02So it's clearly a lot of nerves there,
• 09:05and there's no doubt that this
• 09:07is a painful procedure for chicks
• 09:09without any pain relief being used.
• 09:12You might say, well, why is that being done?
• 09:15The reason that's being done is
• 09:18that combination of the breeding
• 09:20of chickens to lay a lot of eggs.
• 09:23Crowding of the confinement of chickens.
• 09:27Because laying hands are.
• 09:29Invariably confined,
• 09:30usually in small wire cages,
• 09:32sometimes on the floors of large sheds,
• 09:35but always very crowded and the
• 09:38more aggressive birds will under
• 09:40the stress of crowding,
• 09:42will attack the weaker birds,
• 09:44and once they draw blood,
• 09:46they start to get a bit crazy for it,
• 09:49and cannibalism occurs.
• 09:51So cutting off the point pointy
• 09:53part of the beak is standard
• 09:56procedure done to all hands.
• 09:58To prevent that happening,
• 10:00obviously in preference,
• 10:01economic preference to giving them
• 10:04more space and allowing them to sort
• 10:08themselves into natural sized flocks.
• 10:11OK, so that's just one example that
• 10:13I just at this stage want to use to
• 10:16contrast the way in which we think that
• 10:19some things are cruel and wrong and other
• 10:22things press we don't know about at all.
• 10:25Perhaps you didn't know
• 10:27about this until right now,
• 10:28but nevertheless it's happening.
• 10:30Everybody in the egg producing industry
• 10:33knows that it's happening and yet nothing
• 10:36is done to find alternatives to it.
• 10:38Alright, in animal liberation
• 10:40I use the term speciesism,
• 10:43Tameka parallel with racism and sexism.
• 10:46I define speciesism as a bias against other
• 10:49beings simply because of their species,
• 10:52just as we may see racism or sexism
• 10:56as biases against other beings
• 10:59simply because of their race or sex.
• 11:03And I argue that we should reject
• 11:06it as we reject.
• 11:07Hope I can take it for granted
• 11:10that you will reject the idea that
• 11:13being should be classified as.
• 11:15Superior or inferior is more important,
• 11:17less important that they're interested,
• 11:19count or not count on the basis
• 11:21of their race or sex.
• 11:23Uh, an eye,
• 11:24although of course I don't say
• 11:26that in every respect these these
• 11:29patterns of conduct are the same.
• 11:32They are not,
• 11:33but I do think that in all of these
• 11:36cases we have a dominant group of
• 11:39beings who want to use other beings or
• 11:43exploit other beings for their own benefit,
• 11:46and they develop an ideology
• 11:48according to which that exploitation
• 11:51or domination is justified.
• 11:53And we see that in the ideologies of racism,
• 11:56especially when it's not so blatant nowadays.
• 11:59But if you go back to the ideologies
• 12:02that justified slavery in the
• 12:0418th and early 19th century,
• 12:06you find those that ideology with sexism.
• 12:09Of course, much more, much more recently,
• 12:12part of our tradition.
• 12:14And only partially rejected Preps,
• 12:16but with spaces in them it's almost
• 12:18universal and we do take it for granted.
• 12:21So the point of this comparison is to
• 12:24say think about people who did also
• 12:26grow up in racist and sexist societies
• 12:29and took those biases for granted.
• 12:32And then think about your own assumptions
• 12:35that we are entitled to give more
• 12:38weight to our own interests than we do
• 12:41to the interests of non human animals.
• 12:44So what's the alternative to speciesism,
• 12:46I suggest it's equal consideration
• 12:48of interests.
• 12:49That is,
• 12:50we should give equal weight to similar
• 12:53interests irrespective of the species
• 12:55of the being whose interests they are.
• 12:58Just as if you substitute race or sex,
• 13:00I think you would also clearly
• 13:03agree with that statement.
• 13:04Now equal consideration of interests
• 13:07though doesn't mean that were
• 13:09beings have different interests.
• 13:11You should give them the same treatment
• 13:15or even necessarily give equal weight so.
• 13:19Here's a photo of some cows living
• 13:21in a organic on an organic farm.
• 13:24Reasonably good condition with their carves.
• 13:26Still with him, plenty to eat.
• 13:29As you can see, they do not share
• 13:31your interest in getting an education
• 13:33or in hearing discussions of the
• 13:36kind that we're having tonight,
• 13:38so clearly you have to look at the
• 13:41interest at different beings have.
• 13:44And sometimes they are more closely
• 13:46comparable with our interests,
• 13:47and sometimes they're not. Ah.
