For at the same time many people seem eager to extend the circle of our moral consideration to animals, in our factory farms and laboratories we are inflicting more suffering on more animals than at any time in history.

Pollan is pointing to a modern moral contradiction: public sentiment and philosophical argument increasingly urge that animals deserve ethical consideration, yet industrial systems of meat production and scientific experimentation scale animal suffering to unprecedented levels. The quote frames this as a historical irony—moral progress in theory paired with moral regression in practice—suggesting that ethical concern is not merely a matter of beliefs but of institutions, technologies, and consumption habits. Implicitly, it challenges readers to align their professed values with the material realities of factory farming and laboratory use, and to recognize how distance, efficiency, and invisibility can enable cruelty even in ostensibly enlightened societies.