Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Interview with Dr. Jeff Sebo (vegan), Part 1 of 2

Dr. Jeff Sebo (vegan) is an American philosopher, writer and associate professor. Dr. Sebo is the author of “Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and Other Catastrophes.” In Dr. Sebo’s book, he shows that human and nonhuman fates are increasingly linked. “When our exploitation and extermination of animals contributes to a pandemic, that pandemic can then impact animals because animals can be susceptible to infectious diseases as well. And so we help animals less and we harm them more.” “Humans have a responsibility to consider animals as part of global health and environmental policy for two reasons. One reason is self-interested. Our treatment of animals affects us, too. So if we care about human health and wellbeing, we need to think about how our treatment of animals is contributing to the exact threats that are most problematic for the human species like pandemics and climate change. And humans have a responsibility to consider our impacts on everybody who matters and is impacted by our behavior.” “When they contribute to deforestation, not only do they destroy habitats and cause biodiversity to go down, but they also destroy forested land, which is one of the best ways we have to capture and store carbon dioxide in the planet.”

“In 2020, we had the Australia bush fires that harmed and killed more than three billion vertebrates and an unknown number of invertebrates. That same year, we had the Amazon wildfires that were caused in part reportedly because of the need to clear land for beef and dairy agriculture. They killed an unknown number of wild animals. And so animals are connected to climate change both because factory farming and deforestation contribute to climate change while harming animals, and because climate change is going to keep killing animals.” “We have reached a tipping point. And we might have already reached some of them, but we still have the power to not reach other even worse ones. And so that is why we need to be thinking about climate change mitigation and adaptation at the same time.”