15th December 2020
Go Vegan World Christmas 2020 Campaign
Our Christmas campaign is well and truly underway in Ireland. Visible on 100 buses and almost 100 billboards, in addition to online, newspaper and magazine adverts, the campaign message could not be stronger: other animals are feeling beings who should not be used or killed.
Most people claim to care about other animals. Yet most people are not vegan. If we truly cared about them, we would not pay for them to be exploited and killed; we would be vegan. For the most part, all that is missing between the values we hold (such as thinking we care about other animals) and our behaviour (whether or not we live as vegans), is information and a jolt to our conscience. Go Vegan World aims to fill in what is missing by providing evidence based information and to show other animals for who they are, as feeling beings who do not want to be used as objects and who do not want to die. Once people see the animals in our ads as unique individuals with personalities, feelings, needs, and rights, it is very difficult for them to continue to believe that we matter more than them, or that it is acceptable for us to use them. Very few people are left with any option but to acknowledge that the status quo of animal use is wrong and that being vegan is the right thing to do. When people begin to change how they think and feel about other animals, they address the root cause of the problem which is the speciesist notion that we matter more than they do.
In addition to the rights of other animals, there are valid intersectional reasons to stop using them and to replace our use of them with plant alternatives, or other ethical, non-animal alternatives. These are issues that Go Vegan World does not shy away from highlighting, and it always does so in an animal rights context. In the last few years it has become very obvious that animal agriculture is a significant contributor to GHG emissions, climate change, environmental destruction including air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. It is evident that the health of infants is compromised when the dairy industry markets infant formula instead of encouraging breast feeding. In the last year we have endured the consequences of a pandemic that, like most pandemics, is zoonotic in origin, stemming from our use of, and inappropriate association with, other animals. Animal agriculture is incredibly wasteful of resources, using significantly more fossil fuel, land, water and other resources than the equivalent production of plant foods. Any health institution with an ounce of integrity includes sustainability in its dietary recommendations, and promotes the transition to a plant diet.
There is every reason for us to be vegan. There is no valid reason whatsoever to continue breeding other animals into a life where they are to be exploited and killed when they are still children for something we do not need.
Please share our ads and the resources of our website and vegan guide with people you know who are not yet vegan. If you are not vegan, please research this information for yourself. It is your right to know and your responsibility to act on it.
