Highlights from Humane Planet Speaker Series featuring Daina Bray
Award-winning animal advocate with Yale Law School’s Law, Ethics & Animals Program talks climate, Covid, cruelty & animal law
72 Bay Area supporters gathered at the Sheraton Palo Alto—the site of Palo Alto Humane society’s first animal shelter more than 100 years ago—for the Humane Planet Speaker Series first live event. Daina was joined on stage by Nate Salpeter, co-founder of Sweet Farm who led a Q&A following her talk. The Humane Planet speaker series was founded in 2020 by the Palo Alto Humane Society, The Sweet Farm and ZOOM Marketing.
Daina engaged the audience with her hard-hitting facts and personal anecdotes about why animal law is a critical tool in solving today’s complicated collective challenges. Daina cited a recent Financial Times article which called our current situation a “polycrisis,” given the compound effect of the pandemic, climate crisis, floods, fire, storms, racial injustice, mass species extinction and threat of a third world war.
Daina specifically focused on the ways animal law can impact climate, pandemics, and animals themselves.
Climate
We need to act now, fast, powerfully to respond to climate.
According to the United Nations, animal agriculture is responsible for at least 14.5 % of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. And that's likely an underestimate
Animal agriculture plays an outsized role in the production of climate super pollutants, like nitrous oxide and methane
The EPA says, in the U.S., animal agriculture is responsible for 36% of human-caused methane emissions
Climate tipping points happen when changes to the climate system become self-perpetuating after reaching a certain level of warming. According to a study in Science Magazine there are six tipping points that are already likely to happen, even within the range of the Paris Agreement (for which we’re not even on track), including collapse of the Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Sheets, die-off of low-latitude coral reefs, and widespread permafrost thaw
The focus of climate response has been on carbon, which is important. We can have an opportunity to make a faster positive response by focusing on methane. Methane disperses after 20 years, whereas carbon stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years
Findings of a study that came out in May in the National Academy of Science showed that if we only cut carbon dioxide, without focusing on short-lived super-pollutants like methane as well, we will actually speed global warming in the near-term
Pandemics
Our interactions with animals and the natural world are important because they create the conditions that encourage the spillover of pathogens from animals to people.
Scientists estimate that 6 out of every 10 infectious diseases can be spread from animals to humans
Three out of four emerging infectious diseases come from animals to humans
Conditions for spillover events include deforestation and destruction of habitats, and creating new contact amongst wild animals, people and domestic animals
Climate change is causing previously geographically isolated animals to move into contact with each other thus increasing the risk of disease
Animal agriculture itself creates conditions for the emergence and amplification of epidemics. Animals intensively confined indoors and the widespread use of antibiotics gives rise to antimicrobial resistance. Confining genetically similar animals in tight quarters, under stress, creates risk of mutation and rapid spread of disease
Protecting animals for their sake
We have a growing scientific understanding that animals are sentient beings, with the capacity to feel positive and negative feelings, joy and pain, pleasure and distress, and that those experiences matter to that individual
If we know that, then we should take steps to not cause them suffering through our interaction with them
Prop 12 is California's groundbreaking law, described as the strongest farmed animal protection law in the world. Bray describes it as quite modest and moderate. It prohibits extreme confinement of egg-laying hens, veal calves and pregnant pigs in cages so small that they can't turn around or exhibit natural behaviors
There is no federal law that governs the treatment of farmed animals during their life on farms. We have state laws that prohibit animal cruelty, but in many cases farm animals are exempt. If it's a practice that the animal agriculture industry customarily or typically engages in, it is legal under many of these laws
Two men were recently acquitted of charges of theft and burglary after they took two dying piglets from a Smithfield Foods Farm in Utah. The piglets were sick; one was unable to walk and the other’s face was covered in blood. While Smithfield estimated these piglets were worth $42.20 each, the FBI deployed eight agents on a cross-country hunt for the pigs
Exciting animal law tools
Washington DC passed the Green New Purchasing Act, calling for a 25% reduction in the city government's food-related greenhouse gas emissions
Berkeley adopted a Green Monday resolution stating they will serve only plant-based foods at all city facilities on that day
San Diego passed a new climate plan which pledges to reduce the city's meat and dairy-related emissions by 20%
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), the prior speaker of this wonderful series, has introduced the Farm Systems Reform Act, which would crack down on monopolistic practices in the agriculture system, invest in the transition to a more resilient system, and place a moratorium on large factory farms
Daina is leading the Climate Change & Animal Agriculture Litigation Initiative at Yale Law School, studying emerging litigation trends to evaluate the likelihood and potential impact of climate change litigation in the United States based on the role of animal agriculture
Food labeling: entrepreneurs and lawyers are fighting to use words like burger or butter on plant-based foods
Get involved!
We make choices three times a day. Many climate experts say that the single biggest thing a person can do to reduce their climate impact is to eat more plant-based foods
There are so many opportunities to get involved in animal law. You don’t need to be a lawyer, bring your creativity and passion
Join us for more Humane Planet Speaker Series events and stay in touch!
Thanks for being part of our Humane Planet Speaker Series where we strive to preserve a planet where all people and animals can live a humane life. We look forward to sharing more news and upcoming speakers soon!
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About Palo Alto Humane Society
The Palo Alto Humane Society is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit, charitable, volunteer-supported organization. One of the few humane societies nationwide with no animal shelter, we work to keep animals out of the shelter through humane programs in intervention, advocacy, and education. For a century, our mission has been to alleviate the suffering of animals, increase public sensitivity to animal issues, and elevate the status of animals in our society.
About Sweet Farm
Sweet Farm is the first non-profit sanctuary in the world to address the global climate impacts of factory farming across animals, plants, and the planet. Our food web is incredibly complicated and it’s impossible to move forward without first understanding how these pieces are connected. By linking climate education, veganic agriculture, farm-animal rescue, and the technology that is sustainably disrupting food and agriculture production—Sweet Farm is redefining what it means to be a sanctuary.
About ZOOM Marketing
ZOOM Marketing is Silicon Valley’s first and longest-lasting agency focused on brand positioning. Our clients gain leadership through data-driven positioning that builds and differentiates category leaders. ZOOM’s clients are the positioning leaders in their market, including Snowflake, Databricks, ThoughtSpot, FloQast and Infoblox.
The Humane Planet team with Daina
Pictured (left to right): Ellie Victor, Co-CEO ZOOM Marketing; Daina Bray, award-winning animal advocate with with Yale Law School’s Law, Ethics & Animals Program; Carole Hyde, Director of Programs, Palo Alto Humane Society; Nate Salpeter, Co-founder, Sweet Farm
Daina sharing hard-hitting facts and anecdotes about why animal law is a critical tool in solving today’s complicated collective challenges.