[MUSIC - SOFT ROCK]
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you very much
for that warm welcome.
Thank you, Dean Wheeler, for
that generous introduction.
And thank you, Dr. Fink, for
the support of the Global
Institute on Sustainability.
And above all I want to
thank Tito Cavalieri, who
has made this possible through
a lot of hard work and contact.
We've been emailing for quite
while before it all came off.
But it has now, and I'm
delighted to be here
to speak with you.
So my topic, you know.
We don't usually see what
we eat as an ethical choice.
At least most people
in this society don't.
When we think about ethics,
it's not the first thing
that comes to mind.
What I want to argue
today is that what we eat
is, in fact, one of the most
important ethical choices
that we make in a range
of different ways.
And that we ought to reflect
on it because of the very
large implications that
our food choices have
in all those different ways.
So let's have a look at this.
If you look at
human evolution, you
see it as, eating is
just something as basic
as survival and reproduction.
And we've just eaten whatever
it is that we could eat,
that we could digest.
And now, of course,
we get to this point
where we're capable of
reflecting on our choices.
So this is one of
those basic things
that we didn't originally
reflect on and decide
what would be the
right thing to eat,
we just ate what was there.
And now I think we
come to the point
where we can say, well,
what's it all about?
What should I be eating?
Why is that a choice?
Well, here are some of
the different options
that we might want to consider
in terms of what we should eat.
We might consider, for example,
whether we should eat animals.
That's an ancient
question, but one
that is still very
much around-- in fact,
I would say, more central
than it has been ever before.
Not only questions
about being vegetarian,
but whether we should eat
any animal products at all,
whether we should go vegan.
And then, independently of
that, there are other choices.
We have now
possibilities of choosing
foods that are grown under
various constraints that
avoid the use of
pesticides and herbicides
and artificial
fertilizers and so on.
We need to ask, is that better?
Not just better for my health,
but is there in some way
an ethical preference
for food grown that way?
What about food that comes
from immediately around me?
From my local community,
rather than food
that is brought from hundreds
or thousands of miles away.
Is that better?
And if so, why?
And when we buy food, we're
interacting with other people
who've produced that food.
Is that interaction a fair one?
Are they getting
reasonable compensation
for what they're working
to grow and produce?
So that's a range
of the questions.
I will try and say
something about all of them,
but I'll be much
briefer about the ones
towards the bottom
of the list and focus
on some of the other ones.
So these are, then,
the ethical issues
that I'm going to
talk about most.
Questions about the
ethical status of animals
and how that relates
to our food choices.
That's something that
I've been writing
about for a very long time
now, since back in the 1970s
when I wrote a book
called Animal Liberation.
So I want to talk about
that and the choices
that it should lead to.
We're now more aware
than we were when I first
wrote that about questions
about the environmental impact
of what we eat.
And that has both local
concerns and larger concerns
relating to climate change,
greenhouse gas emissions.
So we need to look at that.
And just very
recently, of course,
you will have been reading
headlines about the world food
crisis.
And maybe some discussion
about whether our food
choices have some
impact on that,
and if so, what it might be.
So those are the ones that
I'll perhaps say most about.
OK, so coming now to the
questions about animals.
What I've got up here
are some expressions
of what I call the traditional
ethical view about animals,
that is, the one that I
think has been dominant
for much of the history
of Western civilization.
Perhaps not for the most
recent portion of that history,
but if we go back to look
at these thinkers who
span from ancient
Greece with Aristotle
through the Middle
Ages with Aquinas
and right up to the
end of the 18th century
with Immanuel Kant, what
we have in common here
is that the animals don't
count in themselves.
Aristotle says they
exist for the sake of us.
The brute beasts exists
for the sake of man.
Because he thinks
everything in the universe
exists for a purpose, except
rational human beings.
That's what the universe
really exists for,
and everything else
works up to that.
Of course, it was part
of Aristotle's view,
in fact, that even
less rational humans
exist for the sake of
more rational humans.
And since the Greeks
were supremely rational,
that entitled them to
enslave non-Greek barbarians.
So it's a hierarchy that
includes that as well.
We don't accept that bit of
it, but in some way, perhaps
at least implicitly,
deep in our psyche
the attitude is still there.
And Aquinas, as
well as accepting
a lot of Aristotle's
views, also brings
in a kind of divine
justification
that, in the
Judeo-Christian tradition,
we have for using animals.
The claim in Genesis that God
gave us dominion over them,
and the interpretation
of that as saying,
essentially, we can do
what we like with them.
It's not the only possible
interpretation, of course.
But that's certainly how Aquinas
and most Christian thinkers,
at least up, again, to
relatively recent times,
interpreted it.
And for Kant, it's a matter
of self-consciousness,
and everything else is
there merely as a means.
So that's the view,
as I say, which
for all of those centuries--
maybe two millennia-- dominated
our views and still, I think,
has this residual influence.
