In an escalation of the Plant-Based Future campaign [1], supporters of Animal Rebellion blockaded supermarket dairy aisles and emptied milk bottles onto the floor.

Kat Chan, 20, who was amongst those in Harrods, said

“We are taking this necessary action because we don’t feel we have any other choice. Last week’s heatwave and wildfires showed us a glimpse of our future if we fail to act now.

Transitioning to a plant-based food system and rewilding is the key solution to the climate crisis.

There is no need for the deaths of over a billion animals for food each year in this country. We have the opportunity to lead the way on a safer future built on love, justice, and freedom.

A plant-based food system would provide security and a future to farmers and farming communities across the country, in contrast to the soaring rates of depression and financial ruin currently being experienced. Around 25% of dairy farmers are considering leaving the industry and we need the government to support them in the transition to plant-based farming.” [2][3]

Animal Rebellion is pushing for a straightforward and cast-iron solution to the climate and animal emergencies: transition to plant-based farming and rewilding of the freed-up land. Research from The University of Oxford has shown 76% of land currently used for farming would be freed up by wholesale transition to plant-based production [4]. This land could undergo rewilding and begin the crucial process of carbon drawdown; this drawdown has the potential to offset decades of fossil fuel emissions.

Nathan McGovern, 23, spokesperson for Animal Rebellion (who was notably involved in several Just Stop Oil disruptions in April that included interrupting an on-air interview on LBC and disabling petrol pumps at the Clacket Lane services on the M25) has said

“A golden solution to the climate and animal emergencies is being presented to us in the form of a plant-based future.

Imagine a world in which there is food security, safety, and hope for everyone, where we are not facing the horrors of climate breakdown currently being seen in places like Madagascar, Pakistan, or even 40 degree heat in the UK!

All we need is for the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, George Eustice and the rest of the government to take action that shows they care about the people they claim to represent.

This September hundreds of people will be taking action against the dairy industry to fight for a plant-based future that will ensure prosperity for humans, other animals, and the planet alike.”

The action comes as part of Animal Rebellion’s demands for a plant-based future, which were announced on Monday 23rd of May [4]. Animal Rebellion is a mass movement using nonviolent civil disobedience to call for a just, sustainable plant-based food system. 

ENDS

For interviews, images or further comment please contact:

pressoffice@animalrebellion.org

[1] https://animalrebellion.org/plantbasedfuturelaunch/ The Plant-Based Future campaign is an upcoming civil resistance campaign with 2 demands for the British government: 1. Government supports farmers and fishing communities to move away from animal farming and fishing as part of an urgent and immediate transition to a plant-based food system. And 2. Government commits to rewild the freed-up land and ocean as part of a broader programme of wildlife restoration and carbon drawdown.

[2] ”Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century” https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000010

[3] https://www.fginsight.com/news/news/nearly-a-quarter-of-dairy-farmers-planning-to-quit-128874 

[4] “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers” https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216 

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOq2Jqqga9E&t=5s 

The post ANIMAL REBELLION POUR MILK ON FLOOR OF HARRODS AS PART OF PLANT-BASED FUTURE CAMPAIGN first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

Join us in Victoria Park to relax, soak up the sun, and eat delicious vegan snacks!

Please bring something to share at the picnic and together we will create a plant-based feast!

Meeting at Victoria Park at 4pm.

All you need is yourself, we are a super friendly group and eager to meet some new faces! Newbies and quiet people always welcome.

Join our WhatsApp here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/HYcMc8iZ140BPOxE6yhp09

The post Plant-based Picnic first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

For those of us in the UK, we may wonder how buying a burger from a McDonald’s outlet halfway across the world from South America has anything to do with the deforestation taking place in the continent. Here’s how. 

McDonald’s buys most of their chicken from Cargill, an American global food corporation founded in 1865, now one of the largest privately held corporations in the United States. Cargill has evolved into a food-product empire and has enormous power, with a vast proportion of the world´s main agricultural commodities passing through its hands. 

There is no reason any British consumer tucking into a Chicken Burger or McChicken sandwich would ever know that an American company is involved in almost every step of their foods’ production. Or, more importantly, that areas of rainforest have been flattened in the process. 

In the early 2000s, deforestation rates in the Amazon were shocking. Following campaigns from environmental groups and retailers, companies like Cargill agreed not to buy soybeans grown in newly deforested areas of the Amazon in the 2006 landmark Amazon Soya Moratorium. This worked, and from 2004 to 2012  the clearing of trees in the Amazon fell by 84%. But of course, it didn’t work for long. Cargill and McDonald’s put profit before the planet, and simply found loopholes in the moratorium to ensure they could continue buying soya grown on deforested land. 

