Archive | December 2011

Peace on Earth: will we ever have it? With Peter Singer and Gary Francione discussing Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of our Nature”

(20 min) Play or download (18MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

Peace on Earth?

This season of peace and goodwill, in our special Christmas show, we ask whether there will ever be peace on Earth.  Steven Pinker, author of “The Better Angels of Our Nature”, says that human violence has decreased over the centuries – but does that include violence to other animals? Diana asks him. What does “peace on Earth” mean to Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation and grandfather of the modern animal movement? What does animal rights iconoclast Gary Francione think of Steven Pinker’s theory? Listen to find out.

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Veganism in Politics: The British Parliament Debates World Vegan Day

(20 min) Play or download (18MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

Veganism in Politics 3: The Debate

At the end of our last episode, Kerry McCarthy MP said she’d asked for a debate in Parliament to mark World Vegan Day.

She was successful, and at the end of business on November 1st the House of Commons debated veganism. I was watching from the gallery.

In this episode, concluding our series of three about veganism in politics, we give our account of the debate. We explain what’s going on, who everyone is, and tell you which of the MPs who spoke against is officially the least sexy Member of Parliament.

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The Pledge statistics – Do vegans thrive in adversity?

In our podcast about the vegan pledge we talked about reasons that people did or didn’t decide to remain vegan after the vegan pledge including the tricky issue of biased respondent samples. The followup questionnaire was given after a month of the vegan pledge and people who fell off the vegan wagon were unlikely to make it to that meeting. In this blog I’m going to talk about how reasons that people cite for going vegan might influence whether they are choose to continue after the pledge and the paradoxical effect of unsupportive friends and relatives. Read More…

Veganism in Politics: Chris Williamson MP, Cathy Jamieson MP and Kerry McCarthy MP answer your questions

(14 min) Play or download (15MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

Veganism in Politics 2: Q & A

The three vegan Members of the British Parliament (MPs) answer your questions. Are they afraid about how voters will react to their veganism? And what’s the food like at the House of Commons?

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