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The world's oldest animal welfare charity, the British Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), is under fire from non-human rights activists Animal Rising.
A food labeling scheme, RSPCA Assured, marks meat and dairy from farms subject to annual inspections by trained officers. At more than 40 UK farms supported by the label, which denotes a farm inspected to "higher welfare standards", an Animal Rising investigation has reportedly documented dead and dying animals.
A spokesperson for RSPCA Assured is quoted as saying that an investigation is underway and that welfare breaches on accredited farms are rare.
Read more: RSPCA assured: animal welfare labels are a hollow money maker for supermarketsEating meat ethically is apparently more complicated than checking a label in the supermarket. But what does this have to do with the climate, you may wonder?
First, let's see what life is like for farm animals.
Living on a caged planet
More than 100 billion animals are killed for food worldwide every year - hundreds of millions every day. According to Hannah Ritchie, global food system researcher at the University of Oxford and deputy editor of Our World in Data.
Factory farming involves feeding animals in enclosed spaces with little or no access to the outside world. The collective weight of captive animals bred for food dwarfs that of our planet's wildlife. That means that, based on the numbers alone, the average experience of life on Earth, at least for vertebrates, is that of a caged animal, says Wired writer Andy Greenberg.
The RSPCA estimates that scientists test 100 million animals (mainly mice and rats) every year - 0.1% of the number slaughtered for food. This small cohort is relatively lucky, says Kate Chatfield, deputy director of the Center for Professional Ethics at the University of Central Lancashire.
Unlike farm animals, the welfare of laboratory animals (at least fictionally and in the EU) is governed by an ethical code that can be summarized by three Rs: replacement, reduction and refinement. Where possible, replace animal testing with other methods, reduce the number of animals used and refine their treatment to eliminate unnecessary suffering.
Read more: Double standards in animal ethics: why is a laboratory mouse better protected than a cow?"The three R's are widely accepted by both scientists and the public as a reasonable benchmark for ethical acceptability," says Chatfield. What would happen if we applied this minimum standard to farm animals?
It would mean, Chatfield says, swapping animal products for alternative foods and, where none exist, eating only as many animals as nutritional needs dictate. Coincidentally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says something similar about the ideal diet to slow global warming.
Four-legged allies
Meat can be a nutritious source of protein and iron, but alternatives abound. Plant-based proteins are about as good for building muscle as their animal equivalents.
Read more: What is the best protein source for building muscle: meat or plants?Better yet, growing legumes such as beans, lentils and chickpeas can restore essential nutrients to the soil and reduce the need for climate-damaging and water-polluting fertilizers.
Read more: Why the humble legume could be the answer to Europe's fertilizer addictionThere are even meat alternatives that look and taste like real meat.
"A whole range of new technologies are being developed that will enable a system-wide revolution in food production," said Chris D Thomas, Jack Hatfield and Katie Noble from the University of York's Center for Anthropocene Biodiversity.
The team is referring to cellular agriculture, or "lab-grown food," where meat and dairy products are grown using real animal cells. Research by Thomas showed that this approach could meet rising global demand for 20% of existing agricultural land, with much of the rest freed up for wildlife habitat that could trap planet-warming carbon in the atmosphere and to cling.
Read more: New food technologies could return 80% of the world's agricultural land to natureAccording to legal scholar Joe Wills of the University of Leicester, there is a limit to what welfare regulations for farm animals can achieve.
"When sentient beings are converted into productive entities and become ensnared in the maw of economic exploitation, their lives will invariably be marked by suffering, ill health and denied freedoms," he says.
Read more: Cow documentary shows the need for basic legal rights for animalsAnd when it comes to climate, there is an opportunity cost to keeping animals in cages.
"Recent research has highlighted the role that wildlife plays in keeping climate-warming gases such as CO₂ out of the atmosphere," said Heather Alberro, lecturer in sustainable development at Nottingham Trent University.
"For example, wildebeest migrating through Africa's Serengeti consume large amounts of grassland carbon, which is returned as fertilizer and absorbed into the soil by insects."
Read more: Major National protests: Animal Rising campaigners show how exploiting animals is harming us tooGiven the chance to rediscover their wild behavior, future generations of farmed mammals could contribute to the greatest task of the 21st century: restabilizing Earth's climate and biosphere.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.