For French Buddhist monk and prolific author Matthieu Ricard, there is no moral, ethical, or philosophical way to defend our treatment of animals. Aside from our reliance on meat and dairy products, which accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector, or the fact that an estimated 75% of the world’s fisheries are exploited or depleted, Ricard says a key thing to remember is that we exist on a continuum with animals—we are one of them. It is a huge gap of ethical coherence when it comes to the other eight million species that coexist in the world with us. In a nutshell, we place infinite value on human life, we cannot put a price tag on it, but we give basically zero intrinsic value to other species unless they are of commercial or instrumental interest to us. We must tap into our caring and compassionate selves and to treat other animals with unbounded dignity and respect will go a long way toward inspiring people to see other animals for whom they truly are, to feel for them deeply, and to recognize how they fully depend on us to grant them the ability to be able to live their lives in peace and safety, to survive and to thrive in an increasingly human-dominated world.