• 13:51And interest that is quite
• 13:53closely comparable with hours,
• 13:55I think is the interest
• 13:57in not experiencing pain,
• 13:58particularly severe pain, obviously,
• 13:59and generally not suffering,
• 14:01so those are the interest that I'll be
• 14:05referring to most in talking about the
• 14:08ethics of how we ought to treat animals.
• 14:11Now some people will say,
• 14:13but you know,
• 14:15whereas there aren't really any
• 14:17differences between people on the
• 14:18basis of their race or their sex,
• 14:20or at least know differences
• 14:23that matter morally.
• 14:24With humans there are these
• 14:26differences because only humans are.
• 14:28And now then we get a whole
• 14:30lot of terms to fill this in.
• 14:33Only humans are rational and
• 14:35the humans are self aware.
• 14:37Only humans are autonomous beings,
• 14:39self directing only humans are moral
• 14:41agents only humans used language.
• 14:44So.
• 14:48Do these things make a important
• 14:50moral difference?
• 14:51Sorry,
• 14:51I had another one there able to
• 14:54take part in a social contract that
• 14:56we're thinking of philosophers
• 14:58like John Rules for instance.
• 15:00Then that is an important part
• 15:03of moral status and so on.
• 15:05So what should we say about that?
• 15:08Well,
• 15:08in fact that was discussed along
• 15:10time ago by this man Jeremy Bentham,
• 15:13who's the founder of the School of
• 15:16English Utilitarians, Bentham was writing.
• 15:18These lines towards the end
• 15:20of the 18th century in fact,
• 15:23just after the French Revolution
• 15:25had broken out in 1789.
• 15:28And.
• 15:28In one of his works there he has
• 15:30a kind of prophetic footnote in
• 15:32which he notes that the French
• 15:35revolutionaries have discovered
• 15:36that the color of a man's skin
• 15:39is no reason for abandoning him
• 15:42to the Caprice of a tormentor.
• 15:44In other words,
• 15:45he was pointing to the fact that
• 15:47the French revolutionaries had
• 15:48declared that all human beings
• 15:50are free and had abolished slavery
• 15:52in the French colonies,
• 15:54was in fact later reintroduced
• 15:56after the revolution,
• 15:57but they did abolish it temporally.
• 15:59Anne Benton then goes on to make this,
• 16:02you know,
• 16:02quite remarkable comment for the
• 16:04time that maybe one day the day
• 16:07will come when we will also realize
• 16:09that weather being has a tail or
• 16:11fur is not a reason for allowing
• 16:13it to be tortured by others.
• 16:15And this was at a time you have
• 16:18to remember when there was no
• 16:20legislation anywhere in the world
• 16:22against cruelty to animals and
• 16:24not in England.
• 16:25And bent the mastic addressed it.
• 16:27Just this point we're making,
• 16:29he says he considers the idea
• 16:31that maybe humans can reason,
• 16:33or they can talk and animals can't.
• 16:36And he says the question is not
• 16:39can they reason? Or can they talk?
• 16:42But can they suffer? And then he asked.
• 16:45The question what else is it
• 16:47that you trace the insuperable line?
• 16:50In other words, what else is it
• 16:52that should mark this line between
• 16:54beings whose suffering matters?
• 16:56An beings who suffering doesn't
• 16:58matter and he went on to say.
• 17:01To show that it couldn't be
• 17:03simply reasoning or talk,
• 17:05he said a dog or a horse can reason better,
• 17:08and for that matter,
• 17:10he said is more conversable.
• 17:11You can have a better conversation with them.
• 17:14I'm not sure if there was a joke,
• 17:17but perhaps you can.
• 17:18Then a human of a day,
• 17:20a week or even a month old.
• 17:23So essentially saying if you wanted to
• 17:26draw the line on the base of reasoning
• 17:29abilities or the use of language,
• 17:32you would have to exclude newborn
• 17:34humans to that people might say.
• 17:37But humans newborn humans
• 17:39have the potential to reason,
• 17:41and that's certainly possible difference.
• 17:43Whether you can't potential is
• 17:45another question you need to think
• 17:47about the implications for abortion.
• 17:49If you're a liberal on abortion if you do,
• 17:53but.
• 17:53Bentham could have said that some
• 17:56humans don't have that potential.
• 17:58That is,
• 17:59they are born with such irreparable
• 18:01brain damage or with a genetic
• 18:04abnormality that they never will
• 18:06have the ability to reason or talk
• 18:08to a level that a human cannot.
• 18:11Sorry will ever let an animal cannot.
