In 1993, when Simon & Schuster published the first edition of this book, the world in many ways was very different. The Berlin Wall had only just fallen; the Soviet Union had collapsed, leaving the United States as the sole global superpower; and the year before, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development had been convened in Rio de Janeiro. At what became known as the Earth Summit, 185 delegate countries established the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to address the emerging recognition that the ground temperature of the atmosphere was rising alarmingly, and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to protect the web of life. The personal computer was in its infancy; the Internet web browser, Mosaic, had just been launched; and Google, Amazon, the iPhone, Android, Facebook, and Twitter hadn’t been invented. China’s GDP stood at $444 billion; the human population numbered 5.81 billion; and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 355 parts per million (ppm).

Almost thirty years later, we have never been more connected and yet in some ways the patterns of division have merely 
realigned themselves. Freedom is under threat from rising autocracy, and the Cold War has now morphed into a cyber war—of competing information streams, “fake news,” hacks on electronic infrastructure, and theft of intellectual property. China has overtaken Russia as the new superpower, and with a GDP of $13.6 trillion (2018), is the second largest economy in the world. China’s economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but that expansion has come at the expense of a sharp increase in fossil fuel use. The global population has increased by two billion; biodiversity has declined by 68 percent since 1970; deforestation has continued (almost 10 percent of the Amazon rain forest has been lost since 1993); and the background extinction rates for all species has reached levels not seen since the last great mass death, 65 million years ago. Carbon levels in the atmosphere now stand at 408 ppm, higher than at any time during the last 800,000 years.

One cause of the loss of biodiversity is continued and expanded land use change to graze livestock and raise crops (wheat, soy, corn) to feed those animals in factory farms. Since 
I wrote Animal Factories with Peter Singer in 1980 (revised in 1990), this method of producing meat and dairy has gone global. Countries are urbanizing and an emergent and wealthier middle-class now has greater demand for, and access to, animal products. As timber and mining concessions push further into forests, opening up room for highways and settlements, as well as ranching, feedstock and palm oil production, humans have come into closer and more frequent contact with wild animals. This has led to an uptick in zoonotic disease transmission, and to epidemics: SARS in 2003, H5N1 in 2005, H1N1 in 2009, MERS in 2012, and Ebola in 2014.

As I write, yet another zoonotic disease—the novel coronavirus or COVID-19—has brought illness to more than 63 million and death to 1.5 million people worldwide. The human population and our global economy are being ravaged by 
a disease caused by a microbe so tiny that it would take 900 of them to span the diameter of a human hair. COVID-19 attacks the lungs and can prevent them from supplying oxygen to the blood. In other words, one asphyxiates, suffocates.

COVID-19 is extremely contagious because it is new to the human population and we have not yet developed natural immunity nor do we yet know whether the vaccines in development will suppress infection. COVID-19 spreads rapidly in public transportation, restaurants, theaters, sporting events—wherever people congregate closely. Right now, the only way to avoid infection is to stay at home and keep one’s distance from others who may be carriers but are not yet sick. The result has been massive unemployment, closed businesses, idle airports, empty streets, bare shelves at grocery stores, long lines of people at food banks, collapsing financial markets, and a widespread halt in life as usual.

All of a sudden, we have a worldwide disaster and human life is on hold. It reminds me of the 1959 movie version of the novel by Nevil Shute, On the Beach. It was one of the many end-of-the-world movies that expressed fears 
of nuclear holocaust during the Cold War era.

A new generation of environmentalists is recognizing that 
industrial agriculture, especially of farmed animals, is dramatically reducing the continuing viability of wilderness and wildlife

Now we have a new kind of fear. We are in 
a very real global disaster and it is a preview of the global health threats and their fallout that are coming as the planet becomes hotter. COVID-
19 and its chaos will probably be temporary as natural immunity and effective vaccines appear. However, this pandemic may presage more virulent and more lethal pandemics should we continue to devastate the natural world and factory farm animals. It should also encourage us to think about the more permanent disaster and the greater chaos that are looming unless we 
do something to stop climate change already well under way.

What we have learned over the three decades since the first version of this book is that our cars, frozen foods, and air-conditioned homes are warming this planet. So are our agricultural practices, our use of fossil fuels, and our raising and consumption of animals. Arctic sea ice is melting and polar bears and other creatures are running out of living space and sources of food. Ocean temperatures and levels are rising and coral reefs are dying, as are the marine lives they support. Atmospheric and oceanic currents are changing and weather patterns are growing more extreme—stronger hurricanes, more ferocious wildfires, increased flooding, 
hotter summers, and so on. We should expect 
in the future crop failures, food shortages, population dislocations, refugee crises, government failings, social upheavals . . . and you can imagine the rest.

