The Voiceless website has a dramatic counter on the home page which purports to show ‘the number of farm animals killed in Australia by the meat, dairy and egg industry, since you opened this page’.
Perhaps Voiceless could consider a similar live counter that shows the worldwide number of acres of rainforest being cleared minute by minute, to grow increasing areas of high-protein crops that vegetarians depend on for survival? Voiceless could include a second counter showing the number of native animals, birds and insects that are killed and made homeless by this land clearing – particularly in South American and Asian countries. Or do vegetarians grow all their own tucker on their verandahs, or don’t they eat anything at all? Or is it only pigs, chooks, cattle and sheep that Voiceless think are worth being concerned about?
I don’t think there’d be a vegetarian in Australia who doesn’t eat soya beans and soya bean products such as tofu. In which case they should read this g.m. crop article in the UK Independent and this Greenpeace article on Amazon rainforest clearing. The warm, rosy glow that vegetarians like to bask in because they pretend no animal died to keep them alive, would evaporate if they knew it was just a bubble of self-deception. The reality is that human existence does impact on the whole environment, whether we like it or not. It’s called the web of life. Denial, or focusing just on one part of our impact, is unhelpful. We should be aiming for environmental sustainability. It would be far more productive for Voiceless members to practice permaculture principles in their own backyards (growing all their own tucker. and encouraging native wildlife to flourish) and join forces with the RSPCA to stamp out animal cruelty, than to continue pretending that by not eating pigs, chooks, sheep and cows, no animals are affected by their existence.