Even though, certainly,
if you really
asked your friends
and people around,
do they accept that animals
don't matter at all,
that they only exist
for human beings,
that the end of
everything is humans,
probably you wouldn't get
much agreement with that now.
You'd get something a little
different, which I'll come to.
Now I want to develop,
then, a different view which
says that animals matter.
And it's crucial for
my argument that we
accept that animals
are conscious,
that they can feel things.
And that, for example, therefore
they're different from plants.
Plants, I believe, don't feel
pain, whereas animals do.
And that's important
because that means that they
have subjective experiences.
And I think those
experiences matter
in something like the same way
that our experiences matter.
There are differences,
of course.
But if we can feel pain,
and that pain is bad
because we are in pain,
because we're suffering, just
for that reason, then it's
important to my argument
that animals can
feel pain as well.
And these are some
of the reasons
why I think we should believe
that that is the case.
Now, of course, when
I talk about animals
that's a huge continuum,
that's a huge spectrum.
We tend to think,
well, there's humans
and then there's animals.
As if all animals are more like
each other than any of them
are like humans.
But certainly in evolutionary
terms, in genetic terms,
we are very closely
related to chimpanzees.
In fact, we're more closely
related to chimpanzees
than chimpanzees
are to gorillas.
And compared to the gulf
between us and chimpanzees,
it's tiny when you compare
that between the gulf of, say,
chimpanzees and a lobster.
Huge gulf in evolutionary
terms and yet we
lump them all in as animals.
So I'm not concerned
to argue, necessarily,
that all animals are conscious.
Certainly if you get down
to the bottom of this list,
I don't think one
could plausibly
argue that clams and
oysters are conscious.
It's hard to see, with
their nervous system,
that they could be.
But certainly I would want to
argue that birds and mammals--
in fact, I would argue
that all vertebrates,
we can be pretty
confident, are conscious.
And probably some invertebrates.
If you've seen film, TV
programs, about octopus,
and I think there's
a video on YouTube
of an octopus opening a
jar, a screw-top jar which
has been put in its tank.
It does seem like they
are-- hard to believe
they are not conscious if
they can do those things.
But anyway, most of
what we're talking about
is going to be concerned
with vertebrates.
So that's where I think the
evidence for consciousness
is strong enough that I don't
really need to lay it out now.
But if somebody wants to
ask a question about it,
I'm happy to discuss that.
OK, so given that, then here is
the view that I would say today
has replaced what I call
the traditional view.
What we can call the
mainstream view today,
which is about, essentially,
being kind to animals
and avoiding cruelty to them.
But it doesn't have a clear
stance on how we make decisions
where their interests
are contrary to ours,
except that it seems
that in most cases
our interests are allowed to
outweigh their interests as
long as we're not
being actually cruel.
So that's why I say
here, deliberate cruelty
is considered
wrong on this view,
but our interests in eating
eggs or dairy products or meat
outweighs, it
seems, the interests
of animals in these areas.
And what I want to
do now is to show you
just what that means in terms
of the animals' interests
and how significant they are.
Because this is
something that it's still
the case that a lot of
people in our society
don't really know about.
So this is the question
I want to deal with.
If we really understand
what modern farming is like,
is it compatible with this
kindness/cruelty view?
With the view that
most people would
hold about how we're
entitled to treat animals?
And furthermore, is there an
ethical question about the fact
that most people still don't
know very much about it?
So I've got a quote
here which is not
from any kind of
animal rights activist,
or even a philosopher
like myself
sympathetic to those
issues, but someone
who is an expert in teaching
animal science at Oregon State
University.
Which really means that he
is teaching future producers
of animal products.
So it's somewhat
surprising, coming
from someone who you
would expect, therefore,
to be on-side with
animal production,
that he's prepared to say that
if the general public knew more
about how their animal
products are produced,
they might stop eating them.
They might be put off them.
And that surely is an
ethical question itself.
Is it ethical to make
it difficult for people
to know how their food is
produced for fear that they
won't want to eat it if they
do more know more about it?
Generally we think that
transparency, shining
a strong light on
the way things are,
is a good guarantee
that they will be more
ethically produced.
That's something that doesn't
seem to apply to the animal
industry.
Now in saying that,
I realize, of course,
that probably here in Arizona
you know more about it
than most Americans because you
had, less than two years ago,
a popular initiative
on a proposition
to ban the individual sow
crates and veal crates.
And I wasn't here in
the state at the time,
but I imagine that that
produced a certain amount
of additional information
and discussion.
So you may know at least
something more about it.
But that's only two
aspects, of course,
of intensive production.
So let's have a quick
run-through of the major forms
of animal production.
This is a standard
chicken production.
Broiler chickens,
as they're called.
Chickens for eating.
Raised for meat, in other
words, not egg production.
And you see this
vast shed stretching
into the distance, which may
hold 20,000 to 25,000 chickens
all in this one unit.
They get very densely
packed, as you can see.
If you ever walk into
one of these places the,
first thing you'll notice
is the ammonia in the air.
