Translator: Benjamín Sigurgeirsson Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
I'm confident that the Earth revolves around the Sun
and not the other way around.
Who else in this room thinks the same way? Let's show a raise of hands.
OK, that's pretty much all of you.
I am equally confident
that keeping the human diet practically void of animals
is the right thing to do.
It was not always so, though.
Just as there was a time
when people tried to undermine the Sun-centered view of the solar system,
there was a time when I didn't quite like vegetarians.
At best, I thought vegetarians were tolerable,
and at worst, they were just plain annoying.
And it is strange that this was my impression of vegetarians
since until recently,
I have only known one person who was a vegetarian,
one person who decided not to eat animals.
And she was fun and not annoying at all.
So I wondered why she was a vegetarian,
and it turned out that in the country where she is from,
animals raised for food have to endure horrid conditions and suffering.
So, I kind of understood why she was a vegetarian,
but it felt strangely comforting
that I did not have to resort to any such measures
since where I come from, animals are treated nicely.
Also, I had heard one time on the radio
that domesticated animals could not survive without us,
just as we could not survive without them.
From that perspective,
the human-animal relationship was a win-win situation.
However, since about five years ago,
I have reduced my amount of animal intake to such an extent
that today, it is practically zero.
Now, why would I do that?
Well, inspection shows that, frequently,
animals raised for food have to endure horrid conditions and suffering,
not just in my friends country, but in every country across the globe.
And there is more.
Raising animals for food is destructive to the environment,
and the leading cause of human death
are diseases which are associated with a poor diet, rich in animal products.
So the human-animal relationship is not a win-win situation,
it is a lose-lose-lose situation.
We are losing,
the animals are losing,
and the environment is losing.
These are the three pillars advocating the shift
from an animal-based diet towards a plant-based diet.
The first pillar: human health.
Current research strongly suggests
that if humans would shift towards a plant-based diet,
they would live longer,
and healthcare systems across the globe could be streamlined.
This is related to reduction in deadly, difficult and expensive diseases,
such as heart disease, diabetes and certain forms of cancer.
Given the likelihood of a better health on a plant-based diet,
it is an option that people should be encouraged to exercise more often.
Compared to eating animals,
eating plants is not only more likely to be more healthy,
it also has a much stronger ethical standpoint.
Which brings us to the center pillar: the animals.
The vast majority of animals raised for food
reside on factory farms.
And every single year, we kill over 60 billion land animals.
Out of these 60 billion land animals, 1.3 billion are pigs.
So, to sustain the demand for pig-eating humans,
these killings need to be maintained.
And to maintain these killings,
the first line of business is to make sure that the pigs
are giving birth to all the piglets that we kill every year.
So, through the centuries, female pigs, or sows,
have been bred and selected
to be able to give birth to as many offspring possible.
And today, each sow gives birth to 10-12 piglets, two times a year.
The days prior to giving birth and during lactation,
the sow is kept in a metal enclosure, called a gestation crate.
While in the gestation crate, the sow cannot move about,
not even turn around,
let alone make any meaningful contact with her piglets.
Soon after birth, the testicles of male piglets are removed,
allegedly to make their meat smell better when it is cooked.
And to avoid biting and being bitten,
some piglets have their tail and selected teeth removed as well.
With certainty, regardless of the conditions until then,
when the piglets are around three weeks old,
they are removed from the presence of their mother, forever.
During the rest of their short lives, they are kept in crowded places
to be fed and to grow with thousands of their kin
who are all destined for the same senseless fate.
Meanwhile, their mother is being prepared for her next pregnancy session.
To keep the sows constantly pregnant,
they are impregnated through artificial insemination, performed by humans.
The pig semen is also collected by human professional masturbators.
You can lookup "Pig semen collection," on YouTube, if you are interested.
So, even though pigs give birth to offspring all the time,
they never have sex.
And I guess most of us appreciate that pigs are sentient beings,
that can feel pleasure and pain, often in similar ways that we humans do.
Thus it seems inconsistent that losing an offspring,
which is arguably the most painful experience that humans have to endure,
is an experience that we carelessly inflict upon pigs, all the time.
Most pigs never breathe fresh air or walk under the bare blue sky,
and the only time they might see a glimpse of the sun
is when they are in a back of a truck being transported for slaughter.
What I have said here about pigs can without much difficulty
be adapted to fit the lives of other domesticated animals,
such as chicken or cows.
The third pillar: the environment.
The staggering amount of animals we raise for food
is having some dire consequences for the environment.
Consequences that were perhaps unforeseen at the time,
but have become so blatantly obvious at the present.
To put things in context, let's go twelve thousand years back in time.
Twelve thousand years ago, there were no domesticated animals,
and the combined weight of all large land animals
was around 300 million tons, out of which humans represented 1%.
Today, the total combined weight of all large land animals
is almost 1500 million tons,
five times the amount it was twelve thousand years ago.
Out of these 1500 million tons, more than 1100 are domesticated animals.
More than 300 are humans,
and wild animals represent only around 30 million tons.
So, we used to be 1% out of 300 million,
but today, along with our domesticated animals, we are 98% out of 1500 million.
