Roughly 25 million farmed animals are killed in the United States every day. That is ten billion animals a year which are bred and slaughtered purely for human diet and enjoyment. Ten billion animals that, since birth, spend the majority of their lives enduring the harsh realities of U.S factory farms. The only way to seclude the killing is to minimize the intake of dairy and meat products. There have been countless campaigns to influence vegetarian diets, many of which end up overlooked. If something is not done, the number of animals suffering will only continue to increase, and the environment will continue to rapidly decline.
Factory farming refers to raising animals strictly indoors with a goal of maximizing their production at a minimal cost. An estimated 74%, according to “Our World in Data”, of farmed land animals globally are factory farmed. The average life of these billions of unlucky animals consists of a small cage, not big enough to turn around in nor comfortably lay down, where they will live from birth to their killing. While in the never ending captivity many animals turn to violence due to the stress and boredom these cages induce. For pigs this behavior could look like painfully biting each other and sometimes even cannibalism. To control these habits, farmers turn to cutting piglets’ tails and shaving down their teeth without the use of any painkillers. Among the cruel acts of factory farmers is artificial insemination. In the process female pigs are impregnated through artificial insemination several times a year in order to produce more piglets. Pigs not deemed fit for market sale are killed on the spot. In an article by Animal Equality they investigated a “quality assured” pig farm where they filmed, “piglets being hammered to death or slammed against the concrete floor.” Such events are not rare in the industry and happen to all types of animals living on factory farms. Male chicks that are unable to produce eggs are deemed useless by farmers and are discarded by being ground up alive through a series of conveyor belts.
The animals that make it through the horrifying events that take place in factory farms are anything but lucky. For these animals have now met the qualifications that they need to end up on a dinner plate. On the way to slaughter houses some animals don’t survive the journey alone, 47%, data found by Animal Ethics, of their deaths being due to stress of little ventilation and small enclosures alone. Upon their arrival different animals meet different ends. In the same article by ‘Animal Equality’ they shared the process as, “They are painfully hung upside down by their feet on a conveyor. They are carried to the water bath where their heads are dunked into electrified water. Their throats are then slit after exiting the bath.”
The fate to which millions of chickens inevitably face daily. The current legal ways of death for factory farmed animals are by maceration-a large high speed grinder, Asphyxiation-gassing animals until their unconscious, and Cervical dislocation-the neck is broken. After death these animals are sold to stores and restaurants across the nation to become the average American’s next meal. As long as people continue to act selfish billions of animals will continue to never see the sun, be mutilated upon birth, and endure the never ending torture which a meat eating diet causes.
However, animals in factories are not the only things being harmed by a carnivorous lifestyle. Livestock farming contributes to an estimated 20% of human caused greenhouse emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions simply put are emissions-such as gas from cars-that once released get trapped inside of the atmosphere causing it to heat up at an alarming rate. In particular the issue is caused by methane from cows. Globally the 1.5 billion cows raised for meat production emit at least 231 billion pounds of methane into the atmosphere each year. Methane is a chemical compound that cows release when they belch caused by the fermentation of their digestive process. The methane that cows release is 80 times more potent at warming the planet than carbon dioxide from cars and factories is. The effects are detrimental leading to a major increase of wildfires and pollution. Apart from eating animals aiding in making Earth literally catch on fire it is also a leading cause in deforestation. The more animals that are wanted for food, the more forests are cut down to meet the never ending need for meat. When forests are cut down not only do they release carbon dioxide-which furthers the climate change issue- but they also take the millions of species they house with them. The continuation of deforestation for things like meat consumption is taking away these species habitats causing several to go extinct. The need for change is now more important than ever.