Because it's full of
chicken droppings,
not just from this
particular group of chickens.
These chickens, incidentally,
will be here about six weeks.
Chickens have been bred to grow
so fast now that essentially
people are eating overgrown
babies that have swelled up
to this normal chicken
size in six weeks,
because that's the most
profitable way to do it.
But the droppings
won't be cleaned out
after this batch is taken
off to the slaughterhouse.
Another batch will
be put in there,
and typically they may be
cleaned out only once a year
or something like that.
So the reek of ammonia from
the droppings is intense.
It stings your eyes.
It undoubtedly must sting
the eyes of the chickens
and can be there permanently,
get into your lungs as well.
But they're not there that long.
Because they grow so fast,
they put on weight so fast,
their bones are often not
mature enough to support them.
And it's not unusual
for chickens' legs
to collapse under
their weight as they
get close to slaughter age.
And then they will just
essentially lie on the floor
because they can't move anymore.
So if that happens, say,
here, they're too far away
from the water and food.
These pipes that you see
running down the shed
bring food and water.
And if they're in the middle
and their legs collapse,
they're just going to
die of dehydration.
Because there is
essentially nobody looking
after individual chickens.
25,000 in a shed, it's not
worth providing the labor that
could look after them.
Someone might walk
through the shed
and pick up the dead birds
so the carcasses don't
become too rotten, but that's
about as much as you would get.
In other words, zero in terms
of veterinary attention.
So that's chicken production.
That's another view, from
the chicken's-eye view,
more or less.
How densely packed they are.
And turkey production is
essentially much the same.
So think of that
next Thanksgiving,
with the additional wrinkle
that every one of these turkeys
is a result of
artificial insemination.
Turkeys have been bred
with such large breasts
that they can no
longer mate naturally.
So there's an interesting topic
for your next Thanksgiving
dinner.
Now-- whoops, sorry.
That one we skipped.
This is probably what
you do know about.
This is what has
been prohibited.
I think it's being phased in.
It will be prohibited
by the initiative
that Arizonans voted for
by a very clear majority,
to give sows room
to turn around.
Which they typically do
not have in factory farms.
But although you prohibit
that in this state, of course,
most of the pig products
that are eaten in this state
are not produced in Arizona.
Arizona is not one of the
great pig-producing states,
which no doubt made it easier
to get the initiative passed.
So that's how the breeding
sows are typically confined.
And this is the other
thing that you banned,
the intensive veal production.
Again, not produced in-state.
Most of it comes from Wisconsin,
states with a dairy industry.
But they're also confined so
that they can't move around.
That's another sow,
another shot of the sows.
You see that can't even fit
their legs into their stalls
when they lie down.
But this is still allowed here.
This is a farrowing
crate, so-called.
That is for when after
they've sow has given birth,
she is put into a different
kind of crate and the piglets,
therefore, just
suckle as she really
becomes a milking machine.
After having been
a breeding machine,
she's now a milking machine.
And she's confined in this way
because farmers fear that she
will crush her piglets.
If they gave her plenty of room,
and straw and things like that
to bed on, she wouldn't.
But straw costs money,
space costs money,
so this is a more economically
efficient way of doing it.
And these are the growing pigs.
Those little piglets
that you saw there,
after they're taken from their
mother after a few weeks,
they're put in pens like this.
And again, they
get very crowded.
There's not as many in each pen
as you have with the broiler
chickens, but they
are still indoors,
they're still in
these big sheds.
They're extremely crowded.
And there's no doubt,
of course, that pigs
are highly intelligent
animals who easily get bored
with nothing much to do.
And you can see there is
nothing to do for them,
except occasionally eat,
in these confined quarters.
Egg production.
This is a typical
battery egg unit,
where you can see the hens
are, again, very much confined.
Also, the droppings have
fallen to the sort of shelf
beneath the cages.
And these birds will be in
much longer than the broiler
chickens.
They're put in the
cages when they
are ready to lay, at
a few months of age,
and they'll be there
for a year to 18 months.
At that rate, they could
still live several years,
but their rate of
laying drops off,
so they're no use to
the egg producers,
so then they get taken out.
But for all that time,
they're in these cages,
they never get to go
outside, they never
get to stretch
their wings, even,
because the cages are too small
to stretch their wings in.
Here's another shot of how
tight the confinement is.
Incidentally, after
Arizona showed the way,
actually, Florida also had an
initiative on these things.
Arizona showed that
it was possible.
It was the first one to
include both veal crates
and sow stalls.
Some of the animal societies
are now moving on to California
at the next election,
2008 initiative,
and have included
the battery cage
in the forms of confinement
to be prohibited.
Which would be an
even bigger step,
because there are
19 million hens
in these sorts of cages in
California alone at the moment.
And of course, that
would send a message
across the whole country.
So if any of you
are from California
or have friends or family
in California or can spend
some time there between
now and November,
and you're interested
in this issue,
contact the animal
groups and see
if you can help educating
people about the initiative that
will be voted on.
