photos courtesy of Jo-Anne McArthur with We Animals at Farm Sanctuary
see also The New Sentience book and our One Health webpage
Human Impact
We are currently living through a geological era that scientists have termed the Anthropocene, an age in which human activity is recognized as the most dominant and destructive influence on Earth’s climate, environment, and ecosystems. Among these activities, human use and abuse of animals is implicated in multiple overlapping crises, from climate change to the coronavirus pandemic (and many of the worst pandemics in history), as well as unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss and species extinction.
Between 1970 and 2018, global wildlife populations fell by nearly 70%, while species in freshwater lakes, rivers and wetlands declined by an average of 83%.
Species are going extinct 1,000 times faster than in pre-human times, at a rate that far exceeds the worst extinction event in history, the “Great Dying” that lasted 100,000 years and destroyed more than 95% of life on the planet. Scientists have warned that if these human-caused losses are not reversed, total ecosystem collapse is unavoidable.
Apace with these staggering rates of wildlife disappearance, numbers of domesticated animals—mostly farmed animals—have soared to a stupefying artificial imbalance as a result of humans breeding farmed animals for consumption. Across the globe, wild creatures and their homes continue to be displaced on a massive scale to make room for ever more grazing pasture and vast feed crop monocultures for farmed animals. A report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that farmed poultry now comprise 70% of all bird biomass on the planet, while 60% of all mammalian biomass belongs to animals who are farmed (mostly cattle and pigs); 36% is human; and a mere 4% is wild.
Where nonhuman animals are concerned, our planet has become a massive carceral system in which trillions of forcibly bred, captive beings languish in farms, slaughterhouses, breeding mills, labs, zoos, circuses, and shelters — while their wild counterparts vanish at meteoric speeds as their native habitats are ceaselessly razed, ransacked, and extracted.
Killing Animals, Killing Ourselves
It’s no coincidence that our systematic destruction of animal lives is also destroying the planet. Increasingly, we are seeing an alarming feedback loop between human health and ecological crises, whereby the intensification of one exacerbates and increases one or more of the others.
To return to a previous example, farming animals is a major driver of climate change. Climate change is a leading cause of global food insecurity. The production of animal-based foods, with such disproportionate land requirements, is also the single greatest driver of deforestation and habitat loss. Deforestation, in turn, is a leading cause of climate change, biodiversity loss, species extinction, and zoonotic diseases and pandemics.
In light of these converging catastrophes, epidemiologists, environmental scientists, food security and global health experts, including the World Health Organization, have instituted a “One Health” framework that emphasizes the interdependence of human and nonhuman animal well-being and the health of ecosystems.
Unlike the longstanding anthropocentric view of human health, Lancet scientists say:
“One Health places us in an interconnected and interdependent relationship with non-human animals and the environment. The consequences of this thinking entail a subtle but quite revolutionary shift of perspective: all life is equal, and of equal concern. This understanding is fundamental to addressing pressing health issues at the human–animal–environment interface.”
The irreducible condition of our interbeing has become a new paradigm for planetary health and the future of life on earth.
Of course, these connections are nothing new. Indigenous peoples, Eastern spiritual leaders, ecofeminists, animal rights philosophers, and movements for collective justice and liberation have long emphasized these connections and entanglements. From “kincentric” Indigenous ecologies that value animals as nonhuman persons and family, to the Buddhist tenets of dependent origination (everything is co-creating and interaffecting) and ahimsa (nonviolence toward all living beings), to the ecofeminist insistence that all systems of oppression (of humans, animals, and nature) are inextricably linked and mutually reinforcing— forms of relation that recognize the existential embeddedness of all beings are needed to move us forward as a species.
One Health, as a scientific framework and solutionary praxis, recognizes that many of our most urgent global health threats are systemic and intersecting, including:
- Zoonotic diseases—diseases that are spread between human and nonhuman animals (60–75% of emerging infectious diseases originate in animals, add % of pandemics).
- Environmental degradation, including deforestation and climate change, which alter and exacerbate disease patterns.
- Globalized food systems, which increase contact between humans, farmed animals, and wild animals.
- Antimicrobial resistance (AMR): Roughly 75% of all antimicrobials sold globally are used on farmed animals, making animal agriculture a leading driver of AMR.
As understanding of the interconnected and overlapping nature of these risks has evolved, scientists have come to recognize that conventional approaches—with human, animal, and environmental health segregated—are insufficient both in their preventive efficacy and in their treatment/solution models.
Being With
The One Health paradigm underscores a simple but powerful truth: human health does not exist in isolation. It is shaped by the systems we live inside of and rely on—and especially our food systems. From this framework, plant-based diets emerge as a practical—and widely practicable—evidence-based strategy for significantly improving outcomes in all three spheres—human, animal, and environmental—simultaneously.
At the level of human health, plant-based diets directly address the global surge in chronic diseases such as cardiovascular illness, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. Suboptimal diet is the leading risk factor for premature death globally, with poor diets characterized by insufficient intake of whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables, and excess consumption of sugary drinks, salt, and processed meat.
Diets rich in whole plant foods are consistently associated with lower disease risk and reduced healthcare burdens. This supports One Health’s preventive focus: rather than merely treating illness, plant-based diets can preempt or reduce its incidence from the outset. At the same time, they decrease reliance on intensive animal agriculture, a crucial step in combating both antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic disease emergence, two of One Health’s most urgent priorities.
The benefits to the environment are just as powerful. Plant-based diets require far fewer natural resources including land, water, and energy, generate far fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and drastically reduce pressures on nature, wildlife, and biodiversity. These changes result in healthier and more resilient ecosystems, which help mitigate climate and disease patterns that adversely affect human populations.
Last but not least, the benefits to the animals cannot be overstated. All forms of animal agriculture, not just intensive or industrial animal farming, unavoidably entail horrific abuse, suffering, and death for the animal victims. None of this can be justified when we have sufficient access to plant-based foods and understand that humans have no biological requirement for animal products. Indeed, government health organizations around the world now acknowledge that humans can thrive on a plant-based diet at all stages of life. Moreover, UN experts have estimated that we could feed an additional 3.5 billion more people simply by growing crops for human consumption on land currently used to grow feed for farmed animals.
The term “interbeing” was coined a few decades ago by Vietnamese Buddhist Thích Nhất Hạnh, who wrote, “We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” Interbeing is a concept much older than the word itself, and illuminates a timeless instructive from the Buddha: "All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?"
It's hard not to hear echoes of that teaching in the One Health framework, taken to its logical conclusion, which is to say, taken to heart. Putting it into lived practice may be our one hope left.
A portion of this essay first appeared in the critical introduction to the animal poetry anthology I co-edited, The New Sentience: Reimagining Animal Poetry, published in April 2026.