Over the centuries humans have folded themselves into power structures that benefit the few at the expense of the many. In the same way that the imperialist subjugates and exploits the third world and the capitalist exploits the worker, the human has positioned itself at the top of an explotative and murderous relationship to nonhuman animals. The beneficiaries of the status quo will emphasise their personal benefits, while refusing to acknowledge even so much as the existence, let alone the moral value, of their victims. When forced to engage with them, the justifications are often times the same - considering the outgroup to be deserving of oppression due to a perceived lack of valuable traits, be it intelligence, the ability to “contribute” to society or emotional “depth”. If we let our morality only apply to our chosen ingroup rather than extending it to all sentient life, we will inadvertantly leave intact the same unjust power structures we readily criticise in the rest of society. Working towards a life that doesn’t contribute to animal exploitation is not just possible but necessary. Go vegan.
If we were to agree that between power and wealth there is little difference, for the past few centuries it is clear that both oppression and exploitation happens with an economic motive. In earlier human development it was a mixture but mainly very concentrated power accumulation that formed such relationships. So it is not “human” but “capitalist human” that is responsible, and capitalist human stops at no moral, ethical, or ecological barrier to accumulate profit.
Going further back the centralization of power (and therefore wealth) became a characteristic of societies that started agriculture, due to the stability of communities (geographically) and the activities of accumulating, processing, storing food. Hunting gathering and therefore seasonal nomadic communities as far as we have discovered didn’t create centralization of either power or wealth. They all did the best they could daily and shared what the could bring back to camp.
Ecologically it is wild forest that can sustain the most life of all forms, not clearing and growing food (vegetable or meat), it is actually the definition of sustainable forest, the maximization of quantity of variety and quantity of life. Monoculture results to eventual death of the object and its ecosystem, and this should include a monoculture of human (urban areas).
But today, the only thing that can really change anything is the elimination of capitalism, not to alter consuming habits within capitalism.