OK, so now let's come to
the ethics about this.
What have we seen?
I could go into a
lot more detail,
but I would argue that these
methods of animal production
frustrate all the basic desires
that these animals have.
From very simple
physical desires,
like in the case of the
hens, stretching your wings,
or the instinct to dust
bathe, which is something
that hens still have.
And if you take one of those
hens that's never been out
in a field and give it somewhere
where it can dust bathe,
it'll very soon be dust
bathing like any hen that
grew up in a farmyard.
So these are instincts
that haven't gone,
but they're constantly thwarted.
Laying an egg in a
nest is another thing
that a hen will instinctively
do if you give it
some nesting material,
which she doesn't have,
of course, in the cage.
So I think these methods cause
suffering of various sorts
to conscious animals.
I think that it's
wrong to do that
without a good enough reason.
And I think these
methods do that.
We could nourish ourselves
adequately without doing this.
And there are many
examples in this society,
of course, of people who
do nourish themselves
without eating meat or without
eating animal products at all.
So it can be done.
Our enjoyment of
the way meat tastes
is not a good enough
reason for inflicting
this kind of suffering
on animals, I'd suggest,
and therefore we
should stop eating
the products of modern meat.
Or perhaps I should have said
modern animal production,
if we include egg
production there, too.
So that's a basic
argument which doesn't, I
think, require an ethical
view about the treatment
of animals that is
different from what I've
called the mainstream view.
So the mainstream view
says that we should not
be cruel to animals, we
should be kind to them.
It says, for example, that even
if we enjoy certain activities,
that may not justify
animal suffering.
So we had a lot of
publicity in this country
not that long ago about
dog fighting in relation
to Michael Vick's activities.
And I think the
overwhelming opinion
was that it's right that dog
fighting should be banned.
And if people had come
out and said, but look,
I really enjoy dog
fighting, I enjoy
dog fighting more than I
enjoy watching baseball,
so it should be OK to have dog
fighting even if it does cause
some suffering to the dogs.
We would have said, no, your
enjoyment of dog fighting
doesn't justify inflicting
that suffering on animals.
So I think this is
really a parallel case.
Some people will say
they enjoy eating meat
and they want to get it cheaply.
But that may not
justify the infliction
of the suffering on animals.
So that's the conclusion.
And note that this
conclusion actually
stops short of
saying that we ought
to be vegetarian or vegan.
It says we should stop eating
the products of modern animal
production, what I've been
showing you in previous slides.
I'll say a bit more about
whether one ought to go further
than that before I conclude.
OK, but now let
me switch to some
of the environmental questions
of animal production.
Firstly, there are local issues
which are worth attention.
A lot of different local issues.
This just shows water pollution.
This is a holding lagoon.
This is not actually
just going into a river,
this is an intensive farm.
But it goes into one of
these so-called lagoons.
I was always
puzzled when I first
saw the word lagoon
used in this context,
but that's what they call them.
Here's another slide
which talks about lagoons.
This is a overview of a
giant intensive pig farm.
You see these sheds here.
Each one of these
sites holds 8,000 hogs,
and there's more of them.
There's another set there.
There's another one over here.
There's probably one back
there behind that lagoon.
So it's a very large thing.
And these so-called lagoons
are holding, basically,
the pig manure with water.
And the idea is
that it should then
sprayed on surrounding
fields, but what
sometimes happens is
you get big storms
and the lagoons overflow.
It gets into the water supply.
Or you have so many hogs
in such a dense area
that the manure is
sprayed too thickly
on surrounding fields for
the field to be able to use.
Because it costs
money to transport it
further, and so when it
rains it runs off the field
and into the streams and
pollutes the streams.
So where there are these
intensive industries
there are big water
pollution problems.
And that's a
significant local issue.
There are other
environmental issues, too.
There's air pollution
for the people who
are close in the neighborhood.
There's questions
about water use,
which are very relevant here
in dry states like Arizona.
But I want to move--
sorry, that was too fast.
I want to move to
looking at what
is the most pressing
environmental issue that
faces us and the world today,
and that is climate change.
So here, I didn't show you
before, cattle production.
It's less intensive than pig,
egg, chicken production or veal
production, but it's
still highly intensive.
This is a cattle feedlot.
Again, a vast thing
stretching into the horizon.
Maybe 100,000 cattle
confined in this area.
They do have room to move
around and they are outside,
but it's still like
a pretty dull kind
of existence for them.
And they're being fed on
grain, grain and some soy,
which fattens them
up faster, but they
don't digest very well.
Also they produce
a lot of manure,
and the other thing is, cattle
produce a lot of methane.
Cattle produce methane
in the digestive process.
It's a gas.
Most of it actually,
contrary to myth,
comes from belching rather
than out of the other end.
But they do produce methane, and
methane is an extremely potent
greenhouse gas.
So we have to look at that.
We also have the
fact that, as I said,
it's not really an efficient
form of producing food
to feed grain or soy to
ruminant animals in particular.
