A 2021 report by think tank Chatham House named agriculture a threat to 85 percent of the 28,000 species in danger of extinction at that time. Today, the total has skyrocketed to 44,000 species facing extinction—and almost 7,000 are at immediate risk from climate change, which is worsened by animal farming.
Alarmingly, a 2016 report published in Nature had already named agriculture a more significant danger than climate change to almost 75 percent of the world’s threatened species, including the African cheetah.
There is hope, though. By choosing a plant-based diet, one can help to ease pressure on our overfished oceans, oppose the pollution caused by factory farms, fight the loss of forest habitats and other land (see more below), and more.
The Chatham House report urged a global shift to “diets based more on plants” in response “to the disproportionate impact of animal farming on biodiversity” and other environmental harms.
