Trump’s Egg-scuses, Pork Politics, and Farmers’ Crocodile Tears: This Week in Animal Ag Absurdity | Rising Anxieties

In this week’s Rising Anxieties, Mariann Sullivan dives into the theater of the absurd that is animal agriculture politics. From the Trump administration’s laughable attempt to blame California’s cage-free egg laws for nationwide price hikes (spoiler alert: it’s actually bird flu), to pork industry lobbyists desperately trying to justify their existence by fighting animal welfare laws nobody asked them to fight. Plus, a dairy farmer’s sob story about how incredibly difficult it is to exploit cows for a living (have you tried… not doing that?), and finally, some actually good news about a groundbreaking Animal Sentience Center at the London School of Economics.

This episode explores:

• How the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California’s Prop 12 is really a smokescreen for the pork industry’s agenda
• Why