I left this post in my drafts for the last month. I contemplated posting it but my anxiety told me not to. This is a topic which deeply disturbs me, yet I feel like it is my responsibility to share with as many people who will listen.
The unprecedented scale of the bushfires in Australia is astonishing; due to the hot dry climate, the country experiences bushfires regularly but never to this extent. Climate change has been a huge debate circulating around the topic of Australia. These fires have been ongoing since September 2019 and picked up tremendously in December which was the driest December recorded to date in Australia. (Business Insider)
The fires are spreading at ferocious speeds covering more than 25.5 million acres of land. I spoke about the Amazon rainforest fires (which you can find here) where 2.2 million acres of land was burned, a staggering figure. The fires have killed at least 33 people, destroyed over 2000 homes, and officials estimate that it will keep burning for several months to come. (NPR) Over a billion animals are feared to be dead; I am sure many reading this have stumbled across the heartbreaking videos of people rescuing Koalas which are often shown to be severely burned and in poor or life threatening shape. The hope for rain was wearing thin until a downpour of torrential rain fell and has extinguished about a third of the persistent fires last week. However, now there is flash flooding as Australia experienced its heaviest rainfall since 1990. (CNN)
Cristina Koch, a NASA astronaut, has photographed Australia from space showing the extreme extent of the bushfires. The image reveals that close to 70% of the country is covered by smoke. According to NASA, by January 8, the smoke had already traveled halfway around the planet; they expect that the smoke will travel the full circuit of the globe and return to Australia. (Business Insider)
Something I have noticed is the lack of genuine concern for the Earths future, especially when it comes to those in a position of power or influence. Someone who has deeply inspired me is Joaquin Phoenix, an American actor and producer. Joaquin Phoenix’s publicity has been heightened in the previous year for his role in the immensely successful film “Joker” (2019). Phoenix tends to stay out of the direct public eye, owning no social media. However, he continues to be a prominent figure in society though the media is not quite interested in covering this. A dedicated climate and animal activist, Phoenix actively partakes in rallies, strikes, protests, and has been spotted outside slaughterhouses giving comfort and water to animals awaiting their death.
Widely spread across the internet is Phoenix’s Golden Globe speech. Opening his acceptance speech Phoenix says ‘First I’d like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press for recognizing and acknowledging the link between animal agriculture and climate change…’ ‘It really sends a powerful message’ Phoenix says while admitting that is was a ‘bold’ move making the night plant based. He has to be admired for his initiative to broadcast serious climate crisis concerns especially when there are those of differing opinions sitting in front of him. *cough* Ricky Gervais *cough*
‘I think now consuming animal products is no longer just a personal choice it is having a drastic and vast consequence on the rest of the world and all of us.’
Continuing, he states that people must step up and take action – ‘It is so nice that so many people have come up and sent their well wishes to Australia, but we have to do more than that.’ Phoenix used his acceptance speech to highlight the tragic Australian bushfires and the climate crisis. Days after this speech he was arrested at Jane Fonda’s weekly climate protests. Highlighting the link between animal agriculture and climate change, Phoenix took to the platform to state that ‘something [he] think[s] at times isn’t often talked about in the environmental movement or in the conversation about climate change is that the meat and dairy industry is the third leading cause of climate change…[he] think[s] sometimes we wonder what can we do in this fight against climate change, and there’s something that you can do today, right now, and tomorrow, by making a choice about what you consume.’ Find the full video here.
‘I think that we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world and many of us, what we’re guilty of is an egocentric world view, the belief that we’re the center of the universe. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources.’
Joaquin Phoenix – The Oscars 2020.
The main reason why I decided to revisit this post was that I saw Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar acceptance speech and it reminded me how important it is to ‘use my voice for the voiceless’. Speaking up about animal agriculture can be extremely difficult and daunting, especially when the majority of people support it; I have great admiration for Phoenix using his enormous platform to highlight such difficult topics (I think we all see a few of his peers sneering in the audiences of these award shows). At the weekend Phoenix attended another one of Jane Fonda’s Climate protests before attending the Oscars. Taking home an Oscar for best actor in his role in ‘Joker’, Phoenix once again shares a moving speech at the Oscars stating that the greatest gift that his platform has given him is ‘the opportunity to use [his] voice for the voiceless.’
‘I think whether we’re talking about gender and equality, or racism, or queer rights, or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice; we’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, or one species has the right to dominate, control and use and exploit another with impunity.’
Something I fail to do is keep my emotions stable while speaking about these same issues. I deeply admire Phoenix and his eloquent way of communicating the need to take action. There seems to be a huge moral disconnection between eating animals and animal cruelty. The majority of people find animal suffering quite distressing, so why is it that we eat meat and contribute to this suffering? I decided to look up the psychology behind this and found a great article by Steve Loughnan. Loughnan uses the term ‘meat paradox’ where he describes how ‘most people care about animals and do not want to see them harmed but engage in a diet that requires them to be killed’, and how this moral conflict is resolved. This resolution stems from two political ideologies: authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. Loughnan states that research has found that ‘omnivores are higher in both factors…and omnivores who value inequality and hierarchy eat more red meat than those who do not.’ Eating meat is morally troublesome when animals are perceived as worthy of moral concern. I also briefly touched on humanity’s staunch anthropocentric orientation in a previous post you can find here. Each day we have the choice to make a difference.
‘And I will try to do better and I hope you will too.’
Joaquin Phoenix -Golden Globes 2020.
Works cited.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51409551
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/10/asia/sydney-rain-fires-australia-intl/index.html
Loughnan, Steve, et al. “The Psychology of Eating Animals.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 23, no. 2, 2014, pp. 104–108. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44318731.
Irish Discourse 
Amazing post Ciara, truly inspiring for us to use our voices for the voiceless
LikeLiked by 1 person
He’s the greatest 😻 thank you!
LikeLike