And that has an impact
on greenhouse gases
as well, because we use a lot
of fertilizers to grow our grain
and transport our grain.
And so that contributes
to fossil fuel,
especially if you consider
that we are actually
wasting most of the food
value of this grain.
So here are some
figures on that.
We are actually feeding 70% of
the grain we produce to animals
rather than eating it directly.
Or now some of it, of course,
is going into biofuel, ethanol.
And I'll talk about
that in a moment.
But of this, we're only
getting back about one-sixth
of the food value.
Or actually less than
one-sixth if you're
talking about overall
food value, which
includes carbohydrate.
But since people
say, well, we eat
beef for its protein,
that's what's important.
Even if we just
focus on protein,
we are wasting a
lot of the protein
value of the grains and soy
we're feeding to cattle.
So it's a very
inefficient process.
Another way of looking
at that is by asking,
how much protein can you get
per acre if you use your acre
for different kinds of usage?
And the soybeans come out
by far the best, followed
by rice and corn, and then peas
and beans, the legumes, wheat.
And it's only these
bars down the bottom.
If you're at the back
and have trouble seeing,
this is milk here.
This is eggs.
This is meat, all types of meat,
and this is beef in particular.
So all of these columns
are the direct consumption
of plant products.
And these ones are
the meat production,
because of the wastefulness
of feeding grain to meat.
So that clearly has an
environmental impact.
Puts more stress
on the environment
that we need to
grow more in order
to get these amounts of food.
So let's come to this
issue about the recent food
crisis which has been in the
papers quite a lot recently.
You might have read
that there have
been food riots
in some countries,
that in a lot of countries
more food has to be distributed
because there suddenly seems
to be in many countries
a shortage of food.
I think the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization
says that there are 37
countries where there is now
a shortage of food, which is
a steep jump over just a year
or two ago.
And you might say, why?
So a lot of people
are blaming biofuels.
They're saying, well, if
the US, and to some extent
some other countries,
but it's mostly the US
as far as making biofuels from
grain is concerned, from food.
They are now feeding a lot of
corn into, basically, our gas
tanks by trying to
produce ethanol,
which is heavily subsidized
in the United States.
And that's devoted food
that could have been used
for humans to fuel production.
But in fact, although no
doubt that's a factor,
it's a relatively
small factor compared
to feeding grain for animals.
So here are the figures.
About 100 million tons of grain
is being used for biofuels as
compared to 756 million tons
which is being fed to animals.
So that's the larger factor.
And that's also something
that has been increasing
in recent years, particularly
as countries like China
become more prosperous, develop
a prosperous middle class,
and that middle class
wants to eat more meat.
Essentially following
the consumption
patterns that we've
had for a long time.
So I think that's a major
factor in the world food crisis,
and we could solve that
rather easily if, in fact, we
stopped or reduced
our feeding of food
we can eat directly to animals.
And that 756 million
tons, as I said,
doesn't even include the soy.
We're only talking
about grain here.
OK, let's go back
to climate change.
It's only relatively
recently that people
have started to talk about how
important an issue the food
we eat is in a contribution
to climate change.
Most people think,
have thought for years,
that it's things like transport
that are the big factors.
The fact that we drive
these gas-guzzling SUVs,
the fact that we all have our
own cars rather than using
public transport, and so on.
But as the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization
has said quite recently,
actually the livestock sector
is bigger than all transport,
both private and public
transport.
The livestock sector
is a bigger contributor
to greenhouse gas emissions
measured in CO2 equivalent.
So what you do is you
convert the methane
into carbon dioxide.
Much smaller amounts of methane
produced than carbon dioxide,
but it's a much more
potent greenhouse gas.
And that's why it comes
out as a higher figure.
So this is going
to be significant
if we want to deal with
this immense problem, which
I think is one of the
great challenges for us.
I think climate
change is already
with us, already happening.
We can't stop it but we can
at least try and mitigate it
so that it doesn't get
worse and it doesn't spiral
unpredictably out of hand with
things like changes in ocean
currents, rising sea levels.
On one model, for
example, rising sea levels
over the next century could put
a third of the state of Florida
underwater.
And that would be
much worse, even,
for other countries where
poorer people cannot move.
For example, Bangladesh
has tens of millions
of people living on land that
is no more than three meters
above sea level.
That's because it has all
these very fertile delta
regions that they farm,
but they're very low-lying.
So this is a major
crisis which will
affect hundreds of millions
of people, billions of people.
And this is one thing
we can do about it.
Changing our diet to make
it less livestock-intensive.
Here's another quote on this.
You may have heard
of Jim Hansen.
He's the NASA scientist who was
one of the first, right back
in the '80s, to warn about
human-caused climate change.
And essentially
what he predicted
in the 1980s in
testimony to Congress
and in scientific articles
has now come about.
In fact, global warming has
happened even more quickly
than he and other scientists
in the '80s realized.
