MEAT

CARTER DILLARD: Here’s a disturbing fact: Prosecutors in the United States charge more penalties for the activists who reveal animal cruelty crimes than they do for the factory farms that commit them. This trend is a glaring miscarriage of justice, and it must be reversed. And here’s the latest miscarriage, involving a high-profile activist: On November 2, 2023, Wayne Hsiung, an attorney, animal rights activist, and founder of the animal rights nonprofit Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), was found guilty of felony conspiracy and two misdemeanor charges for rescuing mistreated animals from…

ANAY MRIDUL: The cultivated meat sector is seeing a flurry of activity from startups announcing new production facilities across the globe, as teams work to accelerate the scaling and commercialisation of cell-cultured alternatives to conventional meat. A handful of cultivated meat startups have made headlines with news of production plants and facilities across countries like Australia, China, Israel, Singapore, the US and Malaysia, despite recent reporting detailing scaling and funding challenges. A growing number of companies are advancing in their scaling plans with larger-scale…

FRANK METIVIER: The award-winning short film 'The Disconnect' highlights the disconnect between our fellow earthlings, the animal and the shocking reality of our choices today. Directed by Frank Metivier, the film calls into awareness the way we view and treat animals as a defining characteristic of our own species. The Disconnection will take you on an extraordinary journey of discovery, combining earth’s beauty and one of our greatest needs as human beings. Amongst the beauty and the pain, the film inspires hope, a way to come into reconnection with the earth and its inhabitants, which is…

ANAY MRIDUL: It has been in the making for a while, but Italy has officially passed the law that bans the production and sale of cultivated meat within the country, with the far-right government citing health reasons, a risk to the country’s tradition, and a need to safeguard the livestock industry. The move also bans the use of meat-related terms such as ‘steak’ and ‘salami’ on plant-based meat product labelling. Italy’s lower house of parliament has approved a bill by its agriculture minister to ban the sale and production of cultivated meat in the country, making it the first to do so.…

PATRIK BABOUMIAN: UNCAGE – Total Liberation is a video game project based on an original idea by Patrik Baboumian. Baboumian, renowned for his activism and advocacy, has long championed the causes of veganism, animal rights, and anti-speciesism. Since 2011, he has harnessed his visibility as an athlete, leveraged appearances in traditional and social media, delivered compelling speeches worldwide, and has drawn upon his expertise as a media psychologist to amplify awareness for animal rights... UNCAGE represents the continuation of Patrik Baboumian’s enduring commitment to kindle a…

LEE HALL: Environmental laws codify our right to kill. They sanctify our mechanical and chemical warfare against systems that sustain life. They enable the undoing of the formation of a unique and irreplaceable living world. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution can be spoiled in the time it takes to print a pile of paper. Enabled by laws, businesses impose cattle ranching on public lands. They stamp out savannahs and woodlands for feed crops... The Endangered Species Act nods begrudgingly to nonprofits that scrimp and save up for their last-minute flurries of activity, usually to save…

MARINA BOLOTNIKOVA: Wayne Hsiung, an attorney and leading figure in the animal rights movement, was convicted of two counts of misdemeanor trespass and one count of felony conspiracy to trespass last week, after six days of deliberation by a jury in Santa Rosa, California, about an hour north of San Francisco. The case emerged from Hsiung’s role in helping lead two mass protest actions in 2018 and 2019, in which activists removed 70 chickens and ducks from two Sonoma County factory farms: Sunrise Farms, a major egg supplier, and Reichardt Duck Farm. Activists took the animals to receive…

HARRISON SMITH: Karen Davis, an academic turned animal rights activist who campaigned on behalf of chickens, turkeys and other barnyard fowl, arguing for the dignity of “nonhuman animals,” as she put it, while promoting veganism, crusading against the modern poultry industry and turning her home into a sanctuary for chickens, died Nov. 4 at her residence in Machipongo, Va. She was 79... Her death was announced by United Poultry Concerns (UPC), a nonprofit organization she founded in 1990 and led until her death. The group did not cite a cause, but Ms. Davis had cancer and had been in…

ANDY GREENBERG: In recent years, the animal liberation group Direct Action Everywhere has carried out some of the most brazen and tech-savvy operations and investigations to ever target the animal agriculture industry. It has rescued pigs, goats, ducks, and chickens from factory farms and slaughterhouses in midnight intrusions; captured virtual reality footage with custom-built 360-degree video rigs inside massive pig barns; and used hidden cameras to record some of the meat industry's most disturbing practices, from the carbon dioxide gas chambers that are increasingly used in pig…

BENTHAM'S BULLDOG: Those who defend ethical veganism are often claimed by those who defend left-wing positions to be “speaking from a position of privilege,” or “failing to speak up for the marginalized.” Many on the far left seem to believe there to be a fundamental tension between the injunction not to eat meat when one can and advocacy for the oppressed. Such people often point to the existence of food deserts, claiming that huge numbers of people are unable to go vegan because of lack of access to vegan foods. This talking point is totally wrong. For one, it is people in wealthier…