Animal agriculture is not given as much attention in the classroom as other climate change topics. You might have been told that taking shorter showers and turning off the sink while you brush your teeth are good ways to save water, but not that cutting down on your meat consumption makes a much bigger difference. Why do you think that is?
I had a boyfriend in high school who exposed several of the world's hidden horrors to me. My first instinct was to cover my eyes and pretend I hadn't seen it, but after I was exposed I couldn't sleep knowing I'd turned my back on it. Eating a burger was never the same. And I was disheartened to learn that a catastrophically horrible and terrifyingly real problem was being covered up so thoroughly, and I needed somebody to uncover it for me
A couple years later, I remember going to a museum with my friend and her family, and there was a display on water consumption in meat-production! There was a diagram on how much water it took to produce a certain amount of beef, and I was relieved to see it, out in the open, not being concealed or skewed in any way. Just fact. But then my friend's mom laughed and said "Don't worry, that isn't real. Cows can't drink that much water."
Then I realized how big of a problem we actually have. It's not just about lack of available information, it's about our fundamental resistance to the idea that everything isn't okay.
But I do think this could be solved by exposing everyone to the issue sooner, because I think the reason people are skeptical is the idea that "if something is this important, why would we not have heard of it by now??"
Fun fact, I did a project about food waste in my communications class. Our essay was supposed to be seven pages, but EDITED DOWN, my essay ended up being 15 pages long. You just can't compact a topic like that into such a tiny essay!
...Lets just say I need to perfect the art of effective brevity
Thanks for sharing this, Phoebe, it has always been puzzling to me how people quickly choose selective lenses to ignore the less convenient aspects of problems. And my advice to students writing papers is always this: good writers are good editors. Put differently, if you can't edit well, you can't write well. I used to give students 3 dense articles per week to read and then write a critical response paper that could not exceed one page, single spaced. I failed students who didn't observe the page limit and wrote line-by-line feedback on their assignments. They hated my guts for the first 4 weeks of the semester. And then they stopped fighting me and started editing that single page, over and over. By week 14, their essays were tighter than skinny jeans on a stick insect. And totally on point. I know in my heart that I have made them better writers by teaching them how to edit like your entire course grade depends on it. It works :)
Tighter than skinny jeans on a stick insect- I love it. I suppose nobody taught those 3 dense article writers to edit down either, haha. We'll all figure it out eventually
Hi Phoebe! I had a similar experience when I first learned about the environmental impacts of animal agriculture. I couldn't look at a burger or chicken nugget without feeling like a hypocrite, knowing everything I did but continuing to eat it anyway. But, a lot of people have no issues turning a blind eye and ignoring it. If there's one thing people don't like you to mess with, it's their food! Many people I have met believe the issues should be solved by the industry rather than the individuals. While they have a point, and hopefully clean meat will be successful in solving the glaring issues of the animal agriculture industry, individuals still need to be aware of where they are putting their money.
Agreed, Sam. But if you read Jacy Reese's book, you'll see why appealing to individuals to change is less effective in the long run than pushing for collective institutional/legal change. It's kind of along the lines of polling people on whether they think slaughterhouses should be abolished (most do) but then again, the same people don't want to be told to go vegan. The paradox of "loving animals" but still wanting to eat them despite how they are raised is one of the strongest justifications for cultivated meat (eating meat without eating animals).
All good points! People hate change, even when it's for the better. And when you have the choice to revert to your old ways, you're less likely to keep at it. It may be harder to convince big companies to change, but it will definitely be the more effective method.