• 18:14And yet we certainly don't treat
• 18:16them the way we treat animals.
• 18:19We don't use them in the way we use animals,
• 18:22and we would be horrified if people did.
• 18:26So I think that is simply for evidence
• 18:28of our species bias that even when
• 18:31mental capacities are similar,
• 18:33or for that matter to the advantage
• 18:35of the non human animal,
• 18:37we still give more weight and
• 18:40have much more concern for the
• 18:43interests of the human beings.
• 18:45OK,
• 18:46so that's why I think the way we think about
• 18:49animals needs to be rethought and is wrong.
• 18:53But I do now want to move to.
• 18:56What is the big implication of that
• 18:58and what is the point of this talk?
• 19:01We're talking about food,
• 19:03and when we're concerned with cruelty to
• 19:06animals or inflicting suffering on animals,
• 19:08food is.
• 19:09The big issue,
• 19:10compare it for example with the
• 19:13number of animals killed in research.
• 19:15Let's say these are rather rough figures.
• 19:18We don't have any any good figures.
• 19:21But let's say we could say maybe
• 19:24100 million animals are used in
• 19:27research worldwide each year.
• 19:29Vertebrate land animals
• 19:30only not talking about fish,
• 19:33not talking about invertebrates.
• 19:35Vertebrate land animals according
• 19:37to the United Nations.
• 19:39Food and Agriculture organization.
• 19:42Is in excess of 74 billion.
• 19:46So if you do this comparison,
• 19:50food production uses 740
• 19:52times more animals with ad,
• 19:55including fish than research.
• 19:57And if you added fish in,
• 20:00it would be far more still,
• 20:03some estimates of the number of
• 20:05fish killed for human and human
• 20:07consumption go up to a trillion.
• 20:10So.
• 20:10This is by far larger problem and I
• 20:13think it's quite possible that actually
• 20:17the suffering of each individual
• 20:20animal in this group is greater in
• 20:23food production than in laboratories,
• 20:25although some some experiments may
• 20:27cause more severe short-term suffering,
• 20:29the long term suffering of confinement,
• 20:32basically lifelong suffering of
• 20:34confinement for these animals,
• 20:35and the stress of that and the
• 20:38deprivation of other things to do,
• 20:41I think, is worse.
• 20:44Here's a way of looking at our.
• 20:47I would say misappropriation of concern
• 20:50for animals as reflected by the amount
• 20:53of money we donate to animal charities.
• 20:56On the left you have this large bluish
• 21:00box showing the number of animals
• 21:02killed or used each year in the United
• 21:06States alone for various purposes,
• 21:09and the box is basically blueish
• 21:12because that's farm animals.
• 21:14If you look down in the right hand
• 21:16bottom corner you see a little
• 21:19square of a different color,
• 21:20which is mostly laboratory animals.
• 21:22Those used in research and you
• 21:24probably can't even see it.
• 21:26There are small green light.
• 21:28There's a small green line for the
• 21:30number of animals in shelters that is
• 21:32dogs and cats in pounds and shelters,
• 21:35and the number of animals killed
• 21:37for clothing, basically for fur,
• 21:39and it can hardly see those lines
• 21:41on this chat.
• 21:42Then you look at the box on the right.
• 21:45And you see that the green the
• 21:47this is now the amount of money
• 21:50donated to animal charities annually
• 21:53in the United States.
• 21:55The green is for money donated to shelters
• 21:58and it's what is at least 2/3 close
• 22:01to 3/4 perhaps of the money donated.
• 22:04And then there comes this big category other,
• 22:07which is probably mostly wild animals,
• 22:10endangered animals and so on.
• 22:12And farm animals is just
• 22:13a small part down here,
• 22:14so I think we an if you want more on this
• 22:17have a look at Animal Charity evaluators,
• 22:19by the way,
• 22:20which is a really good website
• 22:22for looking at one of the most
• 22:24effective charities to help animals.
• 22:26So we really have a complete false
• 22:28sense of where animal suffering is
• 22:31and what we should be doing about it,
• 22:34because there's no reason to think
• 22:37that pigs or cows or chickens for that
• 22:41matter either suffer less than dogs or cats.
• 22:44And getting to those animals.
• 22:46So let me show you some slides of this.
• 22:50This is a standard chicken
• 22:52producing unit vast,
• 22:53shared with maybe 20,000 chickens in it.
• 22:56As you see,
• 22:58extremely crowded,
• 22:58and that's where they will live.