It seems we have less time to
try and change than he said.
Now here's a statement
that will surprise
many people that he's made.
And that is that he thinks that
the global warming that we've
had for the last 40 years
was actually primarily
a consequence of the
activities producing
trace gases, CFCs and methane.
Now, CFCs are
chlorofluorocarbons,
the propellants that used
to be in aerosol cans.
And since the Montreal
Protocol was signed,
basically we've
stopped producing CFCs.
The industrialized nations
phased them out fairly rapidly.
And the developing
nations have almost
completed phasing them out.
So that was really,
essentially, to stop
the destruction
of the ozone layer
rather than to stop
climate change,
but we now understand
that they were playing
a big role in climate
change as well,
and it's very good that we have
been able to phase them out.
But that leaves methane
as the other thing
that Hansen says is mainly
produced this warning.
Now you might say,
why would that be?
Haven't we all been talking
about carbon dioxide?
And isn't that the
major greenhouse gas
that's produced most
of this global warming?
In the long run, it
is carbon dioxide.
Because carbon dioxide
stays up in the atmosphere
for a long time,
longer than methane.
So the carbon dioxide that was
produced by the first Model T
Ford that Henry Ford
produced is mostly
still up in the atmosphere and
still producing climate change.
But some of that, at
least, is a given.
The other thing to know
about the carbon dioxide is
the largest emitters
of carbon dioxide
are coal-burning
electricity plants.
Power plants.
And they have contributed
a lot of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere, and
that's why we're talking
about having to phase out coal.
But it's also a fact that
coal-burning power plants
produce what are called
aerosols, that is,
tiny little particulates
that go into the atmosphere.
And it's now being
learned that they actually
have a cooling effect.
They block out a little bit of
sunlight and cool the Earth.
So the particulate effect
and the carbon dioxide
to some extent cancel
each other out.
Now, that doesn't mean that
coal-fired power plants are OK.
We don't want to have more
particulates up there,
and eventually
the carbon dioxide
is going to continue to build in
a way that will be disastrous.
But in the short term, it's
the methane, Hansen says,
that has been doing
most of the warming.
Because the methane
is, if you like,
pure warming, whereas the
coal-fired power plants
are a bit more mixed.
And that also means
that the quickest way
to slow this warming would
be to cut out the methane.
Reduce it as far as possible.
Because that would like
a pure slowing effect.
Whereas if you just close
down all the coal-fired power
plants, you'd also reduce the
aerosols in the atmosphere.
And therefore that would
produce a bit of warming
that would balance the loss
of carbon dioxide, which
in the long run, though,
will cause more warming.
So that's something we can
do something about now,
and I think that's an important
point that most people still
don't really understand, the
crucial role that methane
from livestock has played.
And here's what the chair of
the IPCC, the International
Panel on Climate
Change, has also said.
Again, quite recently, at
the beginning of this year.
He said please eat less meat,
it's a very carbon intensive--
he perhaps wanted to say
carbon-equivalent intensive,
but that's a little difficult.
And he's admitted that
it's something the IPCC was
afraid to say earlier.
That it would meet such
political resistance,
because people want to eat
meat, that it didn't really
dare to say it.
But they now feel
that it's so important
that they have to say it
and have to make people
more aware of this as an issue.
So here's an example
that comes from a study
that a couple of researchers,
Gidon Eshel and Pam Martin,
then at the University
of Chicago, did.
This is what people
mostly think you
should do for climate change.
Switch your car
from your whatever
it is, I think that's the
sort of median car in terms
of greenhouse gas emissions
in America, a Toyota Camry.
Switch that to a Prius,
a fuel-efficient hybrid,
and you save a lot of carbon.
That is a good thing to
do, no question about that.
But by their
calculations, actually
this switch, from your
steak to a vegan diet,
will save even more
carbon per year.
So that's, if you
like, the summary.
50% more carbon by
switching your diet
than by switching your car.
That's the summary of the
climate change story on food.
Now, I promised that
I would come back
to the question of the ethics
of eating animal products that
are not produced by
factory farm production.
What I've put up
here is a position
called conscientious
omnivorism, developed
by Roger Scruton, a British
philosopher and writer.
And perhaps more of you
have heard of Michael Pollan
than of Roger Scruton.
Michael Pollan has had a
very popular bestselling
book called The
Omnivore's Dilemma that
came out a year or so ago.
And he takes a somewhat
similar line of argument.
So both Pollan and
Scruton would agree
with everything I've said
about factory farming,
about intensive farming.
But they would say there
are other ways of producing
animals.
We can produce animals in
ways that are conscientious,
that look after them.
This is a quote
from Scruton here,
about "when all duties
of care are fulfilled,
when the demands of
sympathy and piety--"
Scruton is taking a
religious viewpoint in a way,
but not one that gives
us absolute dominion
but rather says we have
stewardship over them
and we must respect them and we
must respect their true natures
if we are to use them.
