The Meat of the Matter by George Monbiot

What will future generations, looking back on our age, see as its monstrosities? We think of slavery, the subjugation of women, judicial torture, the murder of heretics, imperial conquest and genocide, the First World War and the rise of fascism, and ask ourselves how people could have failed to see the horror of what they did. What madness of our times will revolt our descendants?

George Monbiot - what madness will revolt our descendants?

There are plenty to choose from. But one of them, I believe, will be the mass incarceration of animals, to enable us to eat their flesh or eggs or drink their milk. While we call ourselves animal lovers, and lavish kindness on our dogs and cats, we inflict brutal deprivations on billions of animals, that are just as capable of suffering. The hypocrisy is so rank that future generations will marvel at how we could have failed to see it.

The shift will occur with the advent of cheap artificial meat. Technological change has often helped to catalyse ethical change. The $300m deal China signed last month, to buy lab-grown meat, marks the beginning of the end of livestock farming. But it won’t happen quickly: the great suffering is likely to continue for many years.

Read the piece by Guardian columnist, George Monbiot - “The Meat of the Matter.”

Future generations will not have the luxury of being able 'look away'

"The Honor Code" by
Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Climate change is a practical issue, but it is inherently a moral matter; one that will damn us all.

Philosophy professor at Princeton University, Kwame Anthony Appiah, penned a piece in The Washington Post some six years ago about how we look away when confronted with what is a deep moral issue.

He addressed all those familiar issues; slavery, industrial meat farming, lynch mobs, incarceration, torture, homosexuality; and our disregard for the environment and wondered what our children would say.

“Our descendants, who will inherit this devastated Earth, are unlikely to have the luxury of such recklessness. Chances are, they won't be able to avert their eyes, even if they want to,” he wrote.

Read the opinion piece in The Washington Post by Kwame Anthony Appiah - “What will future generations condemn us for?”