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Jeremy Rifkin's A Change Of Heart About Animals

969 Words4 Pages

We are not alone on this Earth. We, humans, have animals by our side. We share this inhabitable planet together with animals, and they should have same right as we do on this beautiful planet. Animals are pure instinctual living creatures who never think before following their instincts. They won’t think otherwise before killing a person. Animals who are able to surpass these barriers are able to receive our empathy and their rights, but in Jeremy Rifkin’s, “A Change of Heart About Animals,” he talks ideas about all animals should receive our empathy for great acts of the few. The individual animal receive its equal rights, not by a single entity achieving it for the mass, but by the individual must showing intelligences, emotions and feelings, and most importantly, the ability to co-exist with others; including human and other animals alike. An animal must show intelligences, the ability to communicate, solve problems, and follow simple instructions. In “A Change of Heart About Animals,” Rifkin refers to a gorilla, named Koko, who learned sign language. Koko understands English, and has an IQ between 75 and 95 (8). He shows that animals have the ability to learn sophisticated language; which was thought to be exclusive to our species. Koko is as intelligent as an average human being which shows the ability that animals can learn as much as human can. However, she might be a special case. Maybe, if other gorillas were taught sign language, they would be more like Koko.

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