PRESTIGE: Identifying as vegan is no longer just about consuming a diet that excludes all foods of animal origin. Vegan convictions go beyond meal times and the travel industry is now looking to this market segment that wants to be faithful to its values including during vacations and especially in regards to choice of hotel. A growing number of establishments are providing rooms whose furniture and bedding is totally free from the use of animal products. A new category of accommodation is on the horizon. Here’s a closer look inside the quiet rise of vegan-friendly hotels. SOURCE...…

DAMIAN CARRINGTON: Climate-heating emissions from food production, dominated by meat, dairy and rice, will by themselves break the key international target of 1.5C if left unchecked, a detailed study has shown. The analysis estimated that if today’s level of food emissions continued, they would result in at least 0.7C of global heating by the end of the century, on top of the 1C rise already seen. This means emissions from food alone, ignoring the huge impact of fossil fuels, would push the world past the 1.5C limit. The study showed that 75% of this food-related heating was driven by foods…

JORDI CASAMITJANA: It was the German philosopher Karl Marx who in the 19th century theorised about how people would inevitably revolt when facing the injustices of the capitalist society. He postulated that in a capitalist industrialised society (like the one he and most people in the West were living in at the time), a revolution of the oppressed class against the ruling class would be inevitable. After the publication of his 1867 book “Das Kapital”, his theories influenced many revolutionaries (such as Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, etc.) If the passing of decades…

COLLECTIVE FASHION JUSTICE: While leather has been used in fashion for millennia, its production today is an ethical and environmental crisis. Today, over 1.4 billion cattle stand on once biodiverse land, confined to feedlots and in planted pasture systems until they are slaughtered for food and leather... While at least some of the environmental impacts of leather production are increasingly acknowledged by the fashion industry, little relating to the impact of leather production on animals themselves is considered or reported on today. Therefore, this report highlights the plethora of…

UC BERKELEY: With the world's population topping 8 billion last year, it's clear that humans have achieved a unique status in Earth's history. We are the only creature that dominate all other organisms on the planet, from animals and fungi to plants and microbes. It remains to be seen whether humans can retain this dominance as we push the global climate to extremes while driving to extinction the very organisms that we climbed over to get to the top. In a new book, a group of scientists and philosophers places part of the blame on an attitude prevalent among scientists and the general…

BRIAN KATEMAN: Innovation and technology are doing big things for animal welfare and the health of the planet. Meatless burgers from companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are now mainstream in a way few could have imagined 20 or 30 years ago. Fermentation is being used to make dairy products without using cows. Scientists are exploring the use of cell-cultured meat as a potential climate-friendly source of nutrition for humans. We’re watching in real time as new technology makes it easier and more palatable for people to buy fewer animal products, especially those that come from…

SMU: Researchers from Singapore Management University (SMU) have released a study that reveals a positive relationship between people's psychological well-being and their willingness to consume cultivated meat. The research, titled 'Higher well-being individuals are more receptive to cultivated meat: An investigation of their reasoning for consuming cultivated meat', which has been published in international research journal, Appetite, provides the first ever empirical evidence to support this correlation. The research also found that individuals' higher willingness can be motivated by the…

NICOLE MEYER: A new PETA TV spot airing this week during similarly grim movies The Day After Tomorrow and Zombieland is pointing to animal agriculture as a leading cause of the climate catastrophe and asking viewers, “Are you a bad parent?” while urging them to safeguard their children’s future by banning environmentally devastating meat and dairy from their homes. Much like The Last of Us’ Ellie (played by vegan Bella Ramsey), PETA’s protagonist is a young orphan trying to navigate a post-apocalyptic world. In the video, she lists the rules her mom enforced—such as not touching the stove…

VEGCONOMIST: The Italian government becomes the next in a growing list of those proposing restricted labelling on plant-based meat from using “meaty” terms, in a move ProVeg describes as “misleading and backwards.” The bill notes that its efforts represent an attempt to protect livestock production in the country, even though animal agriculture is responsible for about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions globally... “Plant-based foods emit half the amount of greenhouse gases as animal-based foods, so we need to introduce policies that actively encourage people to switch to more flexitarian…

ROZALI TELBIS: According to the Vegan Society, veganism seeks to “exclude — as far as is possible and practicable — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.” By definition, there are no additional prerequisites needed; vegans are not required to subscribe to a number of additional causes in order to adhere to this belief system that centers non-human animals. But intersectional veganism is no longer being promoted in niche online communities only. It’s now being more accepted across vegan communities and organizations in which vegans…