Recently I got to catch up with Siobhan O’Sullivan and record a chat for her excellent podcast Knowing Animals. We talked about the Animal Justice Party, political advocacy for animals, and the NSW state election (before the fact!).
Have a listen here.
Taxing products that we want people to buy less of is a blunt tool, but it works, and the revenue from the tax can be spent on other means of solving the underlying problem, like subsidising alternatives and launching education programs.
This week, I wrote about the need for taxes on products that are harmful to our environment and health, like coal and animal products, in the Independent Australia. This is just one of the ways we can reduce our public health burden and environmental issues, but it’s important to have the discussion.
A few weeks ago, I had an article about the promise and science of cellular agriculture published in the Independent Australia. Check it out!
Here are some key quotes:
“One need look no further than the impacts of the animal agriculture industry to understand why so many people are working on the development of cellular agriculture and are excited about the benefits it may bring to our food system.”
“Finally, some 520 to 620 million farmed animals each year in Australia alone would benefit from being spared a life of farming. Australian law does not adequately protect animals seen as profitable.”
“If you can’t wait for clean meat, there are plant-based products already available in Australian supermarkets which have been hailed by vegans and meat eaters alike to be as good as the real thing. The Impossible Burger even “bleeds”, getting its juicy texture from heme extracted from plants, which is present in real meat.”
This March, myself and around 70 other people will be running in the New South Wales state election for the Animal Justice Party. We are confident that we can get one or possibly even two more people elected to the New South Wales government, making it two or three people in NSW parliament fighting for animals and the environment.
This is so important because no other political party has animal protection as even a minor part of their legislation, in particular farmed animals.
However, this win isn’t yet guaranteed. The unfortunate reality of elections is that we need money. Elections are expensive and the major parties spend millions.
Every cent we raise will be spent directly on election flyers, How to Vote Cards, posters and getting our message out there in the mainstream. We have a record number of candidates standing for the animals! 52 in the lower house and 21 in the upper house, all our candidates need our support to run their campaigns.
Each poster we have printed costs $35, every 1000 flyers we have printed will cost $250 and to get the AJP out there in mainstream media will cost tens of thousands.
Our target of $100,000 will let us buy posters, flyers, radio and newspaper ads, and much more to get the Animal Justice Party, animals and the environment in the minds of New South Wales voters.
Please support our election fundraiser here.
* Unfortunately only people registered to vote in Australia can donate to election fundraisers. Donations of up to $1,500 are tax deductible.
My third weekly campaign update (January 21 to 27) for the 2019 NSW state election.
Video on the chicken slaughterhouse vigil: https://bit.ly/2UpYaJx
Reducing emissions by food choices interview: https://bit.ly/2WqV3mu
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital vigil: https://www.facebook.com/events/373179373493889/
Follow my candidate page on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelDelloiacovoAJPHeffron/
I spoke with Barry Mitchell on Radio Adelaide this week about the environmental impact of our food choices. It’s good to see this slowly getting more attention over the years but, as I argue in the interview, recognition and action around this issue is URGENT.
Reducing Emissions by Food Choices
I really enjoyed this 80,000 Hours podcast interview with Yew-Kwang Ng. His views around utilitarianism and moral realism are very similar to mine. That is – suffering and wellbeing are the only two things that can intrinsically matter, everything else is instrumentally valuable as a means to achieving wellbeing or less suffering. He also is concerned about wild-animal suffering, which is how I first heard about him several years ago.
I did disagree with his views on how we can most effectively reduce farmed animal suffering. He believes that improving welfare standards would be better in the long run than reducing the number of animals farmed by various means. The best steelman for this would be that if we could get animals in farms net positive lives, then farming more animals would be good (utilitarianly speaking).
I find this view strange in the face of Kwang’s strong concern (strong even within the space of pro-climate policy, but in line with other existential risk researchers) of the risk of human extinction due to climate change. His view is that, even if extinction risk is very small, we must act far more than we are to reduce that risk. Given that the animal agriculture industry is such a major contributor to climate change (~15-50% depending on whether you arbitrarily use a 100 or 20 year timescale), why doesn’t he advocate for solving the farmed animal suffering problem and the climate change problem with the one solution? Surely this would be more efficient than improving farmed animal welfare and then working on energy policy separately? A strange oversight (in my opinion) in an otherwise enjoyable interview.
My second weekly campaign update (January 14 to 21) for the 2019 NSW state election (I just bought a new microphone and camera, so the next update on Monday will be higher quality, I promise!).
Follow my candidate page on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelDelloiacovoAJPHeffron/
Recently I joined Ben and Jack of the Dreams, Memes and Veggie Supremes podcast to talk about a few different topics, including pseudoscience, effective animal advocacy and ‘are vegans crazy‘?
“I’m ok with seeming a little bit crazy.”
I can’t recommend this podcast enough for people looking for science-based nutrition, fitness and training information.
I was part of a panel a few months ago called ‘How can we best help animals?’ in Sydney. We talked about effective animal advocacy and had speakers from three different perspectives – Kai McBeth on local grassroots advocacy, Alex Vince on non-profits, and Emma Hurst on political change for animals.
You can watch the recording here!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=38PUzCPd-V8
