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I think it really matters to think about  animal welfare and human welfare and 
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global health and environmental and all sorts of  other issues all at the same time, all in the same  
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conversation, so that we really can think about  the shared causes of these shared problems and  
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identify solutions that will be co-beneficial  for as many of these issues as possible.  
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Hello I'm Katrien Devolder. Welcome to Thinking  Out Loud - conversations with leading philosophers  
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from around the world on topics that concern  us all. This video is part of a video series  
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on ethical questions arising from the coronavirus  pandemic. If you'd like to see more of my videos,  
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please visit The Practical Ethics Channel.  Covid-19 is very likely a zoonotic disease,  
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which means that it was transmitted from animals  to humans. Other dangerous infectious diseases,  
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such as SARS. MERS, Ebola, HIV- aids  originated in animals too. In fact,  
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of all emerging infectious diseases in humans, 75%  are zoonotic and though almost all of the focus  
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now is on how to tackle the current pandemic, I  want to learn more about what we can do to prevent  
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future pandemics from arising, so I decided  to make several videos on the topic animals  
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and pandemics. In this video, I talk to Jeff  Sebo, who's a Clinical Associate Professor of  
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Environmental Studies and an Affiliated Professor  of Bioethics, Medical Ethics and Philosophy at New  
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York University. Okay, that's more than enough  talking by me. Let's start with the interview.  
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Thanks very much for taking the time to have this  conversation. So I think, or or at least I hope,  
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that most people by now so have realised that  there is this link between viruses present in  
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non-human animals and human pandemics. But what  is it that we do that actually increases that risk  
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of such a virus transferring to humans and that  increases the risk of a new pandemic arising.  
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First of all, thank you for suggesting this  conversation. I'm looking forward to it too  
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and this is a really important topic to be  talking about right now. So to answer your  
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question there are very many things that humans do  that increase the risk of epidemics and pandemics,  
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various kinds of outbreaks. I think, the main  ones to focus on at a global scale might be  
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industrial animal agriculture, the wildlife trade,  and deforestation, and all of these are linked. So  
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first, industrial animal agriculture. We  currently breed and raise and then kill  
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an estimated 100 plus billion farmed animals per  year and the vast majority of these animals live  
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in industrialised settings: factory farms where we  breed the animals to have weakened immune systems,  
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we crowd them together in cramped toxic  conditions. This is the ideal breeding ground  
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for mutations and and in general pathogens  to spread in farmed animal populations and  
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then they spread to workers and then  they can spread in all sorts of ways.  
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Another is the wildlife trade and and this might  be where Covid- 19 originated. So humans will  
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take wild animals from the wild and then  sell them for food or clothing or medicine  
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or entertainment in many countries both in the  East and in the West. And then deforestation  
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is also a main driver. In general, humans are  chopping down lots and lots and lots and lots of  
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trees for various activities, a leading one of  which is once again industrial animal agriculture.  
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Industrial animal agriculture is a leading driver  of global deforestation and when we cut down trees  
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all sorts of problematic things happen: one is  that we once again put humans in close proximity  
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with wild animals who might be carrying zoonotic  diseases, and another is we destroy biodiversity  
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in ecosystems, and biodiversity for various  reasons, is part of what creates a buffer  
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between humans and wild animals who carry zoonotic  diseases. So we both get in closer proximity with  
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them and destroy some of the buffers that keep  those diseases from crossing over into humans.  
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I mean from what you're saying it's clear that  human behaviour has this massive impact on the  
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likelihood of a new pandemic arising, yet this  doesn't really seem to spur us into action somehow  
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and there's one thing that I find really  puzzling. So in the in the current pandemic  
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most people worldwide seem to think that social  distancing is a really important measure to  
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tackle the current pandemic and even I, I went to  the shop, well buy a takeaway coffee this morning  
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and the the person serving me was wearing her  mask under her nose and I was like 'oh no this  
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is scary'. So we're worried about that, but then  at the same time most of us are quite indifferent  
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to all the billions of animals that are crammed  together in the factory farms close to each other,  
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close to humans. Breeding grounds of  pandemics. So I was just wondering,  
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I mean this seems completely inconsistent. Should  we not include all these animals in the measures  
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we developed too? I completely agree. Because we  raise farmed animals at the scale of billions of  
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animals in these dense facilities where there  is no possibility of keeping them separate  
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from each other, if a virus is introduced  it will spread across this population and  
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then what happens is the only option available  to you, which is the option that people have  
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been taking in the case of covid-19, is to cull,  which is the euphemistic way of saying killing,  
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the animals because you have nothing else  that you can do. When you house animals  
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at the scale with so few resources and workers  there is no way to do testing, contact tracing,  
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quarantine, veterinary care - but if we  were thinking about this holistically  
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and structurally we would consider human and  non-human health together and we would recognise  
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that this is not a helpful and sustainable way  to house non-human populations and we would end  
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these practices. You mentioned the holistic  approach. I just wondered whether you could say  
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a little bit more about that? Factory farming will  harm animals and workers and public health and the  
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environment and it can be tempting to focus on  only one or two of those impacts and then try  
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to reduce those harmful impacts but if you only  focus on one or two of them you might actually  
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end up doing counterproductive stuff. So for  example, if all you care about is climate change  
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then you might say:hey we should reduce beef and  dairy consumption and then replace it with chicken  
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and fish consumption because chicken and fish  consumption emits fewer greenhouse gases per meal  
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than beef and dairy consumption do. In contrast,  if you were thinking primarily in terms of animal  
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welfare you might make the opposite point  because chicken and fish consumption will  
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cause more animal suffering per meal than beef  and dairy consumption do because the animals  
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are smaller and so more of them are consumed and  have to suffer and die per meal. So if you only  
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focus on one set of impacts without focusing on  the other ones, then there is a risk that you  
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will identify solutions that might be a little  bit better in one respect but are actually worse  
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in another respect and just trade one set of harms  for another and never really identify or address  
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the sort of structural systemic root causes  of these shared problems. So I think it really  
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matters to think about animal welfare and human  welfare and global health and environmental and  
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all sorts of other issues all at the same time,  all in the same conversation so that we really can  
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think about the shared causes of these shared  problems and identify solutions that will be  
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co-beneficial for as many of these issues  as possible, and that, in this case,  
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will mean plant-based food production.  That sounds wonderful but that will require  
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fundamental changes to the way we produce things,  the way we live, and so it's a very ambitious  
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approach one could say. So does that make it  potentially counterproductive? People will  
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just say like this is just too much like  we're not gonna do this it's impossible.  
