You can listen to the audio from this talk and find out more about it here: https://archive.org/details/NickP This talk was recorded at the Institute for Critical Animal Studies Oceania 2016 Conference in Canberra. You can find out more information about this conference here: http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/oceania-conference/

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

2. Light Green Versus Deep Green
 CW.
 ‘This is for them’ (the kids).

3. Conservation Versus Animal Liberation
 David Attenborough.
 For more on these issues:
 Iris Bergman.
 Oscar Horta.

4. Conservation AND Animal Liberation

5. 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

6. Vegan Message at Perth Climate Rallies
2013 2015

7. 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.’

8. ‘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

9. “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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. Want to hear the workshop from next
door?
 www.ProgressivePodcastAustralia.com
 Last year’s conference = episode 108.