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The Humane Hoax:Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs
Hope Bohanec, Editor
Lantern Publishing & Media, 2023
Review by Karen Davis, PhD, President, United Poultry Concerns
If I could (gently) shove this book down everyone’s throat, to read and digest the information in it, I would.
Each essay in The Humane Hoax provides information about a particular facet of “alternative” animal farming with an analysis of the behavior and attitudes toward the animals ranging from smarmy sentimentality to gleeful sadism. Contributors explain how farmers and advertisers manipulate language to reassure the public – and in some cases themselves – that they “care” about the animals and even “love” them as they cut their throats. Or, conversely, how much they despise their victims. There’s an audience for that, too.
I don’t know who are more repulsive: the sentimentalists who invoke “spirituality” to justify their violence, or the sadists who revel in the violence they inflict and not only the violence but the egotistical euphoria of turning their cruelty, betrayals and killings into narratives about themselves in their “authentic farmer” personas. The “spiritual” killers, including the “Do It Yourself” (DIY) coterie, employ “spiritual language to make killing seem compassionate or benevolent,” yet how often do they refer to the animal “being comforted and appreciated” as “it”? (p. 292). To wit, one of the books discussed is called Killing It.
Femivore Power!
There’s the school of suburban women, known as femivores who, bored with their comforts and resentful that men still dominate the workplace, are eager to show someone who’s boss.
To remedy their plight, these women decide to “authenticate” and empower themselves by leaving their cushy careers, often as journalists, to reinvent themselves as farmers on a farmstead mucking around in mud and manure after trading their high-heeled sneakers and jogging clothes for rubber work boots and overalls. One woman describes killing a possum with a shovel: “Caught up in protecting my babies, I had become a savage.” Later she carries a trusting white duck into her house, puts him in the bathtub, and decapitates him with pruning shears. “He quacked and swam around for a few minutes. . . . The duck went from being a happy camper to being a headless camper. I plucked and eviscerated him outside on a table” (p. 75).
Such tales, and worse, of female “self-empowerment,” and “animal control” are regaled in giggly humor like pubescent girls vying for who can be the meanest bad girl in middle school. Pathology and a malevolent Will to Power abound in these women’s stories. But oh if they had suddenly to live alone on a farmstead with no audience, no lucrative book deals and publishing contracts, no opportunity to enthrall themselves and their readers with their “shocking” memoirs, their pleasure in hacking off the heads of baby animals, cutting throats, and “surprising the hell out of” unsuspecting victims and joking about the mothers’ display of grief – if all of these down and dirty delights were all they had, day in, day out, their enthusiasm would wane pretty fast. Telling their stories is the thing. The animals, their subjugation, bewilderment and defeat, are the instruments of the femivore’s celebrity fulfillment. Moreover, these women’s vengeful treatment and mockery of the animals suggest a projection of personal self-hatred onto their victims and a displacement of “getting even” with men by punishing the animals – at last, some justice!
False Love
Femivores parade their contempt for the animals. By contrast, the “spiritual” slaughterers or “honor killers,” employ a rhetoric of “love” and “sacrifice” and “respect.” In one reverential neighbor’s account, a DIY herbalist “sings” to her sheep “and straddles them like she’s riding them and then cuts their throat.* “She calls it ‘giving death.’ I haven’t seen her do it,” the neighbor admits, “but she says they’re always calm and accepting of their fate. She’s very clear that it’s a gift.”
Plenty more of this schlock is quoted in the essay, a key point of which is that these DIY honor killers first absorb the animals into their egocentric abusiveness before absorbing them into their stomachs. In their telling, the victims have no subjective experiences of their own, no agency except that they are “always calm and accepting of their fate” and willing sacrifices. This “spiritual bypass” form of self-confirmation uses language as “an instrument of one’s selfish pursuit rather than a means of overcoming self-centered egotism” (p. 296).
Together, the femivores, the honor killers, and all manner of animal-based locavorism and foodie culture rob the animals of agency, a fact among many others that is “unacknowledged” (p. 252).
