Meet Earthling Ed: The vegan activist taking on the meat industry
What the meat and dairy industries are doing when they challenge some of these vegan talking points has been propaganda, they think they’re attacking veganism, but often they’re attacking science.
ELIZA PITKIN: For Ed Winters, better known as activist and influencer Earthling Ed, veganism is a way of life. Winters is a vegan educator, public speaker and YouTuber, who gave up animal products eight years ago and ever since has dedicated his energy to inspiring others and designing ways the world can move towards a greener future.
Things really took off when Winters posted a video of his university speech, You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again, in 2018. It now has almost 35 million views online. That speech starts with Winters stating: “I wasn’t born vegan”. The turning point was when he read a BBC News article headlined, Hundreds of chickens killed in M62 lorry crash, in 2014.
“I remember reading this story and feeling really upset and horrified,” Winters recalled. “And in my fridge at that time was a KFC, because when I used to eat animals, KFC was my favourite food. I’d have it once or twice a week. That was the first time I’d realised the inconsistency in my values and my actions.”
Since turning vegan, the 28-year-old has gone to extraordinary measures to create a better world for animals. In 2016 Winters started a YouTube channel regularly posting debates with members of the public and informational video essays. He has since given speeches at Google, Facebook, The Economist, University of Cambridge, Harvard University and delivered two TEDx talks.
He is also the co-founder of animal rights non-profit Surge, which produces educational content and investigative work and has opened Surge Sanctuary, a site in rural England offering a “lifelong, no-kill safe haven” for abused, rescued and unwanted animals.
Winters also made a YouTube documentary called Land of Hope and Glory, which demonstrates the harsh reality of the UK dairy and meat industry through undercover footage and up to date investigations. His pet hamster at the time, Rupert, also played an integral role in his switch to veganism. As did the documentary Earthlings…
This year Winters released his debut book This is Vegan Propaganda and Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You… The title of the book is a “bit tongue in cheek” as a way to “disarm phrasing that the farming industry often uses towards vegans.” “What these industries are doing when they challenge some of these vegan talking points has been propaganda, they think they’re attacking veganism, but often they’re attacking science,” he said.
It is common for vegans and vegetarians to be met with the occasional dinner table interrogation, or unwanted debate. In Winter’s case, his livelihood depends on him entering the battlefield of debate with TV show hosts, farmers, and the disbelieving, meat-enthusiastic members of the public. Winters told The Big Issue what keeps him driven…
When it comes to veganism, there’s one problem that gets raised again and again… agriculture and the livelihoods of farmers. Winters has publicly suggested animal farmers could transition into crop farming or become “publicly funded land managers” with the current subsidy going towards “rewilding that land”. “That could be regrowing forests, woodlands, wildflower meadows or long grass meadows which are great for pollinators such as bees and other insects and promote biodiversity that is essential,” he said. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: