Animal Liberation
Carole is the former West Coast Director of the Companion Animal Protection Society, a national non-profit organization that investigates puppy mills and pet stores. She led the anti-puppy mill movement in Los Angeles, California, investigating puppy mills and the pet stores supplied by them, organizing the protests that shut them down for violations of the Animal Welfare Act as well as working with California lawmakers to pass the very first anti-puppy mill ordinances in over 200 cities. Today, as an animal protection professional, she is a public speaker and consults non-profits organizing strategies and campaigns to promote an end to exploitation and violence against animals. Carole is a vegan.
I identify mostly as an animal liberation activist. My view is that this planet does not belong to humans; it belongs to non-humans. We humans are just passing through and we have done a bang-up job of destroying everything in our wake. We have been criminally negligent to the planet we share with every other species. To me, our biggest crime against animals is that we murder billions of them for food. I am a radical vegan and try to lead with compassion, doing my part to wake people up out of this moral coma. We somehow think it is ok to have other people kill animals for us, because most of us could never actually slit an animal’s throat - that would be horrible! But there is a disconnect where we as a society feel that if the animal is cut up and wrapped in cellophane, it’s just fine.
We have normalized violence against animals for millennia. It’s a dirty, cruel cultural/historical habit, and in order for the planet to survive, we need to change those habits. Meat production, when you add the polluting and deforestation that occurs to make grain for meat production, is responsible for over 40% of carbon emissions. Going vegan is the single best thing each one of us can do to help the planet, stay healthy and save animals. I’ve been a part of the animal rights movement for over 20 years and have investigated slaughterhouses and factory farms. Meat producers don’t want you to see what goes on and they are even subsidized by our tax dollars. As long as I live, I will stand up for innocent animals being needlessly incarcerated and killed.
Plus, eating animals is what puts the zoo in zoonotic diseases. If we stopped eating animals, we would have no more pandemics. I love animals, therefore, I don’t eat them or wear their skins.