Incidentally, since
we've just had
the visit of Pope Benedict
to this country, when
he was Cardinal Ratzinger
he made a somewhat similar
statement.
He made a statement
deploring factory farming,
which doesn't respect the
nature of God's creatures.
So you certainly
can come at this
from a religious
point of view that's
different from that
of Thomas Aquinas.
Various animal groups
have been trying
to persuade Pope Benedict
to repeat his statement now
that he's Pope rather
than just a cardinal.
So far with no luck,
but we can keep trying.
So if that happens, then what
we have, of course, still,
is this question that
the animals are killed.
At least when we're talking
about meat production, clearly.
And the question there has
to be, well, is that wrong?
And if, so why is that wrong?
And that's a difficult
question philosophically.
Because it requires us to ask,
well, why is killing wrong?
Why is killing in general wrong?
And there we've had
a lot of debate.
And people take different views
because in part it depends on
whether you think that
simply being human
is enough to make killing
wrong, and if you're not human
then it's not wrong, or
whether you think, as I do,
that you can't just say
that what species you are
determines whether
killing is wrong.
That just being a member of
one species rather than another
isn't really the kind of
morally significant property
that should determine the
wrongness of killing a being.
That it must depend
on something else.
That in a way, to use just a
biological line like species
would be a little
bit uncomfortably
close to using a biological
line like race or sex
to say one being is
superior to another.
It ought to be
something that's more
relevant to the actual
wrongness of killing than that.
Now what Scruton says is that
some kind of self-awareness
is what makes
killing really wrong,
because if a being
is self-aware,
you cut off its
plans for the future.
Whereas if it doesn't
even have the capacity
to understand that it
lives through time,
you can't do that.
So he says the killing
of a normal human being
is tragic because you prevent
that human being from achieving
what they would have
achieved or what they
might have wanted to achieve.
But animals don't have
achievements in that sense,
he says, and so killing
them is not tragic.
So if you accept
that view, and that
seems to be much more
defensible than just saying
it's a matter of species,
you could perhaps
accept some forms of farming.
So here, for example, is a much
better kind of beef production.
This is a farm quite near
Princeton in New Jersey,
where they don't send
them to the feedlot.
They keep them on
grass until the time
when they're slaughtered.
And I've visited this farm.
I couldn't say that the animals
are having a bad life there.
They've got grass, they've
got shelter in winter,
they can move around freely.
So yeah, you could
say that's not
a bad life, except for the
fact that they do get killed.
So if you're prepared to
take that view about killing
that Scruton does,
you could perhaps
defend this,
assuming, of course,
that you think
that cattle are not
self-aware beings in this sense.
And because I'm not
giving a full lecture
on ethics and animals, I'm not
going to go take that a lot
further today.
I think if we have
questions about it
we could certainly discuss it.
Let me say I think it's
not my preferred position
to say that conscientious
omnivorism is all right
for a variety of reasons.
It still regards animals
as things for us to use.
It still makes them
economic commodities,
which means that
corners are likely to be
cut in producing them cheaply.
But I think there is a
huge ethical step forward
if you do move from the
standard American diet, which
eats factory farmed
produce, to moving
towards conscientious
omnivorism if you're
really scrupulous about finding
the right producers to buy
from.
Because both in terms of animal
welfare and, in many ways,
in terms of the environment,
although these cattle
are certainly still
producing methane,
it's a preferable system.
And if we talk about
egg production-- this
is the same farm, also
produces some eggs-- again,
this is a good life for
the hens although they also
will be killed prematurely once
their rate of lay drops off.
But this is pretty
unusual, I have to say.
Don't be fooled by, if you
go into a supermarket or even
Whole Foods, and it
says cage-free eggs,
it doesn't mean that
they're being kept out
on grass like that.
This is genuinely free-range,
grass-raised egg production.
And that's an unusual system.
This little shed
here is on wheels.
You can move it around so
that the grass doesn't get
worn out in particular spots.
The hens go into it at night
to protect them from foxes
and things like that.
They lay their eggs
there in the morning
and then they're let
out onto the grass.
OK, let me just briefly, I said
I want to say a little bit.
I know we're running
on for time and I want
to give you time for questions.
But very briefly, should
we buy organic food?
Is that an ethical choice?
Well, ideally, organic food is
sustainable in the long run.
Although that becomes
more difficult
if you're talking about
organic beef production,
particularly for the
reasons I've said.
They're the biggest
methane producers.
Well, cattle and sheep are
the biggest methane producers.
So it's difficult to say that.
It's definitely better on
the environment because
of the lack of synthetic
fertilizers, herbicides,
pesticides.
No genetically modified
plants or animals used.
That's pretty controversial,
pretty debatable,
whether you think that's
an important point or not.
Whether you think GM
is safe or unsafe.
I think it does carry some
environmental hazards,
but so far nothing
really serious
has been tracked to
the use of GM products.
So you might say at least the
varieties we have out now seem
to be reasonably safe.
