text stringlengths 0 1.71k |
|---|
The prodigious waste of grain that is fed to intensively |
farmed animals has already been mentioned in Chapters 3 and |
8. That, howe~er, is only part of the damage done by the animals |
we deliberately breed. The energy-intensive factory farming |
methods of the industrialised nations are responsible for the |
consumption of huge amounts of fossil fuels. Chemical fertilisers, |
used to grow the feed crops for cattle in feedlots and pigs |
and chickens kept indoors in sheds, produce nitrous oxide, another |
greenhouse gas. Then there is the loss of forests. Everywhere, |
forest dwellers, both human and non-human, are being |
pushed out. Since 1960, 25 per cent of the forests of Central |
America have been cleared for cattle. Once cleared, the poor |
soils will support grazing for a few years; then the graziers must |
move on. Scrub takes over the abandoned pasture, but the forest |
does not return. When the forests are cleared so that cattle can |
graze, billions of tons of carbon dioxide are released into the |
287 |
Pradical Ethics |
atmosphere. Finally, the world's cattle are thought to produce |
about 20 per cent of the methane released into the atmosphere, |
and methane traps twenty-five times as much heat from the |
sun as carbon dioxide. Factory farm manure also produces |
methane because, unlike manured dropped naturally in the |
fields, it does not decompose in the presence of oxygen. All of |
this amounts to a compelling reason, additional to that developed |
in Chapter 3, for a largely plant-based diet. |
The emphasis on frugality and a simple life does not mean |
that an environmental ethic frowns upon pleasure, but that the |
pleasures it values do not come from conspicuous consumption. |
They come, instead, from warm personal and sexual relationships, |
from being close to children and friends, from conversation, |
from sports and recreations that are in harmony with |
our environment instead of being harmful to it; from food that |
is not based on the exploitation of sentient creatures and does |
not cost the earth; from creative activity and work of all kinds; |
and (with due care so as not to ruin precisely what is valued) |
from appreciating the unspoiled places in the world in which |
we live. |
288 |
II |
ENDS AND MEANS |
WE have examined a number of ethical issues. We have |
seen that many accepted practices are open to serious |
objections. What ought we to do about it? This, too, is an ethical |
issue. Here are four actual cases to consider. |
Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist. During the war |
he ran a factory near Cracow, in Poland. At a time when Polish |
Jews were being sent to death camps, he assembled a labour |
force of Jewish inmates from concentration camps and the |
ghetto, considerably larger than his factory needed, and used |
several illegal strategems, including bribing members of the SS |
and other offi~ials, to protect them. He spent his own money |
to buy food on the black market to supplement the inadequate |
official rations he obtained for his workers. By these methods |
he was able to save the lives of about 1,200 people. |
In 1984 Dr Thomas Gennarelli directed a Head Injury |
Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. |
Members of an underground organisation called the Animal |
Liberation Front knew that Gennarelli inflicted head injuries |
on monkeys there and had been told that the monkeys underwent |
the experiments without being properly anaesthetised. |
They also knew that Gennarelli and his collaborators videotaped |
their experiments, to provide a record of what happened |
during and after the injuries they inflicted. They tried to obtain |
further information through official channels but were unsuccessful. |
In May 1984, they broke into the laboratory at |
289 |
Practical Ethics |
night and found thirty-four videotapes. They then systematically |
destroyed laboratory equipment before leaving with the |
tapes. The tapes clearly showed conscious monkeys struggling |
as they were being strapped to an operating table where head |
injuries were inflicted; they also showed experimenters mocking |
and laughing at frightened animals about to be used in |
experiments. When an edited version of the tapes was released |
to the public, it produced widespread revulsion. Nevertheless, |
it took a further year of protests, culminating in a sitin |
at the headquarters of the government organisation that |
was funding Gennarelli's experiments, before the u.s. Secretary |
of Health and Human Services ordered the experiments |
stopped. |
In 1986 Joan Andrews entered an abortion clinic in Pensacola, |
Florida, and damaged a suction abortion apparatus. She refused |
to be represented in court, on the grounds that 'the true |
defendants, the pre-born children, received none, and were |
killed without due process'. Andrews was a supporter of Operation |
Rescue, an American organisation that takes its name, |
and its authority to act, from the biblical injunction to 'rescue |
those who are drawn toward death and hold back those stumbling |
to the slaughter'. Operation Rescue uses civil disobedience |
to shut down abortion clinics, thus, in its view, 'sparing |
the lives of unborn babies whom the Rescuers are morally |
pledged to defend'. Participants block the doors of the clinics |
to prevent physicians and pregnant women seeking abortion |
from entering. They attempt to dissuade pregnant women from |
approaching the clinic by 'sidewalk counselling' on the nature |
of abortion. Gary Leber, an Operation Rescue director, has |
said that, between 1987 and 1989 alone, as a direct result of |
such 'rescue missions', at least 421 women changed their |
minds about having abortions, and the children of these |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.