Sick Sadism
The snarling hatred unleashed by three male foodie celebrities toward animals and animal rights advocates, as depicted in one essay, is so intense as to seem almost a caricature of malevolence. Together, these three men, including the late Anthony Bourdain, sit at a round table at a writers’ festival in 2011 mocking and excoriating animal advocates for perpetrating a “false morality” and misanthropy:
“Well, I don’t care if it’s a false morality, I just don’t agree with it. I also don’t really care if animals suffer. If I’m perfectly honest, I don’t give a shit!”
Environmental Rubbish
Contributors to The Humane Hoax have much to say about the primacy of advertising language in persuading the public to believe that pasture-grazing of chickens, pigs, cows and sheep is environmentally “sustainable” and beneficent. The greenwashing of animal farming presents a false public image of the well-being of animals on pasture and the fraudulent notion that, somehow magically, billions of animals can occupy enormous tracts of land to feed billions of animal-product consumers with no down side.
In reality, pasture-raised animals require far more land than factory-farmed animals require. Also pointed out is the fact that the typical pasture does not provide sufficient nourishment for the animals who, without concentrated feed supplements, are more likely to be malnourished than factory-farmed animals. This is not intended as a defense of factory farming. Rather, the point is that neither pasture-raising nor factory farming benefits the environment or the animals. And many birds sold to upscale consumers, who alone can afford the high cost of pastured-chickens and eggs, are actually raised in “stationary barns on over-grazed feed lots,” just as hens kept for “free-range” eggs are more often than not confined to sheds with maybe an enclosed porch, a “winter garden” – which I witnessed directly and describe in my own essay in this book.
We need to understand that these linguistically-inflated products – “so costly and scarce that they are not even available in the typical grocery store, let alone cafeterias, stadiums, and hospitals – are not ‘sustainable’ compared to consuming plants directly” (p. 127). Nor is it only farmed animals whose real life, and death, is hidden:
In fact, the powerful ranching and farming industries successfully lobby our government to brutally exterminate tens of millions of wild animals every year. None are safe, be they wild horses and donkeys who are “competing” for grazing land and water, or predators such as wolves and foxes who are a threat to livestock. This taxpayer expense is in addition to the billions of dollars of tax-funded subsidies and bailouts that farmers and ranchers receive.**
Pastures of Pain
In a profound contrast to the portrayal of farmed animals by their abusers, The Humane Hoax includes moving stories of roosters and hens rescued from backyard-chicken keepers and abandonment. One essay provides a penetrating look at the backyard-chicken industry and its victims. And then there’s the story of a pig named Silver who was betrayed by a farm family who chose to raise her as part of their family and then stuck her out to pasture with the other pigs they were raising for slaughter. The storyteller, a veterinarian, became vegan, in part, to atone for “the suffering I’d taken part in” (p. 42).
When she was moved to the outside pasture and barn, she became a solitary pig. Dislocated abruptly from her human family, the only family she’d known, Silver had no idea how to interact with other pigs. My father wanted to breed her – she refused to even consider it and would fight off the boars and run from the other pigs. If my mother, brother, or I came out to the pasture, she sprinted at breakneck pace to the fence for a glimpse of us, sometimes trying to push her face between the slats, and other times rearing up with her front legs on the fence as she tried to reach us. . . . [I]t took me years to realize how deep our betrayal had been of her love and trust (p. 22).
The Humane Hoax is filled with evidence and details of the human betrayal of animals cajoled into trusting relationships with us only to be savagely turned upon like Silver, whose spirit was broken long before she ended up in the slaughterhouse, never understanding why these terrible things had been done to her. It is excruciating to read this and realize that there is currently an effort underway to defund farmed animal sanctuaries – more betrayal of individuals like Silver.
Focus on Consumers
It is also dispiriting to see certain animal “liberationists” telling the media that the animal consumer is “not the problem,” only the industry is, as if these two were not joined at the hip; or that as long as the animals have a “happy” life and “painless” killing, it is all right to commodify, enslave, and kill them. Adult consumers of animal products are complicit: we bear responsibility for what farmed animal producers, under whatever label, do to these innocent victims for palate and profit. Consumers engage destructively in a “willing suspension of disbelief” in order to absolve themselves of guilt – if they even care enough to do that.
