Joaquin Phoenix: A person is worth more than a scallop
By Amanda Radke
From the Oscars to the Golden Globes, Hollywood A-listers are taking a stand to speak out against issues that are important to them.
Move aside Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement, the trendy new crusade is to go meatless to save the planet and to save the animals.
While I’m sure the intent is good, the results are laughable. Animal agriculture contributes less than 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States today, according to the EPA, while transportation and electricity contribute the lion’s share of all emissions.
There have been many suggestions that instead of skipping beef, a better solution for Hollywood would be to fly commercial instead of going solo in a private jet, to rewear dresses and tuxedos and to reduce waste by actually eating what’s served at these awards banquets instead of having it end up in the trash.
Admittedly, I don’t typically tune in to these award shows; however, my Twitter feed alerted me to the trending speech of the night. Delivered by Joaquin Phoenix, the Hollywood actor passionately encouraged fans and viewers to live vegan to end speciesism, which essentially he believes animals have the same rights and values and human beings.
While accepting his award, Phoenix told the crowd, “I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the distressing issues that we are facing collectively, and I think at times we feel or are made to feel that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality. I think whether we’re talking about gender inequality 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. 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. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and when she gives birth, we steal her baby. Even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. And then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal. And I think we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something to give something up but human beings, at our best, are so inventive and creative and ingenious, and I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop, and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.”
Oofta - that’s a lot to unpack. While part of me doesn’t want to even give Phoenix the additional press of addressing his statements, I feel quite strongly the need to comment on his call to end speciesism.