I love my cats.
And I’m sure you love your pets too -
the way they look at you, trust you, rely on you.
They’re family.
Which makes me wonder:
What if my cats had been born as pigs?
Neuroscience has long confirmed what experience has always whispered:
Pigs are emotionally complex, intelligent, and sentient - just like cats,
and dogs. And cows. And lambs. And chickens. And turkeys…
They feel fear. They bond. They play. They suffer.
And yet - while one ends up on a sofa with a name and a birthday,
the other ends up in a slaughterhouse, nameless and terrified,
in conditions we would never wish on any being we consider “ours.”
This isn’t a marginal issue.
It’s a global blind spot -
with vast ethical, ecological, and psychological consequences.
The science is clear:
Modern factory farming causes immense suffering.
Tens of billions of sentient animals are raised and killed each year
in ways that violate the most basic principles of welfare and dignity.
The environmental toll is staggering:
- Animal agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of deforestation.
- It emits more greenhouse gases than all cars, planes, and ships combined.
- It pollutes soil and water, accelerates species extinction, and consumes disproportionate amounts of land and grain.
And yet - the cultural split persists:
We cuddle one.
We kill the other.
Often without even looking.
For me, it was a long journey to truly grasp this.
A lot of inner resistance.
And a lot of gentle but persistent truth-telling from my wife.
It took time - and it took willingness.
Because this is not about blame. It’s about awareness.
We inherit these patterns - and we can question them.
Leadership begins with the courage to look -
not only at data, but at what we don’t want to feel.
The dissonance.
The complicity.
The suffering we outsource.
Perhaps the real question is not why we eat animals -
but why we eat some animals and not others.
And what it would mean for our ethics, our climate, and our collective sanity
if we stopped drawing the line where it’s convenient -
and started drawing it where it’s conscious.
P.S. If you're on holiday in the South right now - and, like me in the past, enjoy ordering octopus at a seaside taverna -
it’s worth knowing that modern science has shown octopuses to be highly intelligent, emotionally sensitive beings capable of problem-solving, tool use, and even play.
In some countries, they are now recognized as sentient — and protected accordingly.