Tom Philpott: The Human Cost of Meatpacking
"People in the animal welfare world, I think, should broaden their purview to the human parts of it and sort of work in coalition. Like if you can really expose the labor conditions, you're weakening the industry, and if you can increase labor regulations, if you can make it to where workers don't routinely get repetitive stress injuries and they're not breathing in harsh chemicals, and if you slow the kill line down, that hits their profits and you are weakening the industry. And, also remember, this industry doesn't just slaughter billions of animals a year, it also makes life hell for the people who work in it. Expand your level of solidarity to those people." – Tom Philpott This is the third episode in a special for part series, where we go deep into the food system with some of the brightest minds at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. In this episode, we dive into one of the many hidden and hideous aspects of our food system: the exploitation of workers in industrial meat production. Tom Philpott is a senior research associate at the Center. He joined in 2022 after a distinguished three-decade career in journalism, reporting on the injustices and ecological ramifications of the industrial food system. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Perilous Bounty. I asked Tom to shed some light on the grueling conditions faced by meatpacking workers, from dangerous line spades to repetitive injuries and the shocking lack of basic protections, and even though much of this was exposed during the covid 19 pandemic, to explain how it's all still happening. Tom also hosts the Center for a Livable Future's podcast, it's called Unconfined. It's really good. Take a listen to learn a whole lot more about the impacts of food animal production. Links Center for a Livable Future: https://clf.jhsph.edu/ Tom Philpott: https://www.tomphilpott.net/ Perilous Bounty: https://bookshop.org/p/books/perilous-bounty-the-looming-collapse-of-american-farming-and-how-we-can-prevent-it-tom-philpott/8555300?ean=9781635578454&gclid=Cj0KCQjw48OaBhDWARIsAMd966DtJTjYQl6nh5J9Gk9ib9f3SXgKnCfTwujd-YMhRK-UC1X-ihdAiyIaAsm3EALw_wcB Unconfined Podcast: https://clf.jhsph.edu/unconfined-podcast
25 Dec 202446min
Keeve Nachman: A Masterclass in Persistence
"I remember during my training having professors tell me, 'one day you might do something important and you'll tick off a vested interest, and they're going to come into a meeting with you, and they're going to bring a copy of your dissertation and slam it on the table and start challenging you.' And that is exactly what happened." – Keeve Nachman This is the 2nd episode in a special four-part series about where we go deep into the food system with some of the brightest minds at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. This conversation is Dr. Keeve Nachman, a powerhouse in the fields of environmental health, risk assessment, and food systems research. Keeve is the Robert S. Lawrence Professor and Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. He's also a leading voice on issues like antibiotic resistance and industrial agriculture's impact on public health. I asked Keeve to come on the show to talk about how his work helped ban the use of arsenic in our food system—a fight that spanned 15 years and had a ripple effect around the globe. Keeve's story is a masterclass in persistence and the power of science-driven policy change. We also explore his ongoing efforts to address antibiotic misuse in industrial agriculture, a growing threat to global public health, and discuss what it will take to create lasting change in our food system. Links : Keeve Nachman: https://clf.jhsph.edu/about-us/staff/keeve-nachman Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future: https://clf.jhsph.edu/ Unconfined Podcast https://clf.jhsph.edu/unconfined-podcast
18 Dec 202435min
Brent Kim: From Farm to Fork and Beyond
"My colleague and I went out to Arizona because there was a community that was concerned about the expansion of an egg laying operation, essentially in their backyard. At full capacity, that operation was slated to house 12 million birds. 12 million birds. It's like New York City, but with chickens." – Brent Kim We know that what we eat has an enormous impact on billions of animals, our health and the health of the planet. If we fail to change our diets and the food system, the planet will face increasingly severe environmental, social, and economic consequences, many of which are already beginning to unfold. We know this, we know that there is much we could be doing about it, on large and small scales, yet the urgency is not there. I think the more knowledge we have, the more we are willing to demand change and even change ourselves. So, I wanted to go deeper into the food system to get a better understanding of its impact on public health, the planet, ecosystems and social justice, and mostly - to hear about how we change it. This episode marks the beginning of a special four-part series with some of the experts from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. This conversation is with Brent Kim. Brent is a program officer for the Center's Food Production and Public Health program. His research spans issues from farm to fork with published works on sustainable diets, climate change and industrial food, animal production, food and agriculture policy, soil safety, and urban food systems. He and I talk about much of it, how to change it and solutions for a much better future. Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future https://clf.jhsph.edu/ Brent Kim https://clf.jhsph.edu/about-us/staff/brent-kim Unconfined Podcast (from the Center for a Livable Future) https://clf.jhsph.edu/unconfined-podcast