Companies like Cargill simply began buying from soya plantations in the Bolivian Amazon and the Brazilian Cerrado according to a Mighty Earth report. The cerrado is a crucial ecosystem containing 5% of the world’s plant and animal species. More than half of its native vegetation is already gone due to deforestation.  In addition, with the moratorium applying only to soya in particular, farmers have been able to sell their crops as deforestation-free as they continue to clear land for cattle, maize and other commodities. Consequently, deforestation has continued and reached an all time high last year.

Efforts to extend the soy moratorium to the Bolivian Amazon and Brazilian Cerrado have long been opposed, despite calls to do so by local NGOs, scientists and the Brazilian environment minister. Retailers have so far not used their leverage over Cargill to compel it to support a soy moratorium expansion. Being Cargill’s biggest customer in Europe, McDonald’s would have huge influence. The company however, would appear to care far more about soy reaching Cargill´s chicken processing plant here in the United Kingdom Hereford. Cargills’ Hereford site slaughters over a million birds per week, many of which will go on to be sold in McDonald’s branches across the United Kingdom.

Brazil is the biggest producer of soy consumed in the United Kingdom, and 70 percent of it is imported into the UK by Cargill, the vast majority of it to become animal feed. Only about two percent of the world’s soy crop is processed into plant-based alternatives such as meat alternatives, tofu and soy yoghurt . It is  mostly grown in Europe and does not drive deforestation.

With their poor track record on deforestation becoming increasingly obvious to consumers, McDonald’s announced a series of ‘’ambitious’’ sustainability initiatives in October 2021. The company explain on their website: ‘’We want to make sure the beef in our burgers contributes to a sustainable food system in which communities, animals and the planet thrive.’’ Animal Rebellion has a very different idea of a sustainable food system. In our eyes, flattening rainforests, slaughtering millions of animals, and selling a ludicrous quantity of largely unhealthy products is in no way sustainable. 

McDonald’s sells more than 75 hamburgers per second. Each year McDonald’s buys 1.9 billion tons of cow flesh to be used for patties in outlets across the world, producing more than 53m metric tonnes of greenhouse gases. The fast food giant stresses its burgers sold in the UK come from British and Irish farms, but have been accused of feeding animals with feed  coming from deforested areas in Latin America. Glenn Hurowitz, chief executive of Mighty Earth highlighted that ‘’everything we know about their suppliers suggests they’re still chock full of deforestation.”

Despite McDonald’s massive and ongoing role in the destruction of primary forests, it has gained several certification labels. For example, there is evidence that the Rainforest Alliance, who certifie McDonald’s coffee, uses child labour in their farms. In addition, the RSPCA has given its stamp of approval on McDonald’s chicken factories, instead of telling the truth and highlighting that captivity and death can never be aligned with good welfare standards. Instead of standing up for the animals, RSPCA complies with the big business. The labels on meat and dairy do little but confuse and greenwash. They are certified lies. 

McDonald’s recognises their own complicity in deforestation by stating on their own website:  ´´We’ve set an ambitious goal to eliminate deforestation from our global supply chain by 2030.´´ It is difficult to take this, and all of McDonald’s other sustainability targets seriously, as not only is the breeding of cows the largest driver of deforestation in the world, with beef potentially being the single most environmentally destructive food in existence. 

According to landmark environmental documentary Cowspiracy, cows are the world’s largest source of methane, which is up to 100 times more destructive to the climate than CO2. Cows around the world produce 150 billion gallons of this gas per day. Raising cows is incredibly resource draining with a staggering 2,500 gallons of water needed to produce just 1 pound of beef. This means that the production of one hamburger requires 660 gallons of water – the equivalent of the average person’s showers over a period of 2 months.

Raising cattle also requires a huge amount of land, which is why so many forests are being cleared to make room in the first place. According to the Cowspiracy, 1.5 acres of land can only produce 375 pounds of beef as opposed to 37,000 pounds of plant-based foods. Rearing livestock and their feed already occupies up to 45% of the earth’s ice-free land. With the demand for meat being so large, there is still not enough space to raise the animals to feed our appetite and more forests are having to be cleared. Where will this end, with the whole planet being deforested and devoted to meat production?

By selling huge quantities of these catastrophically polluting foods, at the expense of both animal and human kind, we believe McDonald’s to be running one of the most polluting and morally corrupt operations underway in our world today.  

Animal Rebellion calls on McDonald’s to stop this madness and transition to a fully plant-based menu by 2025. After all, this is the only hope the company has at meeting their climate goals. Climate experts who reviewed McDonald’s targets say: ´´The company is largely dodging the one bold step it must take to slash emissions: dramatically reducing the amount of beef it serves. Not moving boldly on their menus suggests motivations might not be to mitigate climate change but to manage investors.”

Gidon Eshel, an environmental and urban studies research professor at Bard College says: ´´The naked truth is McDonald’s is in a business that is fundamentally at odds with the Earth’s integrity. The culture of beef is not consistent with Earth’s wellbeing, and we have to choose: do you eat beef and let Earth incinerate, or do you forgo beef and give Earth a fighting chance?”. 

