Oxford University Press Blog: “Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and other Catastrophes. The health and environmental crises of the past two years have taught us that our lives are increasingly connected across nations and generations. Many of our current activities are not only harming vulnerable populations but also contributing to global health and environmental threats that harm us all. And when disruptions occur, they disproportionately impact the most vulnerable among us. Thus, many of us now appreciate, pursuing health and climate justice requires pursuing social and economic justice too. And in the same kind of way, I believe, pursuing justice for humans requires pursuing justice for animals too. Of course, justice for animals is important for its own sake. Humans kill trillions of animals per year, often unnecessarily. For instance, we kill more than 100 billion farmed animals and an estimated 1-3 trillion wild animals for food each year, in spite of the fact that we increasingly have access to humane, healthful, sustainable plant-based foods. We also kill countless captive and wild animals every year for research, clothing, and entertainment, as well as through habitat destruction, “pest” control, and air, water, and noise pollution. We need to reduce these harms as much as we realistically can simply for the sake of our nonhuman victims…”