“It is a little bit terrifying, because it means that AI systems are going to be entering this uncanny valley where we are not sure how to experience them in five or ten years. You might be talking to Siri on your phone, or ChatGPT on your laptop, or your Roomba, vacuuming your floor. You might be talking to these beings and genuinely be unsure whether they think and feel things when they talk back to you, and that is going to be an uncomfortable place to be.” Jeff Sebo

Jeff Sebo works primarily on moral philosophy, legal philosophy, and philosophy of mind; animal minds, ethics, and policy; AI minds, ethics, and policy; global health and climate ethics and policy; and global priorities research.

He is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law, Director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, Director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy, and Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program at New York University.

He is also an author. His most recent book is called The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why? Here he argues that we should extend moral consideration to a much broader spectrum of beings, including insects and even artificial intelligence. After reading his book, I couldn’t agree more.

 “I think it's really the amounts of money that they're able to offer people paired with the violence that they're willing to put on people. It's very much like the drug cartels in Mexico, just more focused on poaching of wildlife.” – John Jurko

John Jurko is a director and producer of the film, Rhino Man, an award winning documentary which highlights the courageous field rangers who risk their lives every day to protect rhinos and our natural world.

The film follows Anton Mzimba, the head ranger of the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve, as he and his team battle to protect the rhinos. Anton faces long deployments away from family, dangerous working conditions, and constant threats to his life until he was  assassinated for his work protecting the rhinos – this was while they were making the film. John is continuing to advocate to bring justice to his killers who have yet to be arrested.

John also created and hosts The Rhino Man Podcast to further build awareness of the importance of rangers, the rhino poaching crisis, and our need to connect local communities to protected areas.

“I know that one day for me in Antarctica, one morning for me in Antarctica is a dream for someone who will never get there. Because it's hard to get to. So, I don't waste those opportunities. I don't sit there and go, ‘I'm in Antarctica again.’ No, my brain will not go to that space because I know that people would kill [to be there].

I am the portal sometimes, through which some people will experience different parts of the world.” Jason Edwards

Jason Edwards is an award-winning photographer, TV host, and conservationist. His image portfolio ranks among the largest of any photographer in the National Geographic Society's long history, and he has a new book out called, From Icebergs to Iguanas. It's a large format series of books illustrating his National Geographic imagery and his behind-the-scenes tales. It's stunning and it makes you feel very lucky to live on this planet.

Through his commissioned assignments and as the face of National Geographic Channel's Pure Photography, Jason has taken his storytelling to televisions and streaming networks in dozens of countries and to every continent. His imagery has appeared in hundreds of publications including National Geographic Magazine, BBC Wildlife, Australian Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Conde Nast Traveler, and The New Yorker.

“We don't want Idaho to have a bad reputation. This is our home state. We love our home state. It's beautiful. We pride ourselves on our nature. We pride ourselves on our wildlife. And instead, we are continuing to do things that are… that are sickening.” - Ella Driever

In 1995, wolves were reintroduced to central Idaho, and in 2003 a Boise High school called Timberline officially adopted a local wolf pack. Throughout the 2000, students went on wolf tracking trips and in their wolf packs range.

But in 2021, Idaho's legislature passed Senate Bill 1211, 1211 allows Idaho hunters to obtain an unlimited number of wolf tags, and it also allows Idaho's Department of Fish and Game to use taxpayer dollars to pay private contractors to kill wolves. That means bounties on wolves, including on public lands.

And in 2021, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission expanded the wolf hunting season and hunting and trapping methods. So it's not too surprising to learn that also in 2021, the Timberline pack disappeared.

The students, the ones that cared about wolves, at least, were devastated.

Last summer I went to D.C. with some of the Species Unite team for a wolf rally on Capitol Hill. While I was there, two young women gave a talk about what happened at Timberline in 2021. Their names are Ella Driver and Sneha Sharma. They both graduated from Timberline High School and were there when their wolf pack disappeared.

Please, listen and share.

“I know that veganism can be a little daunting for some, and they feel like it's either you go fully vegan or you're not allowed in the club.” – Cheryl Martinez

Because it's January and because a lot of people may have made some big resolutions a few weeks ago, we are going to talk about one of them – plant-based eating. Because, well I think it’s a really good resolution to do all year long. 

I think one of the big resistance points for even trying plant-based for a month, is that many people seem to worry that switching their diet to vegan means there's a lot of food they can't eat anymore, but, I think it’s the opposite. Eating vegan has led to so many options and flavors that I had never knew existed.

This episode is with Cheryl Martinez. Cheryl is the founder of Veginner Cooking, which is all about making plant-based eating accessible and exciting for everyone – whether they’re doing vegan til dinner, or meatless Mondays or are making the shift to full on vegan. 

Cheryl's built a community of over 200,000 Veginners, that is vegan beginners, and she shares with them delicious recipes, tips, advice, and all sorts of really good info on how to make easy, delicious and healthy plant-based foods.

Please listen, share and check out Veginner Cooking.

Veginner Cooking: https://www.veginnercooking.com/

Veginner Recipes: https://www.veginnercooking.com/blog

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“Do people even want to know about some of these issues? Because I think some of the meat production concerns, it's kind of like people would rather in some cases, I think some people might not really want to know all the nitty gritty. They don't want to know how the sausage is made. That poses an interesting question and challenge about how you communicate about some of these issues, when maybe there's a resistance among a subset of people who don't want to know more.” - Patti Truant Anderson 

Today’s episode is the final installment in our special four-part series where we take a deep dive into the food system with experts from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

Our guest is Patti Truant Anderson, a senior program officer at the Center and a faculty associate in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Patti’s work focuses on public health risks, environmental challenges tied to food production, and how to communicate these critical issues more effectively.

Patti and I explore how polling helps uncover public perceptions around food systems and why the country isn’t as polarized on these issues as we might think. We also talk about the challenge of engaging people who may resist learning about the harsh realities of our food system.

This episode is not just about data—it’s about how we can foster a shared understanding and move forward, even in times of deep political division.

Links:

Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future  - https://clf.jhsph.edu/

Patti Truant Anderson - https://clf.jhsph.edu/about-us/staff/patti-truant-anderson

“People in the animal welfare world, I think, should broaden their purview to the human parts of it and sort of work in coalition. Like if you can really expose the labor conditions, you're weakening the industry, and if you can increase labor regulations, if you can make it to where workers don't routinely get repetitive stress injuries and they're not breathing in harsh chemicals, and if you slow the kill line down, that hits their profits and you are weakening the industry. And, also remember, this industry doesn't just slaughter billions of animals a year, it also makes life hell for the people who work in it. Expand your level of solidarity to those people.” – Tom Philpott

This is the third episode in a special for part series, where we go deep into the food system with some of the brightest minds at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. In this episode, we dive into one of the many hidden and hideous aspects of our food system: the exploitation of workers in industrial meat production.

Tom Philpott is a senior research associate at the Center. He joined in 2022 after a distinguished three-decade career in journalism, reporting on the injustices and ecological ramifications of the industrial food system. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Perilous Bounty.

I asked Tom to shed some light on the grueling conditions faced by meatpacking workers, from

dangerous line spades to repetitive injuries and the shocking lack of basic protections, and even though much of this was exposed during the covid 19 pandemic, to explain how it’s all still happening.

Tom also hosts the Center for a Livable Future’s podcast, it’s called Unconfined. It’s really good. Take a listen to learn a whole lot more about the impacts of food animal production.

Links

Center for a Livable Future: https://clf.jhsph.edu/

Tom Philpott: https://www.tomphilpott.net/

Perilous Bounty: https://bookshop.org/p/books/perilous-bounty-the-looming-collapse-of-american-farming-and-how-we-can-prevent-it-tom-philpott/8555300?ean=9781635578454&gclid=Cj0KCQjw48OaBhDWARIsAMd966DtJTjYQl6nh5J9Gk9ib9f3SXgKnCfTwujd-YMhRK-UC1X-ihdAiyIaAsm3EALw_wcB

Unconfined Podcast: https://clf.jhsph.edu/unconfined-podcast

“I remember during my training having professors tell me, ‘one day you might do something important and you'll tick off a vested interest, and they're going to come into a meeting with you, and they're going to bring a copy of your dissertation and slam it on the table and start challenging you.’ And that is exactly what happened.” – Keeve Nachman

This is the 2nd episode in a special four-part series about where we go deep into the food system with some of the brightest minds at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. 

This conversation is Dr. Keeve Nachman, a powerhouse in the fields of environmental health, risk assessment, and food systems research. Keeve is the Robert S. Lawrence Professor and Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. He’s also a leading voice on issues like antibiotic resistance and industrial agriculture’s impact on public health.

I asked Keeve to come on the show to talk about how his work helped ban the use of arsenic in our food system—a fight that spanned 15 years and had a ripple effect around the globe. 

Keeve’s story is a masterclass in persistence and the power of science-driven policy change.

We also explore his ongoing efforts to address antibiotic misuse in industrial agriculture, a growing threat to global public health, and discuss what it will take to create lasting change in our food system.

Links :

Keeve Nachman: https://clf.jhsph.edu/about-us/staff/keeve-nachman

Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future:  https://clf.jhsph.edu/

Unconfined Podcast https://clf.jhsph.edu/unconfined-podcast

“My colleague and I went out to Arizona because there was a community that was concerned about the expansion of an egg laying operation, essentially in their backyard. At full capacity, that operation was slated to house 12 million birds. 12 million birds. It's like New York City, but with chickens.” – Brent Kim

We know that what we eat has an enormous impact on billions of animals, our health and the health of the planet. If we fail to change our diets and the food system, the planet will face increasingly severe environmental, social, and economic consequences, many of which are already beginning to unfold. We know this, we know that there is much we could be doing about it, on large and small scales, yet the urgency is not there. 

I think the more knowledge we have, the more we are willing to demand change and even change ourselves. So, I wanted to go deeper into the food system to get a better understanding of its impact on public health, the planet, ecosystems and social justice, and mostly - to hear about how we change it.

This episode marks the beginning of a special four-part series with some of the experts from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.  

This conversation is with Brent Kim. Brent is a program officer for the Center’s Food Production and Public Health program. His research spans issues from farm to fork with published works on sustainable diets, climate change and industrial food, animal production, food and agriculture policy, soil safety, and urban food systems. He and I talk about much of it, how to change it and solutions for a much better future.

Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future https://clf.jhsph.edu/

Brent Kim https://clf.jhsph.edu/about-us/staff/brent-kim

Unconfined Podcast (from the Center for a Livable Future) https://clf.jhsph.edu/unconfined-podcast

"In the case of lions, they're not easy neighbors. They're also not the worst neighbors. I think in in most cases, it's a matter of learning how to live next to nature, next to other animals and animals that can potentially be dangerous." - JG Collomb

JG Collomb is the CEO of Wildlife Conservation Network, an organization that connects global donors with community based conservationists, and they're changing the way the world finds and funds often overlooked projects in the field and helps foster coexistence between communities and the animals who live among them. 

Please listen, share and check out the Wildlife Conversation Network.

“I think there's a lot of people out there who feel the way I felt for many years, which is, ‘look, I feel a bit guilty, I know in some sense that having the diet I have makes me complicit in some things that I don't like. It makes me a bit uncomfortable, but it doesn't feel like there’s anything I can do about it right now. I have this guilt. I'd like to do something about it, but just all the options I'm presented with seem a bit shit.’

So, when we present people with something else that they can do, many of the people we've spoken to say it's quite a relief to know that they don't have to sit with this tension. You know, psychologists call it the meat paradox, the thing where we love animals, but we also eat them. How can we resolve this? Well, one thing that can maybe help us resolve this kind of cognitive dissonance is to actually be a part of helping animals even whilst you still haven't changed your diet.” - Aidan Alexander

The animals that need our help the most are animals that live on factory farms. Yet charities protecting farmed animals receive 28 times less donations than pet charities. There are all sorts of reasons for this, which we get into in this episode.

This conversation is with Aidan Alexander and Tom Norman. Aidan and Tom have started an organization called FarmKind. It is a way to support your favorite charities, that is, nonprofits that you’re already supporting - pet charities, conservation charities, etc. but also at the same time to help animals that are living on factory farms.

Why? Because factory farming is the biggest source of suffering for animals on the planet. Helping to protect these animals and bring factory farming to an end is one of the biggest ways to help animals in need. FarmKind makes it easy to make a difference for millions of factory farm animals when you donate to the causes you care about.

FarmKind helps people who feel compassion for animals to help the animals most in need and support their favorite charities at the same. OR FarmKind helps anyone be a part of the solution to factory farming, regardless of their diet. Because diet change isn’t the only way to help farmed animals.

Donating is an incredibly powerful way to express our compassion for animals. When we donate to the charities that have been shown to make a difference and use our money wisely, it can make an even bigger difference than changing your diet.

Farmkind collaborates with experts to identify some of the most effective charities combating factory farming's impact on animals and the planet. They enable users to split their donations between these expert-recommended, super-effective charities and their personal favorite causes, like your local shelter. And they provide a bonus to both, allowing donors to do the most good to combat factory farming while supporting causes close to their hearts.

Please listen, share and if you are able, please consider donating to FarmKind:

https://www.farmkind.giving/split-and-boost?utm_source=speciesunite&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=speciesunite