The RSPCA: What’s not to like? Well, as I found in my time as an RSPCA branch trustee, quite a lot of people find quite a lot of things not to like about the world’s oldest and largest animal welfare charity. On the one hand, the RSPCA does great work in terms of pet and wildlife welfare. It states: “Everything we do is focused on achieving our vision to live in a world where all animals are respected and treated with compassion”. In 2020, the RSPCA investigated over 57,000 complaints of animal cruelty. However, there is a major disconnect between its goals and its stance on meat and dairy. I often had to defend my involvement with the RSPCA (the[…]
Plant-Based Universities: Taking The UK By Storm
As the university year rolls to a close, it’s time to look back on the rise of the Plant-Based Universities campaign! Students across the UK are standing up and demanding their institutions listen to the science and make the just and sustainable transition humans, animals and the planet need to see.
How Change Happens
Reflections on Rebellion – How People Power can Take the World By Storm The recent documentary Rebellion tells the story of how Extinction Rebellion went from a vision to a global movement. This blog post reflects on the theory of change behind both Extinction and Animal Rebellion and how we can build transformative people power. What if I told you that one book held the answers to achieving positive social change? Would you believe me? When I first picked up a book that claimed to do just that, I was sceptical. I was at a stage of my life where, after becoming aware of the scale of injustice affecting animals, humans and our planet, I was increasingly desperate for any[…]
The Marine Stewardship Council: A flawed sheen of respectability for an industry in denial
When faced with a crisis, making something slightly less bad won’t cut it. There’s making a real difference and then there’s green-wash. The UK-based Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) falls firmly into the latter category. So what’s wrong?
Amazon Deforestation for McDonald’s Profit
If we have any chance of slowing down climate change, the rampant and widespread deforestation taking place in Latin America must be stopped, and fast. Many of us are aware of the monumental problem that is deforestation and make efforts at an individual and collective level to recycle, use less paper, and donate to charities who plant trees. However, what we might not be aware of is that we are sabotaging our own efforts to protect these habitats through our dietary choices, in particular by stopping off to grab a meal at one of the world’s most popular fast-food chains: McDonald’s. For those of us in the UK, we may wonder how buying a burger from a McDonald’s outlet halfway[…]
Veganuary, Food System Change and the Responsibility of Corporations
More than a challenge, Veganuary is making waves in our culture and food industry. We explore how it is direct catalyst for food system change and what is the responsibility of corporations.
Doubt and Lies: the tactics of a struggling meat and dairy industry and why we won’t fall for them
Imagine you’re working for a community organisation. There’s been a problem for many years with people going hungry and an unequal distribution of food. You’ve hired someone to fix it and given them one year to turn things around and develop a plan to feed the community while having a positive impact on the environment. The year comes to an end and, reviewing their work, you find that, far from supporting the community, their solution is fragile, unstable and is having a devastating effect on the local environment. When questioned, their response is that all the reviews are wrong, their system is the only possible system and that’s that. Do you think you’d rehire this person? It’s a pretty obvious[…]
Industrial farming: Fighting for its survival
The meat, dairy and fish industries are fighting an ever more vitriolic and unpleasant but losing battle for survival. Those that speak out against them are attacked from all sides, as a Spanish politician recently discovered.
Animal Rebellion supports those taking the UK government to court today over factory farming
ctivists, experts and a renowned human rights lawyer are in court today in London seeking an end to factory farming in the UK. Animal Rebellion stands with them and congratulates them on their unprecedented and urgent action.
Why 100% Just and Sustainably Plant-Based?
Amongst other amazing movements like The Plant Based Treaty, Animal Rebellion has been bringing the environmental (alongside countless others) harm of a food system based on meat, fish, and dairy to public knowledge. The result? A groundswell of interest in plant-based eating, reduction in meat consumption, and an overwhelming trend of transition to supporting a just and sustainable plant-based food system. 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[…]