11 Dec 202433min
JG Collomb: Wildlife Conservation Network
"In the case of lions, they're not easy neighbors. They're also not the worst neighbors. I think in in most cases, it's a matter of learning how to live next to nature, next to other animals and animals that can potentially be dangerous." - JG Collomb JG Collomb is the CEO of Wildlife Conservation Network, an organization that connects global donors with community based conservationists, and they're changing the way the world finds and funds often overlooked projects in the field and helps foster coexistence between communities and the animals who live among them. Please listen, share and check out the Wildlife Conversation Network.
3 Dec 202417min
Aidan Alexander and Thom Norman: The Animals That Need Our Help the Most
"I think there's a lot of people out there who feel the way I felt for many years, which is, 'look, I feel a bit guilty, I know in some sense that having the diet I have makes me complicit in some things that I don't like. It makes me a bit uncomfortable, but it doesn't feel like there's anything I can do about it right now. I have this guilt. I'd like to do something about it, but just all the options I'm presented with seem a bit shit.' So, when we present people with something else that they can do, many of the people we've spoken to say it's quite a relief to know that they don't have to sit with this tension. You know, psychologists call it the meat paradox, the thing where we love animals, but we also eat them. How can we resolve this? Well, one thing that can maybe help us resolve this kind of cognitive dissonance is to actually be a part of helping animals even whilst you still haven't changed your diet." - Aidan Alexander The animals that need our help the most are animals that live on factory farms. Yet charities protecting farmed animals receive 28 times less donations than pet charities. There are all sorts of reasons for this, which we get into in this episode. This conversation is with Aidan Alexander and Tom Norman. Aidan and Tom have started an organization called FarmKind. It is a way to support your favorite charities, that is, nonprofits that you're already supporting - pet charities, conservation charities, etc. but also at the same time to help animals that are living on factory farms. Why? Because factory farming is the biggest source of suffering for animals on the planet. Helping to protect these animals and bring factory farming to an end is one of the biggest ways to help animals in need. FarmKind makes it easy to make a difference for millions of factory farm animals when you donate to the causes you care about. FarmKind helps people who feel compassion for animals to help the animals most in need and support their favorite charities at the same. OR FarmKind helps anyone be a part of the solution to factory farming, regardless of their diet. Because diet change isn't the only way to help farmed animals. Donating is an incredibly powerful way to express our compassion for animals. When we donate to the charities that have been shown to make a difference and use our money wisely, it can make an even bigger difference than changing your diet. Farmkind collaborates with experts to identify some of the most effective charities combating factory farming's impact on animals and the planet. They enable users to split their donations between these expert-recommended, super-effective charities and their personal favorite causes, like your local shelter. And they provide a bonus to both, allowing donors to do the most good to combat factory farming while supporting causes close to their hearts. Please listen, share and if you are able, please consider donating to FarmKind: https://www.farmkind.giving/split-and-boost?utm_source=speciesunite&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=speciesunite
30 Nov 202435min
Peter Lehner: Cows, Corn and Crap
"We may think that we're just eating our dinner tonight, but when you multiply it by all of that food every day, every day of the year, everyone in the country, everybody in the world, it's a tremendous production. Just to give you a sense, in the US, we slaughter about 18,000 animals every minute for food just in the United States." - Peter Lehner Agriculture and our food system are responsible for about a third of greenhouse gas emissions. That is an enormous amount. Yet, the food system is all too often left out of climate conversations and is rarely held accountable for its destruction to our planet. I asked Peter Lehner to come on the show to explain some of this, to talk about agriculture's role in climate and how and why they are so often left off the hook. I asked Peter Lehner to come on the show and explain what agriculture's role is in climate, and how and why they are so often left off the hook. Peter is one of the leading experts on the impact of agriculture and climate change. He directs Earth Justice's Sustainable Food and Farming program, developing litigation, administrative and legislative strategies to promote a more just and environmentally sound agriculture system and to reduce health, environmental and climate harms from the production of our food. He is also the author of farming for Our Future The Science, Law and Policy of Climate Neutral Agriculture. He also teaches at Columbia and Yale Law schools. Please listen and share.
24 Nov 202450min
Mark Elbroch: If We Want Mountain Lions the East, We'll Have to Bring Them
"Why do we need large carnivores? Obviously as a scientist, I like talk about the biological roles that they play and the ecological roles, but I will drift and say that I think they're important for spirit and sort of human health more broadly, whether that be mental health, spiritual health, whatever, that sense of wildness that they bring to a landscape, that they force you to listen when you're in the woods, that you hear sticks break around you, that you hear what the birds are doing so that you know whether there's something coming around the next bend. These are all, in my opinion, truly enriching moments and necessary for human spirit and really for human health." - Mark Elbroch Mark: [00:12:23] These are all, in my opinion, truly enriching moments and necessary for human spirit and [00:12:30] really for human health Mark Elbroch is an ecologist and author, storyteller and the director of the Puma Program for Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization. Mark has been on the podcast before to talk about cougars, but something has changed since the last time he was on. For years, many people in the scientific community, and this is backed by research, have claimed that cougars would return to their historic range in the eastern US in the next 10 to 20 years. But there's a new study from Panthera that says that this is not true, that they won't make it to the East Coast even by 2100, which means, if we want cougars in the east we're going to have to help them. This is a big deal because we do want cougars in the east. Large predators make fragile ecosystems strong. Mountain lions interact with nearly 500 other species and their reintroduction could lead to healthier forests, less zoonotic disease, and many other benefits. Let's bring cougars home!
13 Nov 202435min
Rev. Dr. LoraKim Joyner: The Parrot Crisis
"And so I've been doing this for about 40 years, and I still don't get tired of seeing parrots. I see a parrot or I see a bird and I go, I belong. There is such beauty in the world. Oh my gosh. It's like everything is okay for a minute you're intrigued, you're curious, you're seeing beauty, you're seeing flight. But at the same time, you've trained yourself to hold the tragedy because there aren't nearly as many as there used to be and there's all kinds of complex threats against them, and there's little we can do. So you see a wild parrot that is also the internal conversation, they're in trouble, it's not like it was or it should be or could be. So that's what it's like to see a parrot is to see the beautiful and the tragic." – Rev. Dr. LoraKim Joyner I only learned recently that parrots are the most endangered group of birds on the planet. As with so many other species, our tendency to take and take is what is driving parrots toward extinction. We've been stealing them from the wild for 60 years to live these pitiful lives in cages, in people's kitchens. That, combined with habitat loss and climate change is pushing these spectacular birds to the brink of extinction. This conversation is with Rev. Dr. LoraKim Joyner, a wildlife veterinarian, a conservationist, a Unitarian minister, and co-founder of One Earth Conservation. LoraKim has spent the last 40 years in Latin and South America, working with communities to save their parrots – by building their capacity to transform poachers into protectors. One Earth Conservation grows conservationists of all ages by empowering and standing in solidarity and resistance with the people of the Americas. They have projects in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Guyana, Paraguay, and Suriname. To learn more: https://www.oneearthconservation.org/
30 Okt 202437min
