Connecting to Power In parts I and II, we see how the founders of modern-day veganism anticipated the connections between the vegan principle and other pressing issues. It is our job to understand that those same issues, if left unsolved, are obstacles to achieving a veganized humanity. As we help...
Making Sense of the Whole In part one, we saw how Donald Watson, Leslie Cross and other founders of the word “vegan” and the Vegan Society implied and then stated what it means to apply the vegan principle to the rest of our lives and the vegan movement. Their evolving vision gives us an...
The vegan community is missing an opportunity to tap into a vast source of power. If we want a vegan planet we start by stepping back to see the big picture. Up to now, we have heard how environmental sustainability, for example, is dependent upon a global switch to a vegan diet. Less obvious is...
Nonvegans often claim that their ancestral dietary habits justify continued exploitation of others. Advocates for animal agriculture and other sectors like hunting, fishing, and trapping make this assumption without factual support and reveal a fundamental lack of understanding about human...
A few years ago, I compared the "game management units" where the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) set the highest quotas for killing wolves with hunter licensing and killing of elk in the same areas. There was a direct correlation. Hunters killed far more elk with guns, arrows, and muzzle...
There are many arenas for vegans to prevent suffering and needless death (more about that in later posts at thisishopethebook dot com). This was the case when a three-person delegation returned to the International Whaling Commission conference last year in Panama. At every meeting over several...
Whatever our initial reasons for stepping onto the vegetarian or vegan pathway, we must quickly grow into a broader and deeper understanding of how important Veganism is to the future of all life on Earth. For some, like me, Veganism is a product of my past, less informed vegetarianism. I saw that...
Series Summary In his previous book, Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan told the story of how plants like apple trees, marijuana, and tulips “thrived” because of humankind’s need and appreciation of them. He defined “thriving” as whenever humans expanded their geographic range and numbers, and...
It is our experience with nature, our increasing awareness of ecosystems, the operational norms of animal agriculture, and the sentient and non-sentient individuals under the yoke of carnism that lead millions of people to campaign for what must come next: a deeper, new human ecology that reflects...
Recall that earlier in his book, Omnivore’s Dilemma, author Michael Pollan saw nothing in the eyes of steer #534 ("As I gingerly stepped toward him the quiet shuffling mass of black cowhide between us parted [Pollen’s steer was now at the feedlot], and there stood 534 and I, staring dumbly at one...
