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OUR ANIMALS, OURSELVES: To be, or not to be, that is the question … for animals on Earth

“There’s something happening here.”

The biological annihilation of wildlife in recent decades suggests a possible sixth mass extinction in the history of Earth.

Perhaps this is where I should add that we possess the solutions to the maladies of our planet and there still remains a small window of time to remedy the situation.

While extinction of species is a part of life and considered normal at a rate of one to five per year, the current rate is 100 times faster than it should be. The cause of this, is humanity disrespecting and desecrating Mother Nature. It’s not Earth that is necessarily in trouble but the human beings living on it. Earth is 4.5 billion years old. It has survived a variety of catastrophes … but the species on the earth have not. So along with the disappearing wildlife it’s also humanity’s health and survival that is at stake.

The loss of animals, specifically the larger (megafauna) has a domino effect on society. I’ve written about the result of annihilating the wolf population in our country in the early 1900s. The habitats of beavers, songbirds, ducks and fish were destroyed by the now over populated elk and deer who were overgrazing the grasslands damaging willows, cotton wood and aspen.

Of course, we’ve all been hearing about the importance of our bee population in recent years. Did you know that in 2010 honeybees and other insects contributed $29 billion to farm income in the USA and that they play an important role in decomposition and nutrient cycling maintaining a balanced ecosystem?

“The challenges and crises we face today are actually signs that spontaneous change is imminent. We are about to face our evolution,” said Bruce Lipton.

We have reached a planetary turning point. We need to make conscious decisions about how to bring it back into balance. Change is difficult because even though we know what needs to happen our subconscious is still dictating our thought processes so we carry on as usual.

A great quote that I’ve always loved by Albert Einstein reads: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

So how do we begin? I could talk about sustainable energy, recycling, or families having fewer children, but in the interest of animals let’s start with our animal food production and why we should consider a plant based diet.

Just today as I was driving to Malone I listened to a program on the meat processing plants that aren’t functioning due to the sickness of its factory workers from COVID-19 and as a result thousands of pigs will be euthanized. One farm owner interviewed sold 30,000 pigs a year! How can this possibly be a humane environment? Where does the waste end up? How much land is needed to grow their feed? It’s been reported that 27.1% of all medical antibiotics sold in the U.S. are for pig production leading to antibiotic resistance.

While I was listening to the program I drove by a farm that raised veal and saw hundreds of little huts with baby cows sticking their heads out, unable to move.

When they are born they are dragged away from their mothers so the farmer can sell the mother’s milk.

Besides the cruelty that exists in many of these environments consider the environmental effects. The global shift to a plant based diet would cut carbon emissions by two thirds! Plants take less land and return nutrients back to the soil. And 81% of our agricultural land is used to produce animal food products. If we used all that land to grow vegetables and grain, we could feed the entire world. Of course, this would all have to be accomplished without the use of pesticides that are not only unhealthy for us but destroy the soil. This is also land that could be returned to our wildlife. Most of the deforestation across the amazon rain forest can be linked to cattle ranching.

If you won’t stop eating meat than buy locally from one of the smaller, more humane farmers.

We’ve recently had to take a look at what is really essential in our lives to survive as a result of this pandemic. What we’ve learned about ourselves and our relationship to the world has opened up an opportunity to make the change.

It’s time to create a shift in humanity that will bring about more sustainability and longevity. The phrase, “We are in this together,” isn’t a new idiom but has been the message from the beginning of time and hopefully will be for centuries to come. There is still time if we act now but that time will pass in a blink of an eye and if we don’t rectify things, so will we.

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