• 23:01All all of their life,
• 23:03which is not that long because they
• 23:06are bred to grow extremely fast
• 23:08and in about 6 to 7 weeks there.
• 23:11Market weight and ready for slaughter,
• 23:14and that in itself. Is a problem.
• 23:18It's why Professor John Webster,
• 23:20who is a veterinary scientists and
• 23:22the founder of a major animal Welfare
• 23:25Research Center at the University of Bristol,
• 23:28says that chicken farming is the
• 23:30single most severe systematic
• 23:31example of man's inhumanity.
• 23:33To another Santee, an animal.
• 23:35So why is that?
• 23:36You might say, well,
• 23:38look,
• 23:38they get fed,
• 23:39you know, yes, they're very crowded.
• 23:41But why is it so bad?
• 23:44Well, it is because of this question
• 23:46about breeding them to grow so fast.
• 23:49Here's a photo of a chicken in one
• 23:51of these factory farms whose legs
• 23:54have collapsed under her weight.
• 23:56This is not a position in which
• 23:59chickens would normally rest.
• 24:00Why did the lakes collapse?
• 24:02Because she's nearly ready for
• 24:04market nearly fully grown.
• 24:06She's about six weeks old,
• 24:08but she weighs what market chickens do.
• 24:11Whatever that is maybe 4 pounds,
• 24:134 to 5 pounds, which is a completely
• 24:16unnatural wait for a bird of that.
• 24:19Age and her leg bones are still immature,
• 24:22so this is something that is known
• 24:24to happen regularly in chicken farms,
• 24:27and nobody is going to pick up
• 24:29this chicken an euthanize it.
• 24:31The chicken is going to die because
• 24:33the chicken can no longer walk,
• 24:36and this chicken is not anywhere
• 24:38near food or water.
• 24:39So this chicken is going to
• 24:41likely to die of thirst,
• 24:43or dehydration or starvation,
• 24:45because there are, as you saw,
• 24:47all of those 20,000 chickens in the shed.
• 24:50Nobody pays individual attention to the
• 24:52veterinary needs of individual chickens.
• 24:54It's just not worth it.
• 24:55Just doesn't pay their.
• 24:56They're not worth enough.
• 24:58So every maybe once a day someone will
• 25:00walk through the shed and pick up the
• 25:03corpses and collect them and take them out.
• 25:05But that's all it's going to happen.
• 25:08OK,
• 25:09here's a chart from a website called
• 25:11counting animals that shows the number
• 25:14of chickens who suffer to death.
• 25:16That is,
• 25:17who don't even make it to slaughter.
• 25:19Although,
• 25:20as I say there slaughtered at a very
• 25:23young age each year in the United States,
• 25:26so they die in the way that I just described,
• 25:29or they die from the stress of
• 25:32overcrowding or something of that sort.
• 25:34It's 100, nearly 140 million chickens
• 25:36every year or 380,000 chickens every day.
• 25:39Feel like you can count how many
• 25:41died wise while I've been talking
• 25:43that just dwarfs again the number
• 25:45of animals killed in shelters
• 25:47for an in laboratories each year,
• 25:50adding altogether.
• 25:52So those were meat chickens that I
• 25:54was talking about so called broilers.
• 25:57The chickens that I showed you earlier
• 25:59being debeaked the laying hens.
• 26:01You can see one in Frontier with
• 26:03a shortened off speak and that's
• 26:06the degree of crowding that we
• 26:08get in standard caged.
• 26:10Hence which is still predominantly
• 26:12the way of keeping hens laying
• 26:15eggs in the United States.
• 26:17Here you can see how the crowding leads
• 26:19to the birds feathers being rubbed
• 26:21off on her chest against the wire or
• 26:24against the other birds in the cage.
• 26:27And here you can see what one of
• 26:29these hands looks like if there's
• 26:31no extraordinary lucky hand and it's
• 26:33rescued by an animal organization
• 26:35rather than being taken to slaughter at
• 26:37the end of Leigh Ann is let out on grass,
• 26:41you can see how the feathers
• 26:43have been worn off
• 26:44almost everywhere, although this
• 26:46is still a relatively young bird,
• 26:48maybe 18 months old. Uh,
• 26:49and chickens can live seven or eight years,
• 26:52but because the right of way is dropping off,
• 26:55it's not economic to keep them.
• 26:57So that's why she would
• 26:58have been slaughtered.
• 26:59And now she's out on grass.
• 27:01An interesting Lee.
• 27:02As soon as she's out on grass,
• 27:04she starts chasing insects.
• 27:05She tries to build a nest from grass or straw
• 27:09before she lays her egg and she dust both.
