Category Archives: Vegan Trove Podcast

VT Podcast Ep 3: Do We Value Our Taste Buds Over Our Own Species’ survival?

Welcome friends to my third podcast episode. I was going to focus on a number of issues in this episode, but essay by Chris Hedges (Pulitzer Prize recipient) came to my attention titled “Saving the Planet: One Meal at a Time” I thought I would discuss some of the aspects of this essay.  🙂

Here’s an excerpt:

“Animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all worldwide transportation combined—cars, trucks, trains, ships and planes.3 Livestock and their waste and flatulence account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51 percent of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.4 Livestock causes 65 percent of all emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 296 times more destructive than carbon dioxide.5 Crops grown for livestock feed consume 56 percent of the water used in the United States.6 Eighty percent of the world’s soy crop is fed to animals, and most of this soy is grown on cleared lands that were once rain forests. All this is taking place as an estimated 6 million children across the planet die each year from starvation and as hunger and malnutrition affect an additional 1 billion people.7 In the United States 70 percent of the grain we grow goes to feed livestock raised for consumption.8

The natural resources used to produce even minimal amounts of animal products are staggering—1,000 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of milk.9 Add to this the massive clear cutting and other destruction of forests, especially in the Amazon—where forest destruction has risen to 91 percent10—and we find ourselves lethally despoiling the lungs of the earth largely for the benefit of the animal agriculture industry. Our forests, especially our rain forests, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and exchange it for oxygen: Killing the forests is a death sentence for the planet. Land devoted exclusively to raising livestock now represents 45 percent of the earth’s land mass.11

And this does not include the assault on the oceans, where three-quarters of the world’s primary fisheries have been overexploited and vast parts of the seas are in danger of becoming dead zones.”

said no abolitionist ever I speak about the so-called “Ag Gag” laws and the problem with focusing on animal agribusiness instead of addressing public demand for animal use. I speak also about the problems with promoting welfare reform and the problems associated with large animal organisations and their undercover investigations. I touch on a few other issues as well briefly.

Thanks for listening. I look forward to your company again. 🙂

Disclaimer: Although I mention various individuals or sites in my podcasts, please note I do not necessarily endorse these individuals, or opinions, links or ads.  Please view my disclaimer

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Vegan Trove Podcast Episode 2: Speciesism and Other Forms of Discrimination

Welcome again friends. 🙂 In Episode 2, I briefly touch on some of the topics covered in my 1st podcast. I explore some quotes, articles and interviews and include some of the audio.

Excerpt of transcript of Russell Brand / Paxman interview on BBC’s Newsnight:

Jeremy Paxman: Well, how do you have any authority to talk about politics then?

Russell Brand: Well, I don’t get my authority from this pre-existing paradigm which is quite narrow and only serves a few people. I look elsewhere for alternatives that might be of service to humanity. Alternative means alternative political systems.

Jeremy Paxman: They being?

Russell Brand: Well, I’ve not invented it yet, Jeremy. I had to do a magazine last week. I’ve had a lot on my plate. But I say—but here’s the thing that you shouldn’t do: shouldn’t destroy the planet, shouldn’t create massive economic disparity, shouldn’t ignore the needs of the people. The burden of proof is on the people with the power, not people who like doing a magazine for a novelty.

Jeremy Paxman: How do you imagine that people get power?

Russell Brand: Well, I imagine there are sort of hierarchical systems that have been preserved through generations—

Jeremy Paxman: They get power by being voted in. That’s how they get it.

Russell Brand: Well, you say that, Jeremy, but like—

Jeremy Paxman: You can’t even be asked to vote.

RUSSELL BRAND: It’s quite narrow—quite a narrow prescriptive parameter that changes within the—

JEREMY PAXMAN: In a democracy, that’s how it works.

RUSSELL BRAND: Well, I don’t think it’s working very well, Jeremy, given that the planet is being destroyed, given that there is economic disparity of a huge degree. What you’re saying, there’s no alternative. There’s no alternative, just this system.

Jeremy Paxman: No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying—

Russell Brand: Brilliant.

Jeremy Paxman: —if you can’t be asked to vote, why should we be asked to listen to your political point of view?

Russell Brand: You don’t have to listen to my political point of view. But it’s not that I’m not voting out of apathy. I’m not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery, deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations now and which has now reached fever pitch, where we have a disenfranchised, disillusioned, despondent underclass that are not being represented by that political system. So, voting for it is tacit complicity with that system, and that’s not something I’m offering up.

Jeremy Paxman: Why don’t you change it then?

Russell Brand: I’m trying to.

I touch on the problems of large animal charities ignoring the solution to animal “cruelty” and more importantly the solution to abolishing animal use (Veganism),  and I expand on a topic I broached last week about the ecological disaster that is animal agriculture and its contribution to species extinction and climate change and how green groups ignore its contribution and why, and I touch on a number of diverse miscellaneous issues.

This 2nd podcast is again a tad long (approx 45 minutes) but I think you might find it interesting.  Episode 3 will (hopefully) be in the next 2 or 3 weeks if time permits (I’m very busy till the new year).

As well as subscribing to this site for updates, please join “Vegan Trove” on Facebook for future podcast updates :)

Disclaimer: Although I mention various individuals or sites in my podcasts, please note I do not necessarily endorse these individuals, or opinions, links or ads.  Please view my disclaimer:  http://www.vegantrove.com/disclaimer/

Please note episodes are now available on iTunes.
Thanks for listening. I look forward to having the pleasure of your company next time.  :)

For more information:

Russell Brand’s “The Trews

On the Environmental Disaster of Animal Agriculture | UVE Archives

Recommended books 

My LiveVegan Page: Another Facebook Casualty?

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