The Greatest Threat to Life on Earth -- George Monbiot

[housecat]

12. All good points. I would emphasize a few things that George Monbiot said directly or indirectly.

Factory farming animals -- cows, pigs, chickens -- has pros and cons.

First the cons:
1) As George Monbiot and others have shown, an unimaginable percentage of forests are destroyed for agriculture.
(and we no longer need wood for most of the things wood is still used for.)
2) Crops are grown to feed people and billions of farm animals; and many harvested crops are wasted.
3) We destroy biodiversity by robbing animals of their habitats.
4) We lose the natural world to feed cows and slaughter them in horrible ways.
5) Farmed animals (including fish) require that more of the natural environment is destroyed.
6) Animal feed crops waste water, which we are running out of.
7) Toxic chemicals are used to grow these crops and pollute what little water there is.
8) Eating red meat contributes to the astounding amount of heart disease in industriallized populations
9) Global warming could be cut significantly if there were no cows releasing gases into the air.
10) Global warming could be cut significantly if forests were left to absorb carbon.
11) Global warming could be cut significantly if oceans were protected and left to absorb carbon.
12) Many human populations starve while farmed animals eat, only to be eaten by wealthy human populations.


Pros of factory farming animals.
I can't think of any.