Since 1993, other elements discussed in 
the original version of An Unnatural Order have changed. Paleoanthropology has revealed further complexities and nuances to how human beings came into contact with our animal cousins and how we formed a relationship with those animals whom we came to domesticate. Awareness has increased over the use of certain words—“tribe,” “Eskimo,” “animist,” “pioneers,” and “Indian,” among others—to describe the confrontation of indigenous peoples and their lifeways with European colonial powers 
and “Western” civilization. These shifts are reflected (at least as much as they can be) in this revised edition.

The ecofeminist approaches to anthropology, environmentalism, archeology, ethics, women’s studies, geography, and so on, that I utilized in writing the first edition of An Unnatural Order have subsequently been integrated into the many varied disciplines and subdisciplines that form human–animal studies (HAS). In turn, the burgeoning interest in how our animal cousins have affected human behavior, settlements, 
culture, and imagination that HAS reflects and expands on has meant that the “Animal Question” that for decades haunted environmentalism is beginning to be addressed. A new generation 
of environmentalists is recognizing that industrial agriculture, especially of farmed animals, is dramatically reducing the continuing viability of wilderness and wildlife. Animal ethicists are beginning to ask not only what our obligations are to farmed and domesticated animals, but those creatures who remain relatively free of direct human control and the broader ecosystem upon which all life depends.

New technology has not only changed the way we communicate and access knowledge, it has dramatically altered how we practice medicine and grow our food. The emergence of cellular and genomic technology has not only ushered in GMOs, patents on life, and worries about genetic pollution, but it has also presented possibilities such as ending animal experimentation and developing new plant-based and, soon, cultivated meat products that may, within a decade, transform our diets and reduce the number of animals we raise for food. The end of intensive animal agriculture could potentially free land for rewilding and reforestation, and conserve topsoil, protect watersheds, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As in all technological 
development, there are risks of hidden environmental costs, inequitable distribution, monopolization, and unforeseen social and health consequences. But it may be that the promise outweighs the peril. Given the existential threats posed by the climate crises, drastic and potentially unwelcome changes may not only be necessary, but unavoidable.

* * *

Although much has changed and much has remained the same since An Unnatural Order was first published, I felt a new, slimmed-down version of the book was necessary, because the central message of the book remains as relevant today as it did then. Like the earlier edition, this revised version will not discuss climate change. Other titles on this important subject are in the bibliography at the end of this book (I would particularly recommend We Are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer, and The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells). These books contain, as does the Internet, facts, figures, statistics, and predictions that may well leave you overwhelmed and depressed. But you need to know what is coming. Too many are in denial. We who care need to be aware, to be concerned, to take action.

Nor does this book describe in detail how our ongoing and increasing consumption of animal products is a significant contributor to the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. I have also included resources on this subject, of which there is a growing awareness, at the end of this book. Our species has succeeded at the expense of other living beings, our animal cousins, and the environments in which they live. We have our comforts and conveniences and consumer goods thanks to industries powered by coal and oil. We feed on chickens and cattle from pharmaceutical factory farms fattened on petrochemical corn and soybeans. By the billions. So carbon, methane, and other greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere.

You need to know what is coming. Too many are in denial. 
We who care need to be aware, to be concerned, to take action.

Instead, An Unnatural Order concerns itself (as it did in 1993) with the basic cause of climate change and biodiversity loss—our attitude about the world: human supremacism and entitlement, a worldview that has alienated us from nature. Yes, the immediate cause is fossil fuel use and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but the most basic cause as to why we find ourselves beset by a global pandemic and a potentially civilization-ending climate crisis is the myths, stories, and attitudes that tell us that we are above nature and entitled to exploit her for our benefit. Unfortunately, thirty years has done little to diminish this old story.

Mason is best known for his 1980 book, 
‘Animal Factories,’ with philosopher Peter Singer. The book examined America’s brave new world of factory farming in which crowded, drugged animals mass-produce cheap meat, milk, and eggs. In the process, Mason and Singer say animal factories also mass-produce environmental pollution and threats to human health while they destroy independent, diversified farming. In addition to writing, Mason speaks about animals, nature, and the environment, at conferences, churches, and universities.

Jim Mason is an author and attorney who focuses on human/animal concerns. His book, ‘An Unnatural Order: The Roots of Our Destruction of Nature’ (Lantern Books, 2020), looks at the historical and cultural roots 
of the Western belief in God-given dominion over the living world. In enslaving animals for war and farming, he says, agrarian society broke the ancient bonds and sense 
of kinship with them. This makes for an alienated, nature-hating culture, Mason argues. It fouls our relations with nature—especially animals, whom we need, he says, “as companions, as exercisers of human empathy and nurturing, as feeders and informers of the psyche, and as kin and continuum with the rest of the living world.”

Mason was also the co-Founder and Executive Editor of ‘Agenda,’ the first-ever animal rights publication, later titled ‘The Animals Agenda.’

To learn more, visit Jim Mason.