Cowspiracies about Meat Eating Environmentalists: A Critical Examination of the Environmental Vegan Movement by Nick Pendergrast

Cowspiracies about Meat Eating

Environmentalists: A Critical Examination

of the Environmental Vegan Movement

Nick Pendergrast

Light Green Versus Deep Green

CW. ‘This is for them’ (the kids).

Conservation Versus Animal Liberation David Attenborough.

For more on these issues: Iris Bergman. Oscar Horta.

Conservation AND Animal Liberation

Vegan Message at the Australian People’s Climate Marches

Melbourne Brisbane

Also a “vegan presence” in Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart and Perth.Source: veganaustralia.org.au

Vegan Message at Perth Climate Rallies

2013 2015

Animal Agriculture as the Real Problem Framing = selection, emphasis and presentation in the message

promoted. Criticisms from Perth: vegan chants purposefully drowning out other

chants, downplaying the importance of other issues. Animal Activism Victoria: ‘We do not have time to focus on the

smaller, less confronting issues first and work our way up to the real problem, the time to act is now and the solution is veganism.’

‘Cowspiracy: stampeding in the wrong direction?’ by Danny Chivers

The 51% figure. 'We need to find ways to support each other’s causes and tackle

all these problems together, rather than fight over which one is more important.'

The UK Climate Camps have had entirely vegan kitchens since they started in 2006. ‘This is largely due to the fact that enough vegan campaigners were

practically involved from the beginning, making the case for animal-free cookery while also playing an active part in the camps themselves’.

Article from: newint.org/blog

“You Can’t be a Meat Eating Environmentalist” ‘This statement is presumably

meant to prick the consciences of well-off US eco-activists but it sweeps the struggles of millions of poorer Southern and Indigenous peoples under the carpet’ (Chivers).

Feminism and veganism (Ruby Hamad).

Limitations of individual solutions (Chivers, Geoff Russell).

Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis, This Changes Everything. Environmentalism of the poor.

The Dreaded Comparison

Kim Socha: ‘The "Dreaded Comparisons" and Speciesism: Leveling the Hierarchy of Suffering’ in Confronting Animal Exploitation: Grassroots Essays on Liberation and Veganism.

Critiques from with the Vegan Movement Bob and Jenna Torres:

‘…Going vegan for mere environmental reasons is rather like opposing the Holocaust because the trains to Auschwitz had a large carbon footprint’.

Light green.

Moving Forward

Addressing critiques from animal liberationists. Promote veganism primarily for the animals. Even when making an environmental argument, bring it back to individual

animals. Making a more inclusive movement.

Focus on other individual actions beyond veganism. Look beyond the individual eg structural change. Veganism is an important environmental issue/animal agriculture has a

significant environmental impact rather than you can’t be a meat eating environmentalist.

Want to hear the workshop from next door? www.ProgressivePodcastAustralia.com

Last year’s conference = episode 108.