Worldwatch Report and Derrida Ramblings

From a new report: Livestock accounts for more than 50% of global GHG emissions and the solution is to transition away from dairy/meat.

I don't have much more to say on this right now, because I'm working on a paper for a conference this weekend about the connections between ableism and speciesism. I'm using some of Derrida's work on animality for this project. I think his use of "carno-phallologocentrism" to question common approaches to "the Animal" AND "vegetarian" politics is right on. While Derrida ignores significant differences in the animal advocacy movement, he highlights an important point: an animal "rights" approach doesn't do anything to deconstruct conceptions of the subject, but rather redeploys them. (I think the use of vegetarian here is important, though I haven't yet checked the french. While there are technically words for vegan and vegetarian in French, they're usually grouped together.) In any event, I don't think he is telling us "go home and eat meat," as some people have said to me. First of all, he's not one for clear-cut solutions. Second, I take his comments to mean that vegetarianism is probably a good thing, but it's not enough. As he says in an interview with Nancy, abstaining from consuming flesh isn't enough to absolve you from violence against animals (or, l'animot). You can't just stop eating meat and assume you're no longer causing animal suffering. (Been through your closet yet? What do you feed your pets? Are your cosmetics tested on animals? Was your flu shot made out of eggs? Is your TV powered by burning rabbits?)

I find this useful in explaining the difference that I between veganism and vegetarianism. I usually talk mostly about diet, because I think that is the easiest, and for many people (depending on consumption patterns) most significant change they can make in their everyday lives to reduce non-human animal suffering.

The paper I'm working on partly addresses concerns that I have about ableism within animal advocacy and animal rights philosophies, which is one way of questioning how philosophers define the Human.

Speaking of which.... back to work!