What Climate Change and the Coronavirus Have in Common

At its best, each day lately is full of some degree of uncertainty. Stay-at-home orders. Lockdowns. Economic plunges. None of this is normal. Yet, it oddly shares commonality with a different kind of drawn-out pandemic--climate change. Hurricanes, wildfires, extreme temperature shifts are not normal either. These events, unlike the current coronavirus peak, are spread out geographically and seasonally, with the most ravaged effects often occurring beyond our sight.

What if we could stop the next pandemic before it starts? What if we could curtail climate change before it sweeps us aside? Incidentally, both crises share a common cause: our food system.

Repair our food system, repair our health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that three out of four infectious diseases in people come from animals. That's 75 percent, of which COVID-19 is one. Others, like SARS, Ebola, swine flu, and bird flu, have similar animal origins.

While COVID-19 may seem like a foreign disease that we have fallen victim to, it's just one of many viruses that stem from the extreme confinement of animals being raised for food.Until recently, virtually no one was searching for the infamous Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed nearly 50 million people--far more than in World War I. Suddenly, 102 years later, mass Googling began. Why? Like the virus we're experiencing now, the Spanish Flu originated in an animal--the commonly consumed pig. This is not just a problem of earlier, less medically-advanced eras. In 2009, the swine flu returned, taking between 151,000 and 675,000 lives. Similarly, COVID-19 is suspected to have originated in bats, jumping to humans from another mammal.

While COVID-19 may seem like a foreign disease that we have fallen victim to, it's just one of many viruses that stem from the extreme confinement of animals being raised for food. In the US alone, nine billion animals are raised each year on factory farms, posing a massive pandemic risk.

Add to that the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, attributed to the overuse of antibiotics to promote the growth of animals raised for food. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 700,000 people die each year from drug-resistant diseases. They have been warning us that zoonotic diseases are transferred from animals to humans through exposure to animals and/or their products. The guidance is clear. We need to end factory farming or be prepared for an unhealthy future of pandemonium.

Repair our food system, repair the planet

Alongside our current crisis looms the seemingly obscure threat of climate change. There have been glimmers of hope that skies and waterways around the world are clearing, as flights and rush hour traffic all but halted. But pausing human activity for a few weeks is not going to stop the tide of climate change.

While curbing global warming requires change on many levels, one most obvious one is that of animal agriculture. It's estimated that 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions--not including water and soil pollution--are caused by animal agriculture. More than planes, trains, and motor vehicles combined.

The time couldn't be more opportune for us to reevaluate our relationship with our planet and the billions of factory-farmed animals who inhabit it against the laws of nature. Crammed into tiny cages. Packed into giant sheds. Instantly taken away from their mothers at birth. Treated like pure products being manufactured for profit. Except, like us, they have heartbeats, emotions, and curiosity. Like us, they get sick, that sickness spreads--through our soil, our water, and directly to humans.

Repair our future

At a time when many of us are looking to regain control of our lives, we can start by taking control of our plates, by reducing our consumption of animal products. Because the truth is--virtually all animals raised for food come from unhealthy factory farms.

Because the truth is--virtually all animals raised for food come from unhealthy factory farms.

We're lucky to live in an era of plant-based burgers that bleed like meat and latte-foaming milk made from liquified oats. Innovations that allow us to experience food like many have grown accustomed to, with less risk and more benefit.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), substituting plant protein in lieu of animal protein is associated with lower mortality. Just the dose of health we could all use right now.

If you want to transform the health of people and our planet in one shot, stand up against factory farming, and fight for a better food system, by taking action with organizations who are doing just that. It's time to take control of our health and our future. To define the new normal before our quarantines define us.