Welcome and thank you for watching the film Eating the Future! Are you inspired to do something but aren’t sure where to start? Want to learn more about the connection between climate, nutrition, and animal welfare? Want to get involved with FOUR PAWS campaigns to make this world a better place for animals? We’ve got you covered!

Learn about more actions you can take

At FOUR PAWS, we advocate for a transformation of animal agriculture to reduce animal suffering and help mitigate pandemics and the effects of climate change. 

Our current food system is failing us, the animals and our planet. Animal agriculture alone makes up around 1/6th of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions. It is also the single most powerful driver of habitat loss on Earth. On top of that, 73% of antibiotics globally are used for animals, mainly in intensive farming practices. According to the NRDC around two thirds of medically important antibiotics in the U.S. are sold for farm animals while only a third is used in human medicine.⁶ This accelerates the development and spread of anti-microbial resistance to humans when people consume animal products – meaning that our antibiotics lose their effects as bugs become resistant to them.

When crop land is used to feed farmed animals instead of humans, precious water and soil are lost, trees are cut down to clear the land to produce more feed.

Therefore, FOUR PAWS urges politicians and corporations to end factory farming, adopt the highest animal welfare standards and effectively address the overconsumption of meat and dairy products. We need diverse ecological farming systems – with lower farm animal densities – to support higher animal welfare while protecting and regenerating our planet.

Animals such as cows, sheep and goats are herbivorous animals that graze, known as ruminants. Ruminants emit a very powerful greenhouse gas called methane (CH₄ ) through a process called ‘enteric fermentation’ which occurs in their stomachs and intestines when digesting feed.

The farming of ruminants is responsible for 89% of the total CH₄ emissions of animal agriculture, while animals like chickens and pigs contribute only 11%. Among ruminants, cattle contribute to the majority of methane production at 69% of the total.⁴

Also, the feed production itself is quite harmful to the planet. Almost half of farm animal-related emissions are caused by the production and processing of animal feed such as grass and feed crops.¹ Feed production and grazing pastures alone take up 77% of the world’s agricultural land.² Factory farming depends on compound feed such as soy and grains, not only causing greenhouse gas emissions but also fuelling deforestation and subsequent global heating.

As an animal welfare organisation, we are alarmed about the unfolding climate, antibiotics, and biodiversity crises. Therefore, we have various campaigns and projects exposing the harmful practices of the meat and dairy industry that exploits billions of animals, people and our planet and demands a food systems transformation.

In our Meat Exhaustion day report, we looked at the meat consumption per country. We calculated when a country would exceed its 'sustainable' meat consumption, as defined by the Planetary Health Diet. This is a reference diet of the renowned scientific EAT-Lancet Committee, which looks into the environmental and health impacts of food. For the US this implies a reduction of 81.5% of individual meat consumption.

Our policy experts also make sure to give a voice to the animals in political settings like the UN Conferences or the European Parliament. We also frequently attend protests related to animal agriculture in countries all around the globe.

Each expert in the film Eating the Future came to the same conclusion: eat less meat. Ideally, don’t eat any meat at all. This is already a huge step we can take in our everyday life to make a major difference for us, the animals, and our planet.

Also, you can spread the message! We want as many people as possible to watch this movie, so contact us and we will make the movie available to you. This way you can host your own screening in your community.

At FOUR PAWS, we recommend the 3 R’s Principle: Reduce, Refine, and Replace.

• Reduce the number of animal products that are consumed as much as possible
• Refine the selection of animal products that are consumed to the most sustainable and cruelty-free option on offer
• Replace as many animal products as possible with tasty, cruelty-free and climate-friendly alternatives