In the Clean Meat book’s opening, Yuval Noah Harari wrote about the role of science and technology, something that most meat-eaters like me couldn’t internalize or even hear clearly before.

And that’s before the catastrophic risk of concentrated animal production, the fountainhead for pox viruses, avian flu, mad cow, and now swine fever. In the largest market, China, 55% of pigs died last year, and a quarter of all pigs on the planet. — today’s Reuters.

And now, coronavirus.

Nature abhors an overpopulation.

3 responses to “Yuval Noah Harari on Farm Animal Welfare”

  1. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    In contrast to the 1%-er cows we imagine factory farms to be… these were from our new-year’s 2020 hike in the Stanford foothillsGiving up Red MeatMore from the Clean Meat book, a summary of the Psychology of Meat ConsumptionPreach What You Practice: The Psychology of Meat Consumption

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  2. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Disease risk… I wrote that before the coronavirus.

    Current origin hypothesis: a meat market freak show: "China is full of similar markets — where live animals wait for their fresh slaughter… including wolf pups, foxes, rats and peacocks, as well as crocodiles and snakes" — NY Post

    My thoughts from 2006: "At perhaps no time in recorded history has humanity been as vulnerable to viruses and biological pathogens as we are today." Bullet #2 here (with more of a focus on genetically-modified pathogens).

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  3. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    and news today: "New research shows the next global public health crisis could come to us through industrial animal agriculture. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, shows that contemporary farming methods—including the overuse of antibiotics, high numbers of animals crammed into small spaces, and a lack of genetic diversity—make it more likely that pathogens will spread to people from farm animals and create an epidemic for humans. “Our work shows that environmental change and increased contact with farm animals has caused bacterial infections to cross over to humans, too,” said Sam Sheppard, a professor at the Milner Center for Evolution at the University of Bath and author of the study"

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