I read that today marks the 28th annual worldwide observance of World Farm Animals Day, dedicated to exposing and mourning the suffering and death of 58 billion land animals in the world's factory farms and slaughterhouses.
We're certainly much more aware of the devastating effects of animal agriculture than we were 28 years ago. Several well publicized studies have linked consumption of animal products with elevated risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and other chronic killer diseases.
A 2007 United Nations report blames meat production for 18 percent of greenhouse gases, and the animal waste dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico was found to be larger than that from the BP oil spill. Undercover investigations show male baby chicks suffocated in plastic garbage bags or ground to death, their female counterparts crammed for life in tiny wire-mesh cages, pigs clobbered by metal pipes and killed by hanging, and assorted farm animals skinned and dismembered at the slaughterhouse while still conscious.
