Streaming to raise money for Animals Australia

Whether it’s animals in farms, on live export ships, companion animals being mistreated or native animals having their habitat destroyed, animals across Australia need our help.

On the 27th of August, I will be doing a 16 hour stream on Twitch.tv playing one of my favourite games which is being re-released that day, World of Warcraft Classic, starting from 8 am AEST.

Please consider making a contribution to support the great work that Animals Australia does to help animals across Australia. Let’s kick some butt for the animals!

I will be matching all donations made up to a total of $1,000.

If you’d like to watch the stream live, you will find it at twitch.tv/vegan_bandit. Please stop by and say hello!

Thoughts on vegan activism in Australia

A few people have asked me for my thoughts on the animal advocacy performed across the country yesterday, so I thought I would share them here.

There was an impressive variety of different actions taken yesterday, and it’s important not to lump them all together. Some actions focused on raising awareness about the realities of animal abuse, others took the form of protests, while others still involved other disruptions.

I strongly support the right of activists to protest peacefully in drawing attention to the cruelties that are inflicted on animals. Peaceful protest is something I support regardless of what is being protested for. We don’t get to pick and choose which cause protests should be seen as an acceptable means of seeking change.

For those who oppose the use of protest and disruption to raise awareness for animals, ask yourself this: if the victims being advocated for were human, would you be ok with the action? If the answer is yes, your issue is probably not about the action, but rather about the cause itself.

Thisarticle sums up this idea rather succinctly.

The need for a tax on harmful products

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.

Cellular agriculture – The need for it and its progress

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.”

To my Australian readers – The animals and environment need your help this election

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.

Weekly election campaign update #3

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/

Thoughts about Yew-Kwang Ng

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.