Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history
The fate of industrially farmed animals is one of the most pressing ethical questions of our time. Tens of billions of sentient beings, each with complex sensations and emotions, live and die on a production line
‘The march of human progress is strewn with dead animals.’ Photograph: John Eveson/Rex
‘The march of human progress is strewn with dead animals.’ Photograph: John Eveson/Rex
Broiler chickens, which are reared specifically for their meat, often suffer lameness due to overcrowding. Photograph: PA
Yuval Noah Harari-Friday 25 September 2015
Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms is perhaps the worst crime in history. The march of human progress is strewn with dead animals. Even tens of thousands of years ago, our stone age ancestors were already responsible for a series of ecological disasters. When the first humans reached Australia about 45,000 years ago, they quickly drove to extinction 90% of its large animals. This was the first significant impact that Homo sapiens had on the planet’s ecosystem. It was not the last.