Even the Jains and the Hindus, who claim compassion for cows, milk them, and if they themselves don’t butcher the cows for whom they proclaim their compassion, Hindus will sell them to those who do the killing. We might well ask what it is in the human psyche that goes to such elaborate trouble to protect ourselves from the ugly facts when we can nourish ourselves wonderfully without twisting the truth into pretzels.
Editor Hope Bohanec says in her concluding essay that “If the consumers lead, the leaders will follow.” For the animals, we who actively care about them must lead consumers to want to take the path of nonviolence and compassion, and then take it.
Notes
*This killing ploy is reminiscent of Temple Grandin’s support in Animals in Translation for having sex with pigs for business purposes. In the section, “How to Make a Pig Fall in Love,” she describes men masturbating captive pigs – getting sows to “stand for the man” – and concludes that these pig breeders “respect the animals’ nature, and they do a good job with their animals.” (p.104).
**Writing this review I’m delighted to note that this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) will for the first time, at the repeated behest of environmental and animal activists, consider animal agriculture’s adverse impact on the climate by serving mostly vegan food throughout the conference. It’s a start.
Order The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs, edited by Hope Bohanec and published in 2023, from Lantern Publishing & Media. There you will find a complete list of the essays and their authors along with purchasing options.
KAREN DAVIS, PhD is the President and Founder of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domesticated birds including a sanctuary for chickens in Virginia. Inducted into the National Animal Rights Hall of Fame for Outstanding Contributions to Animal Liberation, Karen is the author of numerous books, essays, articles and campaigns. Her latest book is For the Birds – From Exploitation to Liberation: Essays on Chickens, Turkeys, and Other Domesticated Fowl published by Lantern Publishing & Media. Karen hosts a biweekly podcast series titled Thinking Like a Chicken – News & Views!
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Climate change is a threat to the planet: We must address it
We can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change, save money, and make energy grid more resilient
By Sen. Bernie Sanders | Fox News
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- https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/climate-change-threat-planet-we-must-address-it
NY Times columnist says GOP ignoring climate change to ‘offend the elites’: ‘Sign of political machismo’
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently argued that conservatives and Republicans push to drill for fossil fuels and disagree with liberals on climate change primarily because it’s just their way to “offend the elites.”
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Obviously, climate change is not real. I’ve heard, you’ve heard, “expert” after “expert” telling us for years how climate change is a “fraud.”
We’ve heard from our friends at the oil companies who made $196 billion in profits last year that the evidence for it is “inconclusive.” We’ve listened to politicians and pundits explain how proponents of climate change are engaged in “fake news,” are part of a “woke conspiracy” or pushing “cult-like” propaganda.
We’ve also heard that, perhaps, if the planet is warming it is part of some kind of natural occurrence which has nothing to do with human activity and the burning of fossil fuel.
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign rally Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, in Sioux City, Iowa. (AP Photo/John Locher)
What more can be said? Climate change is not real. Or, if it is, it has nothing to do with carbon emissions – and there is nothing we can do about it.
BERNIE SANDERS LEADS LAWMAKERS DEMANDING DOJ PROSECUTE FOSSILE FUEL COMPANIES FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
If this is what you believe I would respectfully disagree and I would urge you to get on the phone and call friends and family around the country to hear about what their communities are experiencing. I would also suggest that you check out (reliable) websites and take a look at what’s going on in virtually every part of the world. If you do, here’s what you’ll find.
The last eight years have been the eight hottest on record. This year is on track to be the hottest year in recorded history, and this past July was the hottest month in recorded history. Twenty-one of the 30 hottest days on record occurred this past month.
Across the United States, July broke more than 3,200 daily temperature records. Miami experienced its seven hottest days. Flagstaff, Arizona, and Brownsville, Texas, experienced their eight hottest days. At least 26 cities broke or tied their previous daily temperature records three or more times. Death Valley experienced the highest midnight temperature ever recorded on Earth.
