Survival at Stake

Book excerpt: With science now recognizing animal consciousness, intelligence, emotion and even morality, there must come an awareness of our own moral responsibilities towards other beings. But there's another reason to consider animals' well-being-because it is intertwined with our own. In Survival at Stake, leading animal rights activist Poorva Joshipura argues passionately that, evolutionarily, humans are far more like other animals than we care to believe. She examines how hunting wildlife leads to pandemics and epidemics, which, in turn, harm us; how the production of meat destroys forests and causes climate change, which, in turn, destroys us; how blood sports hurt both humans and animals; how leather production damages the environment and human health; how animal experimentation is often a threat to public health; how cruelty to animals leads to violent crimes; and so on. It is Joshipura's view that if we reject speciesism-the belief in human superiority-and accept that we are animals too, irrevocably interconnected to other species, from the largest elephant to the smallest bee, and a part of, rather than holding dominance over, nature, we can take the necessary steps towards the betterment of all the planet's inhabitants.