Our apartment is hot. Pockets of it have been cooled with the help of two used air conditioners, one for our guinea pigs in their room (they are especially sensitive to heat), and one for the rest of the apartment. Stepping outside those two delicious pockets is like being punched in the face by a hot, humid wall of awful. It is pure nasty, in air form. It literally makes a Jekyll and Hyde out of me, as I struggle to perform even the most mundane of tasks outside the pockets of cool without losing my cool.
Earlier today while brushing my teeth in the sauna (otherwise known as the ‘bathroom’), I was really feeling sorry for myself. You know how it goes, we’ve all been there. You’re upset about the heat, the discomfort, the sweating-from-areas-you-didn’t-think-could-sweat.
And then I thought about how I live in Canada, a country that doesn’t stop transporting animals to their death on days like this. In fact, in Canada, cows can be legally transported for 52 hours with no food, no rest, and no water. For pigs and chickens, it is 36 hours. Such suffering is not fathomable to us, either by scale or by duration. It is the purest proof of the total and utter lack of regard shown towards animals who are raised for food.
Lock your dog in a car on a hot day, and people will riot. They will call you a criminal (as they should). Roll a transport truck full of animals every bit as wonderful, unique and deserving of respect past those very same people and almost no one will even notice. Their suffering goes almost entirely unnoticed.
If you find your animal-eating friends, coworkers or loved ones complaining of the heat, you could do what I do: tell them how lucky they are not to be a farmed animal.
For more information on animal transportation in Canada, check out: http://www.wspa.ca/ati/CurbtheCrueltyReport.pdf
Exactly.