Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves Lib/E: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and Other Catastrophes

by Jeff Sebo, Andrew J. Andersen (Narrator)

In 2020, COVID-19, the Australia bushfires, and other global threats served as vivid reminders that human and nonhuman fates are increasingly linked. Human use of nonhuman animals contributes to pandemics, climate change, and other global threats which, in turn, contribute to biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and nonhuman suffering.

Jeff Sebo argues that humans have a moral responsibility to include animals in global health and environmental policy. In particular, we should reduce our use of animals as part of our pandemic and climate change mitigation efforts and increase our support for animals as part of our adaptation efforts. Applying and extending frameworks such as One Health and the Green New Deal, Sebo calls for reducing support for factory farming, deforestation, and the wildlife trade; increasing support for humane, healthful, and sustainable alternatives; and considering human and nonhuman needs holistically. Sebo also considers connections with practical issues such as education, employment, social services, and infrastructure, as well as with theoretical issues such as well-being, moral status, political status, and population ethics.

Audio CD

About the author

Jeff Sebo is associate professor of environmental studies; affiliated professor of bioethics, medical ethics, philosophy and law; director of the animal studies master’s program; director of the mind, ethics and policy program; and co-director of the wild animal welfare program at New York University. His books are Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves (Oxford University Press, 2022), Chimpanzee Rights (Routledge, 2018) and Food, Animals and the Environment (Routledge, 2018).