Side effects of the current situation
Waste of life
Every year millions of chicks get killed on the first day of their life worldwide, because they are male and therefore cannot produce eggs. They are not used for meat because broiler or meat chickens are a different breed. The males from the egg laying breed are gassed or hacked to pieces. This practice is also used in organic- and free range egg production.
Where profit is the dominating factor and a change of eating habits is not seen as a serious consideration, a life counts for nothing.
Film: A Chick's Life – dayly routine in the egg industy (2:14 min)
More Information:
- Where do my eggs come from?
- YouTube documentary
- Milk production
- YouTube documentary
Waste of food
Although worldwide 854 million people are affected by hunger (UNO, 2006), and even though in Austria 13.2 % of the population are threatened with poverty, 66-240 kg of food are thrown away per year per person (Institute for Waste Management BOKU, 2007). And that's only the private households.
Consumer delusion
Estimations suggest that between 1-5 % of the population suffer from shopping addiction in the industrialised countries. A much bigger share of people go shopping to have fun and compensate for other problems. Every act of consumption necessitates production, which always has a negative impact on humans, animals and the environment.
Film: The story of stuff with Annie Leonard
Wars and Authority
Hundreds of thousands of people die in armed conflicts and wars every year. An even greater number are wounded, seriously injured, crippled, psychologically traumatized or raped. The reason behind these atrocities is usually economical. In the name of peace or democracy wars are fought for the economic interests of a small number of corporations. The losers are always the poor, on both sides. Others mechanisms of authority like sexism, racism, nationalism or anti-Semitism are used to fuel conflicts or are partially the reason for them.
Our society is pervaded by structures of authority like sexism, ageism, lookism, racism and anti-Semitism, which are not easy to fight against. As a result, many groups of people find themselves discriminated against, solely on grounds of cultural or physical attributes.