• 27:11She gets to a dusty Patch and
• 27:13fluffs the dirt around her wings.
• 27:15These are all instincts that
• 27:17this bird has had all her life.
• 27:19And never been able to satisfy because
• 27:23she was on why are not on grass? OK,
• 27:27let's move quickly through to pig farming.
• 27:31See the confinement of pigs
• 27:33in a standard factory farm.
• 27:34Here crowded in small pens,
• 27:36again with nothing to do.
• 27:38Pigs a sensitive intelligent animals.
• 27:40If you read George Orwell's Animal Farm,
• 27:43you will know that he made
• 27:45them the boss of Animal Farm,
• 27:47perhaps because they are the
• 27:49smartest of the farm animals,
• 27:51and essentially they're bored there.
• 27:53They have nothing to do all day
• 27:56except eat and sleep, basically.
• 27:58And their mothers.
• 27:59The breeding size tend to get
• 28:01confined much more closely,
• 28:03often in narrow stores like this,
• 28:05where they can't even turn around there
• 28:07too big to turn around in these stalls.
• 28:10They can't walk more than
• 28:12maybe one Step 2 or throe,
• 28:14and even to lie down.
• 28:16They have to put their legs
• 28:18into the into the next animal.
• 28:20That's just all basically labor,
• 28:22saving there on metal slats so
• 28:24their manure can be hosed through.
• 28:26It's all to save costs and produce
• 28:29the product as cheaply as possible.
• 28:32His she is when she gives birth she's
• 28:34again confined in a different way.
• 28:36Faring crate and she becomes a
• 28:38kind of milking machine for her
• 28:40piglets until they're taken from
• 28:42her and she's given artificially
• 28:44given hormones to be going on heat
• 28:46again so she can be inseminated
• 28:48or put with a bore and the whole
• 28:51cycle goes around once again.
• 28:55Moving to cattle.
• 28:56This is a beef feed lot somewhere
• 28:59out in America's Midwest.
• 29:01It's a vast number of animals.
• 29:04Obviously, they're not as crowded
• 29:06as the animals you've seen,
• 29:08but it is unnatural conditions for them
• 29:11to be fed on corn rather than grass.
• 29:15It's also as I come to an immense
• 29:19methane producing factory.
• 29:21And it's a highly inefficient
• 29:23way of producing food as well,
• 29:24but we'll come to that.
• 29:27Now is Thanksgiving is approaching.
• 29:29I thought I would show you some turkeys,
• 29:32basically rather like chicken production.
• 29:35Again, maybe thousands of birds
• 29:37in a single shared, very crowded.
• 29:40But there is one difference,
• 29:42and that is that because Turkey turkeys
• 29:45have been bred to have a very large breast,
• 29:48they cannot mate naturally.
• 29:50So essentially every Turkey.
• 29:51There are some exceptions.
• 29:52The heritage breeds that are outside.
• 29:55It's tiny,
• 29:55tiny percentage of the turkeys
• 29:57Americans eat at Thanksgiving,
• 29:59but essentially every American Turkey has
• 30:00the result of artificial insemination,
• 30:03which means that there is somebody
• 30:04whose job it is to masturbate the
• 30:07male turkeys to collect sperm,
• 30:09and someone else whose job it is.
• 30:12To inject that sperm into the female Turkey,
• 30:15which is certainly a procedure
• 30:16that she's been through many
• 30:18times because he's a breeder, Ann.
• 30:20She hates, she struggles and tries to resist.
• 30:23While that is being done to her,
• 30:26understandably.
• 30:26So if you want a new topic of
• 30:29conversation around the Thanksgiving
• 30:31table and a couple of weeks,
• 30:33and if a Turkey is being served,
• 30:35you might ask if people know
• 30:37how that Turkey was produced.
• 30:41OK, I said a moment ago that that
• 30:44beef feed lot that you saw is a very
• 30:47inefficient way of producing food.
• 30:49Alot of people say when you raise the
• 30:52issue of factory farming they say, well,
• 30:55the world has a growing population.
• 30:57We need to do this to feed the world.
• 31:00But feeding grain to animals
• 31:02is a waste of food.
• 31:03It doesn't produce more food,
• 31:05it produces less food as you can see here.
• 31:08So the vast US grain crop
• 31:11we're feeding about 70% of it.
• 31:132 animals I either in this country
• 31:16or it's exported for that purpose.