That is a huge difference in a very short time.
So, with this picture in mind, three things emerge.
Number one: our domesticated animals eat a lot of food.
How come we are able to feed 1100 million tons of animals,
but we cannot prevent 10 million people from dying from malnutrition every year?
How come there are more people who die from eating too much,
then there are people who die from eating too little?
Number two: Our domesticated animals take up a lot of space.
To make space for our animals and the food we grow for them,
we cut down rain forest.
And when we cut down rain forest,
we are not only destroying the planet's defenses against carbon dioxide,
but we are also destroying the habitats of wild species and driving them extinct.
The main driver for species extinction is rain forest destruction,
and the main driver for rain forest destruction is animal agriculture -
mainly, cattle production.
Number three: Our domesticated animals release a lot of waste.
All of these animals shit, piss, fart, and burp.
And while all is bad for the environment,
it is the burp that is having the most damaging effect.
When ruminant animals, like cattle and sheep, burp,
they release methane, and apparently, they burp a lot.
And methane is a greenhouse gas
that is much more potent at heating the atmosphere
than even carbon dioxide.
Mainly because of ruminant animals,
the global release of greenhouse gases from animal agriculture is so enormous
that it is greater than from the whole transportation sector combined.
Now, reflecting upon these pillars may leave some of you with the idea
that there is something wrong with the human species.
That of all the species, it is the absolute worst.
And given the terms we set for the survival of billions animals,
it is not that hard to lose faith in humanity.
And it is not just how we treat non-human animals
that can deter us from a glimpse of hope.
We are also dealing with wars, refugee crises, climate change,
terrorists, nuclear threat, world hunger, and various forms of discrimination.
There are parts on earth
where women have little or no control over their lives or their bodies,
and there are parts on earth where people are being prosecuted
because they do not love or have sex in an orthodox way,
and every single year,
six million children die before they reach the age of five.
So, with this grim picture in mind, it seems reasonable to ask:
Will the human species ever make an effort
to change from an animal-based diet towards a plant-based diet?
Do we even have what it takes to make such a shift?
Well, I believe the answer is a resounding "yes,"
and let me tell you why.
It is mainly because of two things.
First, despite all our faults,
human beings have a great capacity for compassion,
and our compassion has been increasing, and it continues to increase.
Also, we have made some meaningful impact in the defense of animals.
So, many of the bad things humans do is blown out of proportion.
Human history clearly shows
that we are much more peaceful and less violent than we used to be.
There used to be a time
when encounters between two human tribes burst out in violent conflict.
We have come a long way since.
Today, we are over 7 billion human beings living in relative harmony.
Never before has there been so few wars,
and despite the media hype,
the terrorist threat is relatively minuscule.
Torture used to be at display for people's entertainment,
the death penalty has been abolished in many countries,
slavery has been outlawed,
and slowly but surely, since then,
discrimination based on race is no longer considered defensible.
The rights and empowerment of women
has seen a very positive and dramatic effect over the last century or two.
And the rights of homosexuals is improving,
notably, homosexuality was decriminalised in the United Kingdom, only in 1982.
A further testament to our altruistic behaviour
can be seen in how we donate money to help people who live in extreme poverty -
people we do not know and will never know.
Such altruistic behaviour seems impossible in other species.
And while it is true
that six million children die, every year, before they reach the age of five,
it was only 30 years ago when this number was 12 million.
Improvement in other poverty-related areas is evident as well.
So, it seems irrefutable
that human beings have a great capacity for compassion
and that our compassion is increasing.
And that gives us a good reason to be optimistic
that we can make the shift
from an animal-based diet towards a plant-based diet.
Also we have made some meaningful impact in the defense of animals.
Many countries now have laws that govern animals
where there used to be none.
Using these laws,
conditions for animals have improved,
perhaps most notably in the European Union.
But also, big American food companies have improved the conditions for their animals,
not because they were told to do so by the government,
but rather due to popular demand from their consumers.
Arguably, these efforts are not enough,
but they do show that when it comes to animal suffering,
that people are aware and that they do care.
Another impact in the defense of animals is the fact
that more and more people are deciding, for whatever reason,
to forgo animal products in their daily lives.
With an increase in demand for [plant] based products,
restaurants, supermarkets, entrepreneurs
are responding with an increase in supply and variety,
which in turn makes it even easier
for people to accept and choose a plant-based option.
Despite these positive things, the fact remains that factory farming
is one of the greatest problems facing the human race,
a problem of such proportions
that it affects the entire biosphere of the planet.
That is why it is genuinely important that as many people as possible
participate in the shift towards a plant-based diet.
If you take a look at the atrocities
that we have successfully and often proudly
eradicated from our civilized societies,
such as torture, slavery, death penalty, and discrimination,
and then look at what is happening with the animals we eat,
it does not take too much effort of our imagination to appreciate
that it is with the animals we eat
where torture takes place, where slavery prevails -
at it's very essence, it is discrimination.
Fellow human beings, it is high time
that we embrace non-human animals within our expanding moral circle.
It will bring unprecedented benefits to humans and other animals alike,
for generations to come.
(Applause)