Reply To: Capitalism’s animal holocaust continues.
I have posted my views on pet ownership on this thread and here is another link
“…Pet ownership’s more insidious injury is the hardening of our hearts for the sake of a selfish, possessive happiness. Rather than seeing other animals as autonomous beings with their own lives, desires and cultures, they are reduced to mere dolls. Living creatures become commodities that can be perfectly calibrated to one’s tastes – see the many “dog breed selectors” online. People crave the unconditional love pets offer, but such supplication requires mastery at the level of individual animals broken by “training”, control of a species’ genetic inheritance through inbreeding and the dominance of whole ecosystems to feed hundreds of millions of animals…”
“…The equivalent to 6% of the American cat and dog population (8 million animals) are abandoned at shelters every year – half of whom are then killed…”
“…Pets’ popularity has turned these humble animals into an economic and ecological force on a global scale. There are 900 million dogs and 700 million cats (both owned and feral) worldwide. Half of US households own an animal, while the number of pets in China has grown from virtually nil – dogs were once banned in Beijing – to 251 million. At $260bn, the global pet market is worth more than the solar and wind energy sectors combined…”
“…If US pets were a country, they would rank fifth globally in terms of meat consumption – greater than Germany…”