• 31:19And on average it takes 6 pounds
• 31:22of feed protein to produce £1 of
• 31:26meat protein that can go as high
• 31:29as 12:50 ratio for some beef cattle
• 31:33and goes lower 4 bit lower for
• 31:36pigs and lower still for chickens.
• 31:39But in all of these cases we are
• 31:43producing more food and essentially.
• 31:46Putting it,
• 31:47feeding it into animals and
• 31:50getting less food at the end.
• 31:52And here's another way of showing
• 31:54this from AUS government source.
• 31:56How many pans of usable protein can
• 31:58you get per acre from different crops
• 32:00or different ways of producing food?
• 32:03And you see that the soybeans
• 32:05are right up the top on the left,
• 32:07then you get a lot of other grains.
• 32:10And the remarkable thing about
• 32:12this is it's protein, not calories,
• 32:14and you still even from corn.
• 32:16You get a lot more protein than
• 32:18you do from down in the bottom.
• 32:20The animal product, the milk,
• 32:22the eggs, the meat.
• 32:23For cones and West of all the beef.
• 32:28I now want to briefly move to
• 32:31questions about climate change,
• 32:33the saving the planet part of this equation,
• 32:38which is also really important. So.
• 32:41How do we reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
• 32:45I'm not going to make the case for why we
• 32:48need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
• 32:51I hope that you or understand that,
• 32:53and if not going,
• 32:55read one of the basic websites and I
• 32:57think that case is made very clearly.
• 33:00So one way of reducing your greenhouse
• 33:02gas emissions if you drive a car is to
• 33:05switch from your typical American car.
• 33:07Shown here is a Toyota Camry,
• 33:09sort of middle of the range American
• 33:11car in terms of fuel efficiency.
• 33:13To a hybrid, like a Prius,
• 33:16and if the average US driver doing that
• 33:19will save about a ton of carbon per year,
• 33:22truly a good thing to do.
• 33:24Significant part of your
• 33:26greenhouse gas emissions.
• 33:27But suppose that you the average
• 33:29euros consumer switches from
• 33:30the typical American diet,
• 33:32which is a diet pretty heavy and beef.
• 33:35To a vegan diet with the same number of
• 33:38calories you'll save even more carbon.
• 33:411 1/2 tons of carbon per year.
• 33:44So whether or not you become
• 33:46strictly vegan or you simply reduce
• 33:48the amount of beef in your diet,
• 33:51these are important steps towards
• 33:53reducing your greenhouse gas footprint.
• 33:57And how important is that agricultural
• 34:00footprint of greenhouse gases?
• 34:02The livestock footprint in particular.
• 34:04So here's a statement.
• 34:05A few years ago from the United Nations
• 34:08Food and Agriculture Organization.
• 34:11Which says the livestock sector generates
• 34:14more greenhouse gas emissions than
• 34:17the whole transport sector than all
• 34:20of the cars and planes and trains and
• 34:23ships and trucks around the world.
• 34:26I think that statement has
• 34:28stood out fairly well.
• 34:29It's being contested in both directions.
• 34:32Some people have said it's no, it's only 14%.
• 34:35I've seen that figure quoted.
• 34:36Some people have said it's a
• 34:38significant under estimate of the
• 34:40amount of greenhouse gas emissions
• 34:42generated through the livestock sector,
• 34:44but it's it's certainly quite
• 34:46a significant part of it, and.
• 34:48It's also a part that's easier
• 34:50to change really than changing
• 34:53the way we generate electricity.
• 34:55For example.
• 34:56Certainly something that we as
• 34:58individuals have much more control over.
• 35:01We can choose what we're going
• 35:03to eat from your next meal.
• 35:06If you like,
• 35:07you can't choose how you're going
• 35:09to power your house or your office,
• 35:12nor perhaps how you're going to travel.
• 35:16Quite as easily,
• 35:16unless you live in walking or
• 35:18biking range of your office.
• 35:20For example,
• 35:20it may be difficult to get there
• 35:22without using some fossil fuel may
• 35:24be difficult to heat your home.
• 35:26You may not have control over those things,
• 35:29but you do have control over what you eat.
• 35:33And here's another chart
• 35:35showing the different things.
• 35:36This is a little bit small.
• 35:39I'm not sure if we can make a little larger,
• 35:43but what you what we're looking at is the
• 35:46greenhouse gas emissions of various foods,
• 35:49and as you see here, the top line.
• 35:52If you can read that is beef so
• 35:55you can see how far that extends
• 35:58beyond any of the other bars.
• 36:00The green is what happens through
• 36:03land use change and the Brown is
• 36:07the methane production which is
• 36:09the major reason why beef is so
• 36:12carbon intensive or methane as
• 36:15carbon equivalent because of them.