Austin, San Antonio, Little Rock, Baton Rouge, Anaheim, Rapid City, Santa Fe, St. Paul, Corpus Christi, Sioux Falls, Fort Lauderdale, Reno, Helena, Grand Junction, Salt Lake City, San Juan, Tampa, Orlando, Fort Worth, Carson City, Portland – all of these cities experienced their highest temperatures on record.
It wasn’t just daily records. Phoenix recently experienced 31 days in a row at or above 110 degrees. El Paso experienced 44 days in a row at or above 100 degrees. Miami experienced a record 46 days at or above 100 degrees. Austin experienced a record 11 days at or above 105 degrees. Waco experienced a record 44 days at or above 100 degrees. Las Vegas experienced its hottest two weeks on record.
And it’s not just the United States. Dozens of locations in China experienced record-high temperatures last month, including the country’s all-time temperature record of 126 degrees. Rome, Cannes, Palermo, Tunis, Algiers, Tirana, Figueres – all of these cities across Europe and North Africa experienced their hottest days on record.
Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador – all saw multiple temperature records broken. Parts of the Middle East exceeded 150 degrees – near the most intense heat that the human body can survive. It’s winter right now in South America, but that hasn’t stopped temperatures from exceeding 100 degrees in some places.
HEAT WAVE HEALTH: 5 THINGS THIS DOCTOR WANTS YOU TO DO WHEN TEMPS ARE SIZZLING
And it’s not just that temperatures have been soaring on land. Our oceans have never been warmer. Right now, 44% of the world’s oceans are experiencing a marine heat wave. The Mediterranean Sea is experiencing its hottest temperatures on record, more than 9 degrees hotter than average in some places. South of Miami, waters reached 101 degrees. You’re supposed to find temperatures like that in a hot tub, not the ocean.
OK, so it’s hot. But how do we know this heat is so unusual? Couldn’t this just be part of a natural cycle going back millions of years? Is there really a link between extreme heat and human activity?
It is true that the Earth’s temperature does change a lot over millions of years. In fact, scientists believe that about 125,000 years ago it may have been even warmer than it is right now. What is disturbing, however, is that temperatures are rising much faster now than at any time in the past two million years.
Scientists look at a lot of things – gas trapped in ice, tree rings, glaciers, pollen remains, even changes in the Earth’s orbit – to study the natural changes in our climate going back millions of years. What these natural changes tell us is that it normally takes thousands of years for the earth to warm just a couple of degrees. The temperature increases we’ve seen in just the past century should have taken almost a thousand years.
Over the past 100 years, we’ve warmed the planet 10 times more quickly than anything we see in the natural record. Over the next 100 years, we’re on track to warm the planet 20 times faster than anything we see in the natural record. Bottom line: Our planet is warming up much more rapidly than in the past and entering into a very dangerous period for human well-being.
OK, so it’s hot and it’s getting hotter very quickly. What does this have to do with carbon emissions?
The answer is that scientists who look at the natural changes in our climate going back millions of years can see that temperature is closely linked to the amount of carbon in our atmosphere. Carbon goes up, temperatures go up.
And carbon is going up – carbon levels have increased 100 times faster than normal since the beginning of the industrial revolution. At the same time, global temperatures have increased nearly two degrees. What changed at the beginning of the industrial revolution? We began burning fossil fuels, which released a huge amount of carbon into our atmosphere. Carbon went up, and temperatures followed.
SCIENTISTS PREDICT JULY WILL BE THE HOTTEST MONTH ON RECORD GLOBALLY
OK, so it’s hot and it’s getting hotter very quickly, and those rising temperatures are closely linked to the use of fossil fuels. What does this mean for us?
It means that rising temperatures create more flooding, extreme weather, droughts, wildfires and disease. And that means more human suffering, death, mass migrations and international instability. We’re seeing these impacts right now all around the world.
Near the end of last year, the United States experienced five 1,000-year flood events in five weeks. My state of Vermont just experienced its worst flooding since 1927 – damaging 4,000 homes. Canada is experiencing its worst wildfire season on record with smoke from Quebec creating unhealthy air conditions in large parts of the United States.
