Our Environmental Disaster Begins With Our Words

Circle the “pets” and cross out the “sources of protein”.

De Agostini via Getty Images

Earlier this month, I was impressed by the openness of the representatives of the sustainable pet industry, who recognized the enormous problem of their meat and the difficulty in solving that problem.

But even their frank language shows the myopia that prevents people from living in harmony with our environment. You can see this in statements like this one from Caitlyn Dudas, executive director of the Pet Sustainability Coalition: “We know that about 25 percent of the protein grown in the US is used in the feeding of pets. So that's a big impact. ”

We refer to one group of creatures as pets and another as proteins. In many cases, the creatures are both mammals, not very different in shape and consciousness, but dogs are domestic animals while cows and pigs are proteins. Chickens are proteins. Cats are pets, while fish and shrimp are seafood.

Creatures are categorized according to how they are exploited.

It is a subset of the mentality that views the environment as a treasure trove of “natural resources”. Many environmentalists rely on the term, but the term already includes the exploitation that puts these resources at risk. Natural resources are “materials or substances such as minerals, forests, water and fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for economic purposes”.

Animals

That's how it goes with animals. Before exploitation, notes the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, the word comes:

“I avoid talking about animals in general. For me there are no "animals". When you say "animals" you have already begun not understanding anything and have started to lock the animal in a cage, "said Derrida. “To categorize all living things that are not human is, first and foremost, a stupid gesture that is theoretically ridiculous and participates in the very real violence that humans exercise against animals. This leads to slaughterhouses, their industrial treatment, their consumption. "

The consumption is so great that 77 percent of all agricultural land is used to feed the creatures that serve as sources of protein. Their industrial treatment is so dirty that it causes more than a third of our greenhouse gas emissions. Meat is not only driving climate change, it is also driving deforestation and the collapse of biodiversity.

"The use of animals as a food technology is by far the most destructive technology in the world," said former Stanford University biochemist Patrick Brown, "and most likely the most destructive technology in human history."

In 2009, Brown devoted an academic sabbatical year to identifying the world's biggest problem and concluded that it was the use of animals as a food technology. He later founded Impossible Foods to solve it. Other companies have followed suit, targeting the pet food industry with their plant-based alternatives.

"Our mission is almost exactly the same as Impossible Foods, which is to reduce or eliminate factory farming with that huge environmental footprint," said Josh Errett, CFO of Weil animals, told Marketplace. “I mean, calling it a 'footprint' is too beautiful. It's an environmental disaster. "

Footprints, natural resources, protein sources: we have a lot of nice words to cover up our environmental disaster.

sustainability

This comment appears on a new Forbes channel called Sustainability. Many people have defined the word sustainable to mean something like "environmentally friendly," but it is instructive to ponder the original meaning of the term.

A sustainable activity can be continued indefinitely. Any unsustainable activity will stop.

The economics of extraction and exploitation - the fossil fuel industry, the meat industry, the consumption of materials - are unsustainable because the natural resources they use are limited and the ability of the atmosphere to absorb their pollution is limited. So these activities will stop.

The only questions are when and how: conscious or catastrophic?

MORE FROM FORBESSustainable pet industry is grappling with its meat problemBy Jeff McMahon

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