• 36:17The methane they produce through
• 36:19their digestive process and lamb
• 36:22and mutton come next because
• 36:24they're also ruminant animals.
• 36:26They also.
• 36:27Produce methane during their digestion,
• 36:29so their next and cheese is the third rank,
• 36:33because that comes from cars who produce
• 36:37methane and beef taken from a dairy herd
• 36:41that is the male calves reared for beef.
• 36:44Is there, then you get a couple of things
• 36:48that are not a major part of Dyett.
• 36:52Really chocolate and coffee.
• 36:54And then you get other prawns and so on.
• 36:58Pig meat is down there.
• 37:00Poultry meat is a little bit lower.
• 37:02Eggs there an.
• 37:04Write down the very bottom line on
• 37:07this chart is ground nuts or peanuts,
• 37:10so certainly.
• 37:11Plants, plant foods and legumes
• 37:13far lower than the animal product.
• 37:15As this chart shows,
• 37:17this is taken from world in data.
• 37:21And sorry OK,
• 37:23one more slide.
• 37:24Also maybe a little small.
• 37:27Let me show you this.
• 37:29Is this really two chats so?
• 37:33As you're interested in medical issues,
• 37:35I thought I would show you that the chat
• 37:38on the left compares two different things.
• 37:42The horizontal axis is the relative
• 37:44risk of dying that comes from
• 37:46one extra serving per day of
• 37:48the food that you're looking at,
• 37:51and the vertical axis is the
• 37:53relative environmental impact.
• 37:54So the interesting thing is that.
• 37:57Red meat basically well along with eggs.
• 38:01The major things that increase
• 38:04your relative risk of dying
• 38:07with processed red meat,
• 38:10things like sausage being the worst.
• 38:13And unprocessed red meat
• 38:16and eggs being the next.
• 38:19And of course, unprocessed red meat.
• 38:21As I've already said,
• 38:22is the worst in terms of
• 38:24environmental impact and processed.
• 38:26Red meat is pretty bad as well,
• 38:28and then other animal products and
• 38:30you see that vegetables and nuts
• 38:33down the bottom for environmental
• 38:34impact and also very much to the
• 38:37left for relative risk of dying.
• 38:38In fact, eating more servings of them.
• 38:41Reduces your relative risk of dying,
• 38:44in contrast to the things to the
• 38:46right of that vertical line,
• 38:48which will increase your relative risk
• 38:51of dying. And are all animal product.
• 38:54And on the left hand side what
• 38:57you get is the US greenhouse gas
• 39:00footprints of different diets.
• 39:02So the average diet at the top is the worst.
• 39:07A diet with reduced quantities
• 39:09of meat is better.
• 39:10A diet with reduced quantities
• 39:12of meat and no dairy
• 39:15is better still.
• 39:16A vegetarian diet is better
• 39:18still a kind of flexible vegan
• 39:21diet where you're mostly vegan.
• 39:232/3 vegan is better still.
• 39:25And they can die comes out best of
• 39:29all in terms of greenhouse gases,
• 39:32so that's another powerful reason why we.
• 39:36Or to be shifting in that direction
• 39:38in the direction of a vegan diet.
• 39:40Whether or not you manage to be
• 39:42completely vegan or not, I think,
• 39:44is not really the critical ethical point.
• 39:46I think it's moving in that direction
• 39:48to reduce our greenhouse gas impact.
• 39:50And of course your complicity in the
• 39:53animal suffering that I've shown.
• 39:55Now very briefly,
• 39:56'cause I do want to make sure that
• 39:58I have time for questions just a
• 40:00minute so he's gone wrong there.
• 40:02OK, very briefly,
• 40:03I want to say a little bit about pandemics.
• 40:07Since we're in the middle of that situation.
• 40:10We we we know that the present pandemic has
• 40:17arisen from the transmission of viruses
• 40:22from non human wild animals to humans.
• 40:28It's believed that the Corona of the
• 40:31novel coronavirus has come from bats.
• 40:34That's the most likely and probably
• 40:36transmitted from bats preps to pangolins,
• 40:39which is a an animal that is eaten in China.
• 40:43Prize is a delicacy and it's thought,
• 40:46although it's not completely
• 40:48certain that the transmission came
• 40:50through the Wuhan wet market.
• 40:52If you're not familiar with water wet
• 40:54market is it's a market at which live
• 40:57animals are caged and held by stalls.
