Thank you for tackling so well the absurd industrial and cultural myths inflating claims around veganism causing collateral damage that reflect so much of the cynicism underlying competing systems in our related societies. Calling this out succinctly is key to the work we share in defending our priorities and ambitions on behalf of the environment and all living/thriving things.
I would like to call your attention to something that promises to change the entire context of this subject. The non-profit thinktank, RethinkX, has written about four "Disruptions" in the process of radically changing our world within the next twenty years. They are Energy, Transportation, Labor, and Food. The Food Disruption involves two developing technologies, Precision Fermentation (PF) and Cellular Agriculture (CA). As these develop, their production costs are plummeting so that, for purely economic reasons, they will essentially drive conventional agriculture to extinction. (Do a search on RethinkX and also watch the YouTube series, Brighter, by their research director, Adam Dorr. Episodes are each about fifteen minutes long.)
The more fundamental of the two technologies is PF. At first, the cost of PF restricted its use to pharmaceuticals. An early product was the drug, Humulin, human insulin produced by modifying the fermenting agent with the human insulin gene. This drove to extinction the inferior pharmaceutical, animal insulin made by harvesting pig and cattle pancreases in slaughterhouses. The cost of PF has fallen to the point that it can be used to produce nutrient molecules. Note Importantly that this is Not GM food! The fermenting agent modified to produce the nutrient is entirely removed from the brew at the end of the process.
The second technology, Cellular Agriculture, starts with taking biopsies from food animals, mammal or seafood species, to acquire stem cells. These are used to begin the growth of tissues. The growth culture is a product of PF, and as the cost of PF plummets, the cost of CA follows.
The Food Disruption will put an end, economically, to the Standard American Diet (SAD) responsible for the worldwide explosion of chronic diseases associated with Metabolic Syndrome. There will be no reason that food cannot be composed of entirely nutritious components.
Land use worldwide is currently dominated by crops for food animals. PF + CA will require about one percent the land use of traditional agriculture, releasing for human or wildlife use an area equivalent to that of the U.S. plus China plus Australia.
I look forward to a day when the end of animal exploitation may initiate a general biophilia as a fundamental part of human culture.
Absolutely, this is a powerful and exciting vision, and I deeply appreciate you sharing it. The work of RethinkX and Adam Dorr presents a compelling case for how technology can disrupt entrenched systems in ways that benefit both people and the planet. Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture offer a realistic path toward ending industrial animal agriculture, not through morality alone but by sheer economic inevitability.
It is especially important that PF is not GMO in the way most people think, which helps counter some of the common resistance. And the potential land use liberation you mentioned is staggering. If we can reclaim even a fraction of the land currently used for animal feed and grazing, the ecological and ethical ripple effects could be transformative.
I too share your hope that this shift sparks a deeper biophilia in our culture. When we stop commodifying animals, perhaps we will begin to truly see them, and all of life, as worthy of care and respect.
Thank you for tackling so well the absurd industrial and cultural myths inflating claims around veganism causing collateral damage that reflect so much of the cynicism underlying competing systems in our related societies. Calling this out succinctly is key to the work we share in defending our priorities and ambitions on behalf of the environment and all living/thriving things.
Dear Michael,
I would like to call your attention to something that promises to change the entire context of this subject. The non-profit thinktank, RethinkX, has written about four "Disruptions" in the process of radically changing our world within the next twenty years. They are Energy, Transportation, Labor, and Food. The Food Disruption involves two developing technologies, Precision Fermentation (PF) and Cellular Agriculture (CA). As these develop, their production costs are plummeting so that, for purely economic reasons, they will essentially drive conventional agriculture to extinction. (Do a search on RethinkX and also watch the YouTube series, Brighter, by their research director, Adam Dorr. Episodes are each about fifteen minutes long.)
The more fundamental of the two technologies is PF. At first, the cost of PF restricted its use to pharmaceuticals. An early product was the drug, Humulin, human insulin produced by modifying the fermenting agent with the human insulin gene. This drove to extinction the inferior pharmaceutical, animal insulin made by harvesting pig and cattle pancreases in slaughterhouses. The cost of PF has fallen to the point that it can be used to produce nutrient molecules. Note Importantly that this is Not GM food! The fermenting agent modified to produce the nutrient is entirely removed from the brew at the end of the process.
The second technology, Cellular Agriculture, starts with taking biopsies from food animals, mammal or seafood species, to acquire stem cells. These are used to begin the growth of tissues. The growth culture is a product of PF, and as the cost of PF plummets, the cost of CA follows.
The Food Disruption will put an end, economically, to the Standard American Diet (SAD) responsible for the worldwide explosion of chronic diseases associated with Metabolic Syndrome. There will be no reason that food cannot be composed of entirely nutritious components.
Land use worldwide is currently dominated by crops for food animals. PF + CA will require about one percent the land use of traditional agriculture, releasing for human or wildlife use an area equivalent to that of the U.S. plus China plus Australia.
I look forward to a day when the end of animal exploitation may initiate a general biophilia as a fundamental part of human culture.
Absolutely, this is a powerful and exciting vision, and I deeply appreciate you sharing it. The work of RethinkX and Adam Dorr presents a compelling case for how technology can disrupt entrenched systems in ways that benefit both people and the planet. Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture offer a realistic path toward ending industrial animal agriculture, not through morality alone but by sheer economic inevitability.
It is especially important that PF is not GMO in the way most people think, which helps counter some of the common resistance. And the potential land use liberation you mentioned is staggering. If we can reclaim even a fraction of the land currently used for animal feed and grazing, the ecological and ethical ripple effects could be transformative.
I too share your hope that this shift sparks a deeper biophilia in our culture. When we stop commodifying animals, perhaps we will begin to truly see them, and all of life, as worthy of care and respect.