In recent decades a growing movement has sought to change humankind’s damaging relationship with nature — a hopeful development. We have also already seen that humans can work together to avert an environmental crisis.
On January 1, 1989, one hundred and ninety seven countries agreed to eradicate ozone depleting gasses that had thinned out the ozone layers in the atmosphere at both the north and south poles. The result is that earth’s ozone layer is now strengthening and will be back to normal in 10 to 30 years. Humans have also rescued many species from the brink of human caused extinction. Since its passage in 1973, the Endangered Species Act has prevented the extinction of roughly 291 species.
Healthy humans who are aware of the ubiquity of animal suffering are increasingly demanding that their governments require stronger animal protections. They are supporting food producers that treat their animals more humanely, and there is a rapidly growing market for plant-based meat alternatives. Although there are no estimates as to when it will be achieved, an entire industry now working to perfect lab grown cultured meat which will be free of hormones, antibiotics, safe from zoonotic diseases, nutritionally potent, and delicious. Another promising future alternative to our reliance on animals as a food source involve the variety of foods that will be produced through precision fermentation.
Technology will enable a variety of rich and satisfying wild animal experiences as a desirable alternative to exploitative animal zoos where inhabitants are forced to endure deprivation, boredom, and loneliness during a lifetime of captivity. Eventually, we will be able to experience animals in the wild in, total immersion virtual reality. Some early attempts give us hints of what lies ahead.
Videographers, and animal researchers have developed robotic animals disguised to resemble members of particular animal species being studied. To generate high resolution up close video a remotely controlled robotic animal is released in the wild to engage with a group. With captivating results this technique has been successful with animals such as Crocodiles, Hippos, Wild Dogs, Orangutans, Langur Monkeys, Parrots, Sea Otters, Sloths, Meerkats, Macaws and Rattlesnakes.
Other new high tech and innovative approaches to capturing up close video of animals in the wild include the use of 4k and 8k video recorders, telephoto lenses, image stabilization systems, drones, and cameras that are high-resolution, motion-activated, able to function underwater, and sense infrared — all helping us to know a wider range of animals more intimately. Eventually, technology may enable us to more accurately understand and possibly even interact with animal brains, non-invasively, and without causing harm.
Other technological advances will facilitate a significant reduction of animal suffering. Substituting motor vehicles for horses and oxen in the past century reduced considerable animal misery. And in the coming decades vehicles will cease producing greenhouse gases driving climate change.
Modern medicine is relying less and less on animal derived medications. For example, bioengineered recombinant DNA is now replacing insulin previously derived from the pancreas of pigs and cows. And today many vaccines are produced by using cell cultures or synthetic materials instead of relying on animal sources. Laboratory product testing and scientific research on live animals will increasingly become replaced by computer modeling which is cheaper, faster, and more accurate. These innovations will help us treat our fellow animals with the respect and kindness they deserve as the sentient, conscious, emotive beings that we understand them to be.
Hundreds of millions of humans now recognize that protecting the environment and our fellow living creatures is crucial to their best interests. Accepting our role as environmental stewards and conservators of life and intelligence is unquestionably in human’s self-interest, and protecting other species is in our extended-self-interest.