• 41:00The customer comes along points
• 41:02to an animal says,
• 41:03I'll have that one and the animals then
• 41:06slaughtered on the spot and the corpse of
• 41:09the animal is handed over to the customer,
• 41:12who is then going to eat it.
• 41:15Obviously,
• 41:16if you have many different species
• 41:18of animals as the Wuhan market has
• 41:21wild animals being caught because for
• 41:23one reason or another there regarded
• 41:26as something to be eaten in China,
• 41:28then you get different species mixing and
• 41:32you get you have humans around there too.
• 41:35So viruses can be transmitted
• 41:37from one to the other.
• 41:39You have a sensually the animals shitting
• 41:42all over the place on top of each other,
• 41:45and that's another source of.
• 41:47Poor hygiene,
• 41:48clearly.
• 41:49And then you have the animals being
• 41:53slaughtered on the same table and
• 41:56the blood running around it as well.
• 41:59So they're very unhygienic places
• 42:01and it's very likely that that's
• 42:04why we are suffering through the
• 42:08coronavirus pandemic with all of
• 42:10its enormous economic implications,
• 42:13as well as having killed well
• 42:16over a million people worldwide.
• 42:18238 thousand Americans, I think,
• 42:21was the last figure that I saw.
• 42:24So certainly we want to reduce
• 42:26the risks of pandemics and trying
• 42:29to get wet markets closed would
• 42:30be one way of doing that.
• 42:32But there is another risk as well.
• 42:36Which is closer to home and more within
• 42:38our power and that is factory farms again,
• 42:41so the previous pandemic to this
• 42:44novel coronavirus pandemic was
• 42:45the swine flu pandemic of 2009.
• 42:47You might say, how come I
• 42:49didn't hear much about that?
• 42:51Certainly, compared to the present pandemic,
• 42:53you didn't hear very much about it at all.
• 42:56The reason for that is that most of the
• 42:59people who killed were in low income
• 43:02countries didn't kill many Americans at all,
• 43:05but it did kill the.
• 43:06The estimates vary,
• 43:08but it certainly killed hundreds
• 43:09of thousands of people,
• 43:11and I think that you an estimate went up
• 43:13to over half a million or the movie was
• 43:16the CDC's or the World Health Organization.
• 43:19Can't remember there was an
• 43:21estimate of over half a million,
• 43:23so it killed quite a lot of people,
• 43:25and it appears to have begun an
• 43:28intensive pig farm in North Carolina,
• 43:30so it's possible that it began
• 43:32intensive pig farm in Mexico.
• 43:34I think there's was detected in both places.
• 43:36But scientists looking at factory farms
• 43:39have said if you wanted to create an
• 43:42environment for breathing new viruses.
• 43:45What would you do?
• 43:46You would take thousands of animals,
• 43:48you would crowd them together.
• 43:50Indoors you would.
• 43:51There would be stressed from the crowding.
• 43:53So their immune systems would be
• 43:56weakened and viruses would be able
• 43:58to spread rapidly through them.
• 43:59And then you would have humans who
• 44:02handle these animals in various ways to
• 44:04whom the viruses could be transferred.
• 44:06And that's exactly what we've done.
• 44:08Said we have already had the
• 44:11swine flu pandemic.
• 44:12They were also avian flu that
• 44:14came out of chicken factory farms.
• 44:17So if we're serious now that we've
• 44:19seen how devastating pandemics can be,
• 44:22both in terms of loss of human life,
• 44:25illness and damage to the economy,
• 44:27then we ought to be thinking
• 44:29seriously about ending factory
• 44:31farms and one more health issue not
• 44:34specifically related to pandemics,
• 44:35but possibly could be.
• 44:37Is that because these animals are?
• 44:39Stressed it's standard in many cases
• 44:42to routinely give them low doses of
• 44:46antibiotics to improve their survival
• 44:49and growth to keep them healthy.
• 44:52But that of course means
• 44:55that bacteria become.
• 44:56Develop resistance to the.
• 45:00Antibiotics, the animals reading,
• 45:02and that's a well known health risk.
• 45:05So we're not talking about viruses
• 45:07now 'cause we're talking bout
• 45:09antibiotics were talking about bacteria,
• 45:11but resistant bacteria are
• 45:12already a well known health risk.
• 45:14For example, Golden staff.
• 45:16And if we lose the ability of
• 45:18our antibiotics to control them,
• 45:20we could also be in very serious
• 45:23health problems.
• 45:24So with that I'm going to stop.
• 45:27I'm looking forward to your
• 45:28questions and discussions.
• 45:29Thank you.