Only organically
grown feed, so that
also relates to how
the crops are produced.
And this last point.
You might think that if you're
getting organically produced
food the animals are outside
like in that last shot,
because that's what the USDA--
Department of Agriculture--
rules actually say, that they
should be able to go outside
in suitable weather.
But in practice I've found
that that's not actually
always the case.
Here's a big organic dairy, one
of the biggest in the country,
Aurora Organic Dairy.
Aurora is up near
Denver in Colorado.
And this is how they advertise
their organic dairy products.
You think that you're getting
milk from cows on grass.
This is what Aurora
Organic Dairy actually
looks like from the air.
These are sheds where the
cows are milked and fed.
They do get to go outside, so
the cows that are in this shed
get to go outside in this area.
But there's far too
many cows for there
to be any grass on that.
That's basically
just packed dirt.
Far too densely populated
for there to be grass.
So they're not really
out and on grass.
The only time these
cows get to go on grass
is when they're not giving milk.
For those of you who don't
know about dairy production,
you have to keep
making cows pregnant
and remove their calves
to get them to give milk.
Basically just like us.
They're mammals.
Women will produce milk, they'll
lactate after giving birth.
After a while that milk
will stop being produced.
For cows, to make them
give the quantities of milk
the dairy farmers
want, they make
them pregnant about every year.
And then they
remove their calves.
So during the time that they're
pregnant and not giving milk,
they will take them
away from this complex
and they'll put them on grass.
But while they're
actually producing
milk, which is most
of their lives,
they're not on grass at all.
So organic, you
have to be careful.
They're not all as
good as they should be.
And here's-- it's a bit dark--
here's an organic egg unit that
I visited in New Hampshire.
These birds are inside the
shed, they're not in cages.
Again, it's definitely
better than caged eggs.
But they're very densely packed.
And they had sort
of an open door
to a small dirt run
outside, but basically there
was no food put there, there
was no water put there.
It wasn't very
attractive to them.
And quite often the doors
were actually closed.
So I visited in the fall,
in October or something,
and although it was
quite pleasant outside,
the producer was
closing the doors
and said that they would be
closed until April or something
like that, because it was
too cold for them to go out.
But they would have gone out.
In England I've seen
birds go out in snow.
He's a bit worried
about that possibility
of getting avian flu from
contact with wild birds,
so I think that's his reason.
But they're not always outside,
so the one that I showed you
before is exceptional.
OK, very briefly, what's
the issue about local food?
Well, there's some
benefits to it.
Fewer food miles means
less fossil fuel.
Support your local economy,
build relationships
with your food producers,
that's all good.
But it's not always better
for the environment.
For example, here you
may not have enough water
to produce some local food.
That may be wasteful.
Other places in the
north of the country
don't have the warmth to produce
vegetables all year round.
So people may buy
locally, but they're
buying, say,
tomatoes in June that
have been raised in a hothouse
that was heated with oil.
Well, when you calculate
the amount of oil
that went into producing
that local food,
you might as well have
trucked them up from Florida.
You're not reducing the amount
of fossil fuel involved.
So it's not always better for
the environment to buy local.
You have to be
selective about that.
And finally, I
asked is it always
better to strengthen
the local economy?
Well, you might say, why not?
One reason might be that
your local economy might
be quite a prosperous
one and you
could buy from
developing countries
where people are much poorer
and need to get some income.
Much more vital for
them to get some income
than for local producers.
So if you can do that
in a way that gives them
a genuine return, you should.
And that's why we get finally to
this question about Fair Trade.
If you see this
Fair Trade label,
you know that arrangements
were made to try and give
a fair return to small local
producers, individual producers
or producers organized
in a cooperative.
Or if it's a larger
unit, producers
who allow their
workers to organize,
to unionize, and give them
basically decent, minimally
decent conditions.
So mostly Fair Trade in
this country at the moment
is still things like coffee and
chocolate, and bananas perhaps.
But in Europe there are many
more Fair Trade products
available, and I
think that's something
that is spreading here.
And I think it's worth
doing from a social justice
point of view.
It adds another dimension
to the ethical choices
you have about your food.
So let me more or less
stop it at that point
so we do have time
for questions.
Here's a very brief summary
of what I would say.
So one of the take-home points
for acting, by far the largest
is to avoid, CAFO stands for
concentrated animal feeding
operations.
In other words,
basically, factory farms.
Concentrate the animals
together and then you feed them.
So avoid products from
factory farms, I would say,
is the first and
clearest conclusion when
you look at ethical eating.
It's preferable to
buy organic, it's
preferable to be
vegetarian or vegan.
Failing that, to be a
conscientious omnivore.
It's preferable
to buy Fair Trade.
Sometimes it's preferable
to buy local, sometimes not.
That's certainly something
always worth thinking about.
But it will depend
on the circumstances.
OK, that's a very quick
run-through of a very large
area, I think you can see.
Thanks very much
for your attention
and I look forward to your
questions and discussion.
[APPLAUSE]
