Thank you, Anita, for your insightful article. As an animal rights activist living in Türkiye, I witness the effects of climate change becoming more severe every year. Floods, wildfires, extreme heat, and other climate-related disasters are increasingly becoming part of our daily lives. The first victims are often animals—especially those kept on farms and in barns, whether they are confined in cages or not. When disasters strike, these animals have little or no possibility of escaping. Protecting animals from the impacts of climate change is therefore essential to protecting their rights.
At the same time, scientific research increasingly documents the enormous impact of animal agriculture on the climate and the wider planetary crisis. This makes it clear that we cannot address the climate crisis by focusing only on fossil fuels. Even if we could halt fossil fuel use overnight, we would still need to transform the food system and reduce the environmental pressures created by industrial animal agriculture.
That is why a holistic approach matters. We need solutions that address the challenges together rather than treating them as separate problems.
This is also why it is so important to support activists and organizations already working on the ground. We need to be able to continue this work rather than constantly having to look for other jobs to sustain ourselves. In Türkiye, we have been working for years to promote a transition towards a plant-based food system. We are seeing changes, and awareness is growing, but the transformation is still not happening as quickly as we need.
At the heart of this conversation is a simple question: If we do not need eggs to thrive, why do we need cages at all?
Thank you, Anita, for your insightful article. As an animal rights activist living in Türkiye, I witness the effects of climate change becoming more severe every year. Floods, wildfires, extreme heat, and other climate-related disasters are increasingly becoming part of our daily lives. The first victims are often animals—especially those kept on farms and in barns, whether they are confined in cages or not. When disasters strike, these animals have little or no possibility of escaping. Protecting animals from the impacts of climate change is therefore essential to protecting their rights.
At the same time, scientific research increasingly documents the enormous impact of animal agriculture on the climate and the wider planetary crisis. This makes it clear that we cannot address the climate crisis by focusing only on fossil fuels. Even if we could halt fossil fuel use overnight, we would still need to transform the food system and reduce the environmental pressures created by industrial animal agriculture.
That is why a holistic approach matters. We need solutions that address the challenges together rather than treating them as separate problems.
This is also why it is so important to support activists and organizations already working on the ground. We need to be able to continue this work rather than constantly having to look for other jobs to sustain ourselves. In Türkiye, we have been working for years to promote a transition towards a plant-based food system. We are seeing changes, and awareness is growing, but the transformation is still not happening as quickly as we need.
At the heart of this conversation is a simple question: If we do not need eggs to thrive, why do we need cages at all?