Last summer’s heat waves killed more than 60,000 people in Europe alone. Beijing recently recorded its heaviest rainfall in at least 140 years, forcing nearly one million people to relocate. Iran just announced a two-day public holiday, shutting down banks, schools and public agencies because of unprecedented heat which exceeded 123 degrees. In poverty-stricken African countries like Sudan, Madagascar and Somalia, drought and floods have cut food production, leading to a major increase in hunger.
Climate change will not only impact the physical well-being of humans, it will also have enormous economic implications. The Deloitte Economics Institute estimates that if left unchecked climate change could cost the global economy $178 trillion over the next 50 years as a result of lower productivity and employment, food and water scarcity and worsening health and well-being. We’ll also have to spend huge amounts of money repairing the damage that extreme weather causes.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that we can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change, save a great deal of money, and make our energy grid more resilient by transitioning away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy and energy efficiency.
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Right now, wind and solar energy are the least expensive forms of new energy generation. Period. They’re cheaper than coal, and cheaper than natural gas. There is a reason why, despite enormous opposition from the fossil fuel industry, a conservative state like Texas has increased its solar capacity by more than 500% over the past three years.
Renewable energy also offers opportunities for families to save money. With rooftop solar, for example, you can generate electricity right at home and cut your electricity bills by 80% or more. That’s why I recently passed legislation to make it easier for low- and moderate-income families to install solar on their homes.
I understand that transitioning away from fossil fuels is a contentious and difficult issue and will meet enormous opposition from Big Oil and other special interests. I also understand that it is not just an American issue, and that China (currently the world’s major carbon emitter) and countries throughout the world will have to come together with us to make the cuts in carbon emissions that the health of the planet requires. Whether we like it or not, we’re all in this together.
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While the path forward to a cleaner and more sustainable energy future for planet Earth will not be easy, and mistakes will certainly be made, the choice we face is pretty clear. Either we maintain the status quo and continue to see more heat waves, drought, floods and extreme weather disturbances or we move away from fossil fuels and do our best to make sure that the planet we leave our kids and future generations is healthy and habitable.
Frankly, this is not a difficult choice. This is a moral responsibility.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN. BERNIE SANDERS
Bernie Sanders is an independent who represents Vermont in the U.S. Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/climate-change-threat-planet-we-must-address-it
Greta Thunberg says she will no longer speak at a climate event, accusing a sponsor of greenwashing by investing in companies tied to the fossil fuel industry
Hannah Getahun
Mon, August 7, 2023 at 3:35 PM PDT·3 min read
In this article:
- Greta ThunbergSwedish climate protection activist
- Greta Thunberg accused a large investment management firm of greenwashing.
- Thunberg decided not to speak at a book festival as a result.
- The company released a statement, saying its ties to the fossil fuel industry were insignificant.
Greta Thunberg will no longer appear at a large Scottish book festival this week, saying she does not want to be “associated with events” connected to the fossil fuel industry.
The climate activist was set to appear at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, starting August 12, for an event called “Greta Thunberg: It’s Not Too Late to Change the World,” but said Friday she would no longer attend, accusing the main sponsor, Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm based in the UK, of “greenwashing.”
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Greenwashing refers to a phenomenon of companies or firms that outwardly market themselves as environmentally conscious but, in practice, fail to live up to those standards. An example is when critics accused Coca-Cola and the United Nations of greenwashing the 2022 COP27 climate talks, citing plastic pollution from the company’s products.
Fast-fashion companies like H&M and Zara also get accused of greenwashing for promoting recycling initiatives while millions of tons of their polyester and nylon clothes end up in landfills.
“As a climate activist I cannot attend an event which receives sponsorship from Baillie Gifford, who invest heavily in the fossil fuel industry,” Thunberg said in a statement released through the festival’s website. “Greenwashing efforts by the fossil fuel industry, including sponsorship of cultural events, allow them to keep the social license to continue operating. I cannot and do not want to be associated with events that accept this kind of sponsorship.”
In response to Thunberg’s statement, Baillie Gifford said it was not “a significant fossil fuel investor” and that “only 2% of our clients’ money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels.”
Story continues: https://news.yahoo.com/greta-thunberg-says-she-no-223554853.html
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