Californians:
Both the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle today carry superb opinion pieces that need responses. Will you send a quick appreciative note off to whichever paper is local to you, or on whichever topic moves you? Plus, the Los Angeles Times has two front-page stories that could use voices for animals in response.
The Los Angeles Times op-ed, by Arthur L. Caplan and Jeff Sebo, is about bans on cell-cultivated meat, when there should instead be bans on factory farmed meat. The San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, by Farm Sanctuary's Gene Baur, makes a similar point about factory farmed meat while coming at it from the angle of avian flu.
The Los Angeles Times front page stories are on DDT found in deep ocean fish, and on the closing of many Red Lobster locations.
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"Banning the Wrong Kind of Meat" is the title of the Los Angeles Times op-ed, page A13, by Caplan and Sebo. It is superb! It opens:
"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey recently signed into law bans against cell-cultivated meat in their states. They apparently find meat grown in a lab rather than stripped from a factory-farmed animal so repellent that its production, distribution or sale ought to be a misdemeanor punishable with jail time. Indeed, when DeSantis signed his ban, he said he was 'fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals.'
"You might expect such nonsense to be greeted with eye-rolling. Yet in a rare show of bipartisan support, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has jumped on the bandwagon. He spent the last week posting online that he backs a ban on cell-cultivated meat, and that the 'beauty of democracy' is that some people can join the 'pro-bio slop caucus,' whereas others can join him and DeSantis on the 'pro-ribeye one.'
"DeSantis, Ivey and Fetterman are wrong about cell-cultivated meat and about democracy. Cell-cultivated meat is one of several meat alternatives that has the potential to be part of a humane, healthful and environmentally sustainable future food system. And in the kind of democracy that our leaders claim to admire, you don't go around banning what you don't like, much less understand. New agricultural industries should be free to compete against the status quo. Talk of bans is akin to the buggy whip industry trying to ban cars in a fit of Luddite protectionism.
"Forget for a moment the horrific suffering that animals endure before they wind up as packaged bits in your grocery store. Just consider the environmental toll that it takes to feed the ribeye coalition. Raising cows and other animals for food consumes a huge amount of scarce land and water; an estimated 80% of agricultural land is used for animal grazing and animal feed production. It also produces a huge amount of waste, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, making it a leading contributor to deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change. This is the industry DeSantis, Ivey and Fetterman want to defend from disruption?"
The later in the piece we read:
"The production of cell-cultivated meat, plant-based meat and other such alternatives is nowhere near harmful enough to warrant a ban. Ironically, however, industrial animal agriculture is. It inflicts an enormous amount of harm on everyone whether we participate or not. The recent outbreak of avian flu in dairy herds is only one of countless dangerous externalities that plausibly warrant government intervention."
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As I noted above, that is closely related to the point made in Gene Baur's San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece today, which is titled, "Who to blame for bird flu’s spread? Real problem is factory farming." It's on page 12.
Baur notes:
"Overcrowding cows, pigs, chickens and other animals in filthy, stressful conditions while giving them enormous quantities of drugs and feeding them feces and dead animals creates a fertile ground for disease.
"Pigs are considered particularly liable to spread disease to humans because their bodies are capable of being infected by viruses from people and birds — creating a petri dish for mutations and viral spread between species that would otherwise be incapable of infecting one another."
He ends with:
"Industrial animal agriculture needs to be reformed and held accountable. Until that happens, we consumers can vote with our dollars and avoid buying animal products from factory farms."
That provides such a perfect opportunity for us to send letters that sing the praises of plant-based diets and/or vegan lifestyles!
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I asked, above, if you would please send off a quick appreciative letter to whichever paper is more local to you. Of course, if you feel more passionate about cell-cultivated meat bans than avian flu, or vice versa, choose the issue closer to your heart or area of expertise. Or write to both! Also, the Los Angeles Times has given us a great opportunity to send letters on behalf of fish and other sea creatures, with two front-page stories today. We have an article titled "DDT found in fish raises concerns," and an article titled "Shrimp Deal Meal ate up Profit," which tells us, "Red Lobster offered customers all-you-can-eat shrimp. That was a mistake." Those passionate about our oceans may wish to point out how big a mistake it was!
Please choose at least one of the four shared above for a very quick note that speaks for animals.
Yours and all animals',
Karen Dawn of DawnWatch