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I think people will have that reaction and this is  always the case when people advocate for radical  
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changes to existing systems right, this too I  think, a situation where we need to think about  
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it contextually and where we should resist either  or thinking and embrace both end thinking because  
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while there might be exceptions,  and it all depends on the situation,  
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I think it will usually be the case that we  can make more progress together if we have  
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some people advocating for radical structural  change and then other people advocating for  
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moderate incremental reforms within existing  systems and then the people advocating for radical  
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change, they shift the center of the debate they  make the moderate changes easier to accomplish  
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appear more reasonable in comparison and then the  people can achieve those moderate changes and make  
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the radical changes appear less radical because  the goal posts have been shifted. So I think  
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usually having a systems approach where different  people are willing to do different things and and  
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some are more radical than others is usually the  best way to deal with that issue. It would be bad  
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if everyone was super alienating but it  would also be really bad if everyone bent  
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over backwards to to make their advocacy  palatable because then we would just end up  
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perpetuating the status quo indefinitely and that  would of course be really bad too. I was just  
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wondering whether you could make it a little bit  more concrete: what is something that we could do  
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to prevent pandemics and that is in line with a  holistic approach? Just some concrete examples.  
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Sure. These might also be very ambitious but,  for example, we currently heavily subsidise  
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factory farming which is part of what gives it the  appearance of efficiency and affordability so if  
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we reduce those substances subsidies and increase  subsidies for alternatives like plant-based or  
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cultivated meat then that would help. We can  also better regulate it so that it adheres  
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to higher ethical standards for treatment of  animals or workers or health or the environment.  
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We can internalise externalities we  can basically make the industry pay  
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for the health and environmental harms that  it causes. So once you reduce the subsidies,  
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internalise those externalities, add some  regulations, all of a sudden the prices  
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start to increase and now plant-based products  are subsidised those products are going lower  
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and that will really chip away at the economic  advantages this system currently has. There are  
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many people I'm sure with really good intentions,  who want to adapt what they consume, so that  
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they can at least help prevent pandemics.  And like you said, it's really complicated:  
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they might say like okay I'll eat beef instead,  because chickens are too dangerous for pandemics,  
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but then beef is really bad for the climate  and then I think okay I'll buy a vegan product,  
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it turns out that that the particular vegan  product is really bad for local communities or  
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for a forest somewhere, and then they just think,  whatever I'll just go back to eating chickens.  
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Is there some concrete advice that you have for  just ordinary people who want to do their best?  
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Yeah, well it really all depends on who you are  and what your situation is. Different people have  
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different needs and opportunities and of course  that should be taken into account. With that said,  
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I do think that going vegan to the degree that  you can is one of the best things that you can  
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do because it really does substantially limit the  harms to animals, the harms to workers, the harms  
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to global health, the harms to the environment,  water energy, land consumption, waste pollution  
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greenhouse gas emissions, this really is at the  nexus of a lot of the worst harms human economic  
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activity are causing. So to the degree that you  can, go plant-based or vegan. I think that would  
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be a wonderful first step and then once once you  get the hang of that you can, if you want to start  
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to look more closely at the vegan products you  consume and sift through them and figure out  
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which ones further reduce harm. One mistake that  I think the vegan community sometimes makes is  
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calling vegan diets or or a vegan lifestyle  cruelty free or harm free because then that  
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makes it seem as though it literally causes no  harm and it sets you up for: well what about  
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the exploited farmers who pick your tomatoes and  of course that is very very bad and so I think  
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the right way to frame this is that we should not  be trying to eliminate the harm we cause because  
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that is impossible being alive on this world  necessarily means being complicit in some amount  
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of harm and and so the challenge is not to  eliminate the harm that we cause but rather to  
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minimise the unnecessary harm that we cause and  usually going vegan to the degree that you can  
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is is a really good first step for doing  that through your consumer behaviour.  
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Thanks so much for an illuminating conversation.  Thank you very much for suggesting it again and  
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for doing this series. This is really wonderful.  I really appreciate it. If you liked this video,  
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don't forget to subscribe to The Practical Ethics  Channel and the Thinking Out Loud Facebook page.