The answer is simple. McDonald’s must cease to sell products which cause deforestation and pollution and transition to a fully plant-based menu, now. The introduction of one or two plant-based products is, at this point, a drop in the ocean. We need a complete and thorough reinvention of the McDonald’s menu and we need it now. 

Join Animal Rebellions campaign No Love In It for McDonald’s to transition to a fully plant-based menu by 2025. Take a look at some of our previous actions here including the blockade of McDonald’s UK burger factory for 3 days, the overnight occupation of McDonald’s Leicester Square and sit-ins across the country. Please fill out our Volunteer Form to get involved with what we´re planning next! 

The post Amazon Deforestation for McDonald’s Profit first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

Veganuary is more than a challenge. It is a direct catalyst for food system change.

Around the world we face grave climate catastrophes and huge animal injustices. Data has shown time and time again that a plant-based food system is the best way to reduce our impact on the climate (Poore and Nemecek, 2018). Food can hold a lot of cultural value. However, culture is dynamic and as a society we are already showing that we are ready to align ourselves with the planet. We have been actively creating a shift in culture! 

In 2014, Veganuary began as the first annual challenge for people to take a one-month pledge to go plant-based. The aim being to educate and promote veganism. Only eight years later and the global pledge to try plant-based for 31 days has risen to 2 million. In the UK, over 75 companies signed the Veganuary 2022 pledge. The rise in pledges is a true reflection of how we collectively wish to move forward. It is a powerful and active protest against our current system which unapologetically contributes to environmental degradation and animal injustices.

Veganuary is Depicting Food System Change

A core principle of Animal Rebellion is to focus on system change and not individual change.

The staggering uptake in the pledge to go plant-based around the world shows how Veganuary is enacting and facilitating system change. It is acting as a catalyst to change attitudes, behaviours and even the global relationship with food and its connection to the environment. Public behaviours and demands shape what companies create and sell to us. The popularity of Veganuary has led every supermarket to create their own plant-based line of food and fast-food restaurants to increase or add plant-based meals to their menu.

This is definitely a food system change heading in the right direction. However, it is not enough. Large food corporations like McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Papa Johns hold the economic resources to make impactful and substantial change in the way that we need to see. Their current changes are hopeful but these companies need to see entire food menus change to plant-based. 

NO to “Less But Better“

Big corporations have felt the tide of scientific evidence piling up against meat, fishing and dairy. And some try to fight back to save this obsolete and injust meat and dairy system. 

We can mitigate this climate crisis if we listen to the science and adapt. We ask for a just transition to a 100% plant-based food system, because no meat or dairy products are sustainable or just. Since 2020 we have seen an increase in the sales for plant-based products and as a direct retaliation we have also seen environmental organisation such as “A Greener World” promote meat and dairy consumption as environmentally friendly and just to animals.

The absurdity in this lies in the fact that countless studies have shown that meat and dairy is not sustainable for our planet (Mason and Lang, 2017) – so why are “green” organisations diluting the matter by redirecting our energy towards meat again? Plant-based is not only a simple solution, but a necessary one to build a positive future for everyone on this planet.
In addition to the environmental destruction caused by meat and dairy farming, we can not ignore that animals are sentient (Kumar et al., 2019). There is no humane way to kill a non-human animal just as much as there is no humane way to kill a human animal. All animals exploited can feel pain and joy. They want to live with their families and be free, just like us. It is unjust to separate a mother from a baby as is inherent to the dairy industry. To kill one individual is not justified when abundant nutritious food that can feed the world is available.

What are companies and organisations doing NOW?

It might have seemed unbelievable 10 years ago, but here we are: full organisations and companies are paving the way to a food system revolution. Where plant-based businesses led and innovated, big companies are learning from their mistakes and becoming part of the solution to the problems they are causing. Here are some food-system change highlights: 

1. Veganuary saw a jump from 57 major companies in 2021 to 75 in 2022: encouraging employees to go plant-based and displaying the benefits for the planet, health and animals.
2. Supermarkets go plant-based: a supermarket commits to increase by 300% sales of meat alternatives by 2025
3. Fast-food and restaurant chains are cooking and baking more plant-based food: Two major restaurant chains have decided to make half their menu plant-based by the end of 2022 to battle the climate crisis. 

We disagree with the exploitation of animals (humans included) that these organisations continue to take part in with meat and dairy still on their agenda; however, we want to recognise these first positive steps being taken towards a fully plant-based food system. Whilst making plant-based more accessible and affordable, we can’t wait for them to transition to zero meat, fish and dairy!

Reasons to be hopeful

These days, the media is filled with this overarching sense of doom: that we have no hope because these industries have gone too far. However, if we zoom out and take into account all the above, we are already making an incredible impact. 

Firstly, over 2 millions animals were not exploited and killed in January 2021, Veganuary estimated. This number is based on the Vegan Society’s Veganalyser calculator and Veganuary participant data including geographical location and pre-pledge diet.

Second, we estimated the environmental impact of the 580,000 participants in Veganuary in 2021. We based our calculations on the lowest quantity of resources saved from switching from a UK meat-eating diet to a plant-based one (scientific papers and organisations in sources). In 2021, Veganuary may have cut emissions by 15,777 CO2 tons, saved 48,000 metre square of forest and 72,442,000 cubic metres of water. Besides, eating plant-based food directly saved 31,552 tons of grains, which can feed people.

Thirdly, our movement is growing and a cultural shift is taking place before our eyes. Whereas before the media consciously kept meat and dairy out of the news, they are now increasingly joining the dots between meat, dairy, fishing and the environmental crisis. Their change in approach is a no-brainer when scientific studies show that a plant-based food system would use 4 times less land cover. Any plant milk emits at least 3 times less carbon emissions than dairy milk. 

Lastly, as a consequence of the above companies recognise the role they can play by offering nutritious, plant-based food. They are taking steps towards increasing plant based options, but we have to keep the pressure on to ensure this only goes further. 

Energy Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said plant-based food is helping to cut UK’s emissions. “I think that there is a lot of societal change that will actually help us and drive the progress to 2035, where hopefully we will hit the 78 per cent reduction target.”

Our demands ?

1. Food retailers and restaurants should keep their delicious plant-based products all year long. 
2. Corporations continue to fully transition their food production to 100% plant-based.

A JUST, PLANT-BASED WORLD IS NOT ONLY POSSIBLE,

IT IS ALREADY WITHIN OUR GRASP.

References:

BBC (20/10/2021) Climate plan urging plant-based diet shift deleted https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58981505

These estimations are based on research provided by the following organisations and articles:

1. Hamerschlag, K., & Venkat, K. (2011). Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change & Health.

2. Peter Scarborough, Paul N. Appleby, Anja Mizdrak, Adam D. M. Briggs, Ruth C. Travis, Kathryn E. Bradbury, Timothy J. Key. (2011, June 11). Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK.

3. Earth Talk. (n.d.). Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World’s Rainforests.

4. Fair & smart use of the world’s fresh water. (n.d.). 

5. The true impact of animal agriculture.(2018, October 4).

Kumar, S., Choudhary, S., Kumar, R., Kumar, A., Pal, P. and Mahajan, K., 2019. Animal Sentience and Welfare: An Overview. International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences, 8(08), pp.635-646.
Mason, P. and Lang, T., 2017. Sustainable Diets: How Ecological Nutrition Can Transform Consumption and the Food System. Taylor and Francis.

Poore, J., & Nemecek, T., 2018. Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987-992.

The post Veganuary, Food System Change and the Responsibility of Corporations first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

It’s a pretty obvious no, and yet this is almost exactly what is happening right now. But it’s not just one community that is being affected, it’s the whole world and the system that’s causing this destruction hasn’t had just one year to prove that it works. It’s had centuries. Meat and dairy have been the dominant part of a Western diet for a long time now, with increasing industrialisation following WW2 giving us the food system we are used to today. Right now, animal farming contributes at least 18% of global emissions, 70% of agricultural emissions and up to 80% of global deforestation. Even with all this, these industries fail to be profitable, with £1.5 billion of government subsidies coming straight out of taxpayers pockets and into those of livestock farmers. This industry was entrusted with the job of feeding the world. It’s failing. So why is there so much resistance to building something new?

A Deceptively Simple Solution

In recent years it has felt like there has been a shift, with campaigns for reducing the amount of meat and dairy we consume becoming more common. With reports like the 2019 EAT Lancet report which called for a 90% reduction in meat and dairy consumption as well as documentaries such as Cowspiracy and Seaspiracy, the recognition that what we eat impacts the planet has gained mainstream acceptance. A 2021 poll of 2,095 UK adults run by the ‘Eating Better Alliance’ found that 21% of respondents were eating less meat than a year ago, with 38% doing so because of carbon emissions and 37% because of other environmental concerns. In the face of a changing industry, however, we have seen a new story being told by the meat industry,  that we can keep our current food system and focus on eating less meat, but better quality.

For many people, this was the ideal answer. The idea that they didn’t have to drastically change our lifestyle or eating habits but could also have a neutral, or even positive effect on the planet while doing so. Yet, when you dig a little bit deeper into what the industries are telling us, some holes start to form.

Is Less But Better Enough?

Before we answer this question, it helps to look at a completely different industry and investigate how it dealt with rising information that was saying their product may be causing harm: the tobacco industry. In the book Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway show how the big businesses behind cigarettes developed a playbook for dodging the science that showed that the product they were selling was killing people. This formula has gone on to be used to talk about everything from global warming to pesticides and, more recently, animal agriculture. The basic tactic is, cast doubt on the science through paid ‘experts’ and false claims and spark controversy to derail the conversation from what the harm that is being caused.  

It can be hard to believe but by looking at the industries’ own messaging we can quickly find examples of where meat, dairy and fishing are already doing this. And they all tell one story: that we can fix the problems of the industry by eating less and ‘better’ animal products.

They bring up food miles and promote buying locally sourced meat and dairy whenever questions around the climate impact of animal products are raised. While the idea of buying local in and of itself is a positive one, the reality is that transport is an extremely small part of food emissions, making up less than 10% and as low as 0.5% of GHG emissions when it comes to animal products’ contribution to emissions. So essentially, even if all animal products consumed were locally sourced, they would still be contributing far higher emissions than plant-based products. 

They say that switching to grass-fed systems for cows and sheep will be better for the environment than intensive farming and even plant-based options. If we look into this though, we find that the opposite is the case. Research shows grass-fed systems produce more emissions than intensive farming, while also using more land! On top of that, it would take a rainforest three-quarters of the size of South America to sequester the carbon produced by livestock.

Let’s not forget that every year in the UK approximately 2.6 million cattle, 10 million pigs, 14.5 million sheep and lambs, 80 million fish and 950 million birds are slaughtered for human consumption. It’s pretty clear that a food system where no one has to die is a better one. 

They say that there is no other option and that this food system is the only one that works. But we know that isn’t true.

A Plant-Based Food System

With more and more evidence showing us that we need to change what we eat to help the planet heal, it seems obvious that we need a big change and that it’s a change that can’t just be achieved through individuals making small shifts to their diet. The whole system is set up in a way that harms the planet. Luckily though, we have an alternative which would take destruction off the menu.

A study from Oxford University that looked into the viability of a plant-based food system showed that if we were to convert all the land currently used to graze animals to natural vegetation it would remove the equivalent of 15% of the world’s total GHG emissions. Only a small fraction of pasture land would be needed to grow food crops to replace the lost beef. Another report showed that if we were to shift to a plant-based food system, food-related emissions would drop by 70% by 2050, saving £440 billion in the process.

But it wouldn’t just mean less carbon and more wild spaces. A plant-based food system is a system of abundant and affordable food as plant-based food is not only better for the planet, it also takes far less land to produce and is rich in variety, culture and flavour. Although this world may feel far away, it is already happening. Organisations such as the UK-based Refarm’d are working with farmers to transition from a struggling dairy industry into sustainable and profitable oat milk farming while the Good Food Institute is supporting transitions to pulse farming.

Conclusion – Meat and Dairy is Bankrupt

With a plant-based food system we can feed the world, provide much needed green jobs and build a world where humans and animals alike are treated with respect and dignity and have access to an abundance of food and choice. Urgent change is needed but we have an alternative that is just and fair for everyone. All we need to do is work together and achieve it.

The post Doubt and Lies: the tactics of a struggling meat and dairy industry and why we won’t fall for them first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

The meat, dairy and fish industries are under threat so are desperately lashing out and it isn’t pretty. There is nowhere for those with vested interests to hide, given the science is now so clearly stacked against them. So they are going on the offensive. All 10 largest meat and dairy companies in the USA “have contributed to efforts to undermine climate-related policies” (Lazarus et al., 2021).

In an interview published on Boxing Day in The Guardian, a Spanish government minister, Alberto Garzón, in charge of consumer affairs, explained that factory farming is damaging the environment and leading to the export of poor-quality meat. Mild stuff and clearly factually correct. 

The backlash has been furious, from the meat industry and politicians, forcing the government to distance itself from his comments.

Fortunately, Garzón has stood his ground. In a subsequent radio interview he said: “I’m not saying anything new. I’m just relaying what scientists say. Everyone knows that the factory farming of meat causes pollution … and emits greenhouse gases.”

In the UK this month, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has launched a £1.5 million campaign featuring an inquisitive little girl ‘Nancy’ along with her grandad. Being broadcast on Channel 4, ITV and Sky as well as on-demand services, the new TV advert focuses on the supposed goodness within red meat and dairy. Poor ‘Nancy’.

The AHDB describes itself as “a statutory levy board, funded by farmers, growers and others in the supply chain to help the industry succeed in a rapidly changing world”.

“Survive” might be a more appropriate word than “succeed”. The rapidly changing world is what scares corporations that for so long have trashed the environment, contributed massively to the climate crisis and put out disinformation, while making huge profits and raking in massive taxpayer-funded subsidies. 

That misinformation is nowhere better epitomised than in the Red Tractor consumer logo for pork and pork products. It is not hard to understand the problem when you know that the “standard” behind this logo is from the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA). Talk about marking your own homework.

For mass misinformation under one roof, you can’t beat the industry’s WeEatBalanced website, with its sheen of respectability and faux concern for health and the environment. 

In fact, the weaknesses of the arguments shine through. For instance, in a piece entitled “What would happen if the world converted to veganism” there is basically nothing that can be said to counter all of the benefits of a plant-based diet. 

