In this episode, we discuss the condition of farmed animals in Canada, the relationship between animal rights and anarchism, and what the Enbridge Oil Pipelines means for BC’s animals.
Farmed Animals In Canada: Environment, Community, and Animals.
The World Society for the Protection has released a new report entitled What’s on Your Plate? The Hidden Costs of Industrial Animal Agriculture in Canada that exposes the destructive impacts of Intensive Livestock Operations or ILOs on our health, the environment, animal welfare and rural Canada.
The WSPA has been promoting animal welfare for more than 25 years, with a focus on Companion animals, Commercial exploitation of wildlife, Farm animals, and Disaster management.
In today’s episode, we chat with Melissa Matlow, the Campaigns Manager for Humane and Sustainable Agriculture for the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Mellisa will tell us just how ILOs are producing drug resistant super bugs, destroying our planet’s life support system and transforming the social fabric of our rural communities.
The Enbridge Oil Pipelines
The Calgary-based oil and gas company Enbridge Inc. is proposing a pipeline running 1,170 km from Alberta’s tar sands to a new port in Kitimat, on British Columbia’s west coast. From there, the crude oil would be loaded on to tankers for export to international markets. If the project proceeds, more than 225 oil tankers would travel B.C.’s northern inside coastal waters per year. Currently there is no bulk crude oil tanker traffic on B.C.’s north coast.
Today’s discussion of the Enbridge Oil Pipelines is just an introduction, a grounding of seeds, so to speak, about this project that will decide the fate of B.C.’s coasts. We talk about what these pipelines mean for us, the environment, and animals who depend on an oil-free eco-system for their survival.
Anarchism, Animals, and Transcending the Human/Nonhuman Binary
For our 2nd interview in this episode, we have Dr. Abraham P. DeLeon on the show. He is an assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Recently DeLeon was scheduled to deliver a paper entitled “Lured by the Animal: Rethinking Nonhuman Animals in Educational Discourses” at the American Education Research Assocation. He was also scheduled to speak at the pre-conference on “What might happen when teachers and other academics connect reason to power and power to resistance?”
However, he was denied entry into Canada to attend this conference. We’ll be talking to Abraham about his work on animals and anarchist philosophy and we’ll hopefully see how anarchism provides both profound insights into the way animals are treated in our society and also improved tools for how we can challenge this oppression.
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