Here’s the first of five pathetic straws that are clutched at: “Livestock produce much more than just food, from medicines and cosmetics to glue and waterproofing agents, they are in a huge number of products. Consideration hasn’t been taken on the impact of these production processes or the impact of animal-free replacements.” 

Is that the best you can do?!

If the world switched to a plant-based system, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% – an area equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined – and still feed the world (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). This was according to a study, published in the journal Science, based on a huge dataset from almost 40,000 farms in 119 countries and covering 40 food products that represent 90% of all that is eaten. It assessed the full impact of these foods, from farm to fork, on land use, climate change emissions, freshwater use and water pollution (eutrophication) and air pollution (acidification). Oddly, this and the many other benefits, don’t feature on the website. 

The global meat industry leaves a trail of destruction all over the world, including climate change, deforestation, forest fires, human rights abuses, land grabs from indigenous people and traditional communities, increased risk of future pandemics like coronavirus, and damaging health.

Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research, said: “A fully plant-based food system “is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.” 

There are echoes within the industry fight-back of other sectors that have ended up on the wrong side of history – tobacco and fossil fuels. If the food industry bodies wanted to be useful, they would put all of their efforts into bringing about a fair transition that protects independent farmers and supports the urgent shift to plant-based models. 

Instead, they shout, rant, misinform, and spend millions on lobbying, websites and advertising, as the sun starts to set on them. As Mr Garzón found recently, those that speak out will be attacked but these are the wayward, flailing punches of industries that are down and on their way out. 

What you can do:

Join Animal Rebellion and help us call out the hypocrisy and lies as we have done time and time again in our actions against the likes of McDonald’s, Arla, Red Tractor and others. 

Make a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (in the UK, this is at https://www.asa.org.uk/make-a-complaint.html)

References:

Lazarus, O., McDermid, S. & Jacquet, J. The climate responsibilities of industrial meat and dairy producers. Climatic Change 165, 30 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03047-7

Nemecek. T and Poore. J, “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers,” Science 360, issue 6392 (June 2018): 987-992. 

The post Industrial farming: Fighting for its survival first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

So how have the stakeholders in our current, archaic, and destructive food system reacted? Supermarkets, restaurant chains, and producers alike have come up with a desperate lie: less but better. Telling us, the public, “less but better” ignores the simple fact that no meat, dairy, or fish is sustainable. Case in point: even the supposedly least sustainable plant-based milk is still more sustainable than the supposedly most sustainable dairy one!

The need to go beyond the less but better agenda is glaring. So why is it that less but better exists? Simply put, it is the death throe of a losing industry. It echoes the sheer fantasy of the tobacco industry in decline that “falsely marketed and promoted low-tar and light cigarettes as less harmful” than regular cigarettes to keep people smoking and sustain revenues”. The industries driving deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate breakdown are using the same tactics to maximise profits at the expense of people, animals, and the planet.

The parallels are undeniable. Meat, fish, and dairy industries are clamouring to deceive the public and not do what is necessary to safeguard the future. How can less but better work when every observable plant-based alternative is more sustainable than one coming from meat, fish, and dairy industries? 

The greenwashing of the meat industry is an emerging scandal, with a DeSmog investigation shedding light on the sustainability sham. They’re not alone in highlighting the underhand practices rampant throughout meat production, that harm workers, animals, and the planet. Underreporting emissions, making false promises, and manipulating sustainability labelling are just a few tactics used to give the illusion of sustainability. 

Why would these industries be working so hard to cover up their practices if they were actually sustainable?

Plant-based options are less land intensive, more productive, and infinitely repeatable. Adopting them will allow us to nourish the world’s population for generations to come, rewild land, end the suffering of billions of farmed animals, and allow for adequate carbon capture! None of this is possible with any food-system reliant on meat, fishing, and dairy.The stories that the likes of McDonald’s want to tell us about “Sustainable Agriculture & Beef“ are laughable in the face of swathes of evidence to the contrary. The only way to achieve sustainability is through a just transition to a plant-based food system. Our planet is on the brink of collapse, and already millions of people are experiencing the deadly impacts of climate breakdown.

Now is not the time for governments and corporations to lie to the world; now is the time for real change, real action, and a just and sustainable plant-based food system.

How?

• Volunteer with us!
• Demand McDonald’s and Arla go plant-based by 2025. 
• If you’re a student and want to make the change with the Plant Based Universities campaign at your university, please contact us using the details, or fill out this form now!

The post Why 100% Just and Sustainably Plant-Based? first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

Animal Rebellion is all about joining the dots between the climate emergency and the urgent need to transition to a plant-based future. We can’t have the first without the second. For many of us, this is obvious – the evidence is clear. However, why do so many organisations and people still fail to make the connection?

As well as being part of Animal Rebellion’s media team, I am a Green Party councillor on the Green/Alliance-led Hythe Town Council in Kent. We declared a climate and ecological emergency and then brought a motion to become a plant-based council. It was an obvious, logical next step. 

Many other councils, educational institutions, churches and other organisations have declared climate emergencies and set net zero carbon targets. But only a relatively small number (Oxfordshire County Council being a recent fine exception) have followed this by becoming plant-based.

Was there a better example of the disconnect than serving meat, fish and dairy at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow in November? While delegates from across the world discussed ways to meet carbon targets, a key part of the answer was staring up at them from their plates.

We read shocking facts: humans now account for about 36% of the biomass of all mammals; farmed animals, mostly cows and pigs, account for 60%; wild mammals for only 4%. The biomass of poultry is around three times larger than that of wild birds. Marine mammal biomass has decreased fivefold due to commercial whaling and other exploitative hunting practices.

Knowing this, how is it possible to just carry on regardless?

Story-telling is an important part of joining those dots. I had the honour last year of interviewing film-maker and self-declared “vegangelist”, Thomas Wade Jackson. His film, A Prayer for Compassion, poses one vital question: Why do so many religious and spiritual people not make the connection between their beliefs and a non-violent diet? He travels the US and beyond, asking this question to people of multiple faiths. 

Thomas told me: “They talk about we’re all connected, the passion and all this, but then when I saw they were still eating animals, it didn’t make sense to me.” Compassion for the planet and for people did not extend to other living creatures. We have been conditioned from birth, bombarded with messages, telling us what’s right and wrong, what’s desirable, what we should think, how we should behave; it is difficult to find our true voice, to see through the biases of our society. 

Story-telling is what A Prayer for Compassion does so powerfully, as have other films such as The Age of Stupid, Cowspiracy and Seaspiracy. It is what Animal Rebellion does with all of its actions, using a clear narrative, colour, music and images.   

Pressure has to be applied, there are too many entities with a vested interest in the status quo. As Mahatma Gandhi observed, Western civilization never looks for a cure for the problems, it looks for ways to make money out of the symptoms. 

On the up-side, more and more people are making the connection. The number of those acting for a plant-based system across the globe is increasing steeply. Veganuary is now a major movement. More generally, there is a growing understanding of the devastating impact of meat, fish and dairy.

Commercial companies have responded, with ever more plant-based product launches, although for the large incumbents this is typically alongside, not instead of, non-plant-based. 

There can be no sitting on the fence if we are to save the planet. It is why Animal Rebellion is calling for McDonald’s and its peers to become wholly plant-based by 2025. It is why we state you can’t have a climate-friendly dairy industry – it is a complete contradiction. 

Animal Rebellion and many others work tirelessly and bravely to join the dots. We can’t do otherwise – our whole future depends on it. 

Join us in 2022. Whatever your skills and time, there are always ways you can help! Fill out our interest form below or make contact via any social media. 

A Prayer for Compassion is available on streaming channels and is also available for community screenings, with potential grants available from plant-based funding organisation, VegFund – https://vegfund.org/

The post Joining the dots between the climate crisis and a plant-based food-system first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

Many people across the world today are compelled to organise and take part in protests, driven by the impending climate crisis, government inaction and the desire to show that we can do better. Animal Rebellion protests seek to highlight the disastrous effects of the meat, fishing and dairy industries and show that a better future exists under a plant-based food system. These protests seek to disrupt business as usual and show the urgent need to change our systems and behavior.

The right to peacefully protest is fundamental to a democratic society. Across the globe, throughout history, there are so many examples of where protest has brought vital change – whether black civil rights in America, the end of British rule in India, the overthrow of dictators, same-sex marriage legislation, pro-choice rights for women along with so many other causes.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is a blatant attempt to stifle protest. Typical of this government’s other moves to undermine democracy, the worst aspects of the bill have been added as  last-minute amendments, meant to get in under the radar, avoiding parliamentary scrutiny.
Writer and activist, George Monbiot, has said: “The government’s back-door amendments to the policing bill are tyrannical. We should be on the streets in our millions… This is proper police state stuff.”

Among other things, the bill would: 

• ban protesters from attaching themselves to another person, to an object, or to land, with a maximum prison sentence for this and other offences of 51 weeks; 

• make it a criminal offence to obstruct in any way major transport works from being carried out;

• significantly expand police stop and search powers so that the police would be entitled to stop and search people or vehicles if they suspect they might be carrying any article that could be used in the newly prohibited protests;

• introduce new powers to ban named people from protesting: people would be banned if they had previously committed “protest-related offences”;

• make it a crime to cause “serious annoyance” to the public, with a maximum penalty of ten years in prison;

• give the home secretary control over the definition of “serious disruption to the life of the community” and “serious disruption to the activities of an organisation”, both of which could determine when police powers are engaged to limit protest. Essentially, a minister could suppress protests that they do not like or agree with.

The power of non-violent protest scares governments. Often their tactics are heavy-handed, which rebounds on them, building more support for the cause in question. Where authoritarians are met with creative, colourful, resilient and diverse protests, their traditional responses fall down. It is easy to conclude that the bill is an attempt by central government to head off the problem before it occurs.

When thinking about Animal Rebellion or Extinction Rebellion protests, it isn’t hard to see the awful implications of the bill. It would put in jeopardy so many legitimate actions, whether it is occupying a McDonald’s outlet or distribution centre, blocking a dairy factory, scaling government buildings, or just marching for animal rights, climate justice or other causes. 

And it is not only groups like ours that will be stifled. What about local residents who want to protest against the loss of open space, the closure of a library or other services, the polluting actions of their water company, or the building of a new road? Trade unions and other groups will also be hit.

Indeed, it is hard not to conclude that it will now be difficult to attend a protest without committing an offence. Those clearly completely legitimate historical protests that brought so much positive change would arguably be made illegal under legislation such as this. 

The Green Party calls the bill “the gravest threat to civil liberties in more than a generation”. But opposition has also come from less predictable sources. Two former Conservative prime ministers, Theresa May and John Major, have spoken in parliament against the bill. 

George Monbiot asks, why aren’t more people on the streets, protesting while they still can? The Kill the Bill movement and groups such as Liberty have been doing their best to raise the dangers of what’s coming but most people seem oblivious to the implications. 

Perhaps it is the lack of media coverage. Perhaps it stems from so many other distractions, including Covid and government sleaze, corruption and incompetence. Perhaps it is just a misguided assumption that democracy in this country is safe. It is probably all of the above. 

If protests turn violent then there are already laws in place to deal with this. This bill is about state control and the erosion of freedom of expression. That is why we have to oppose it at every opportunity and continue to try to raise awareness of how it will erode all of our democratic rights. 

Follow the protest movement on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Kill-The-Bill-UK-105927524913222) and twitter (#killthebill) for regular updates and to learn about future actions. For more information and to sign the petition against the bill, visit https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/

The post The Police Bill: Our right to protest hangs in the balance. first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

This is the system that drives Amazon deforestation¹, contributes a staggering amount of greenhouse gas emissions², leaves 805 million of the world’s most vulnerable people hungry³, whilst simultaneously slaughtering trillions of animals needlessly each year⁴.

The oldest university in the English-speaking world, Oxford, has published several papers exploring and explaining the environmental benefits of transitioning to plant-based foods⁵. Besides this, dozens of British universities have declared a climate emergency, evidently these institutions are recognising the need for drastic change⁶. This gives them the responsibility to act on the emergency that they recognise.

Therefore it should come as no surprise that students from several universities including KCL, UCL, and Warwick are now pushing for change. With the demand for their university transition to serving a 100% plant-based menu throughout their cafes and restaurants by the start of the 2023/24 academic year.

Students are listening to the science that, very often, their own universities publish. They are holding their institutions accountable to their sustainability promises and commitments. By transitioning to just and sustainable plant-based food systems, universities will be securing a future, not only for their students, but for the rest of humanity, animals, and the planet.

Universities are already showing the transition is possible! KCL now has a fully plant-based Cafe whilst UCL’s daily hot food is at least 25% plant-based too⁷. The time has now come  to expand this to include the entirety of university’s menus. The answer is staring these powerful institutions in the face! By transitioning to 100% plant-based catering, universities will be helping break down an archaic and damaging food system and simultaneously be investing in one that is just and sustainable.

Plant-based universities are an unavoidable step on the road to human, animal, and climate justice. This is a fact that is evident to the ever-growing group of students pushing for the transition. Animal Rebellion is only too happy to empower and support groups of students on this mission.

If you’re a student and are excited or driven to make this change at your university, please contact us using the details, or fill out this form now!

1. De Sy. V, et al,”Land use patterns and related carbon losses following deforestation in South America,” Environmental Research Letters, vol. 10, no. 12 (2015.)
2. Jia. G, Shevliakova. E et al, “Chapter 2: Land-Climate Interactions” in UN Special Report: Climate Change and Land (2019.) https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/
3.  Cassidy. E.S, Foley. J. A, Gerber. J.S and West. P.C, “Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare,” Environmental Research Letters, vol. 8, no. 3 (2013.)
4. Zampa. M, “How Many Animals Are Killed For Food Every Day” (2018,) https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-animals-are-killed-for-food-every-day/
5.  Clark. M.A, Hill. J, Springmann. M, Tilman. D, “Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, no. 46 (2019.)
6.  Latter.  Briony, “Climate Emergency Declarations: What Do They Tell Us About Universities’ Response To Climate Change?,” https://pcancities.org.uk/climate-emergency-declarations-what-do-they-tell-us-about-universities-response-climate-change
7.  https://www.peta.org.uk/living/vegan-universities-uk/

The post Introducing Plant-Based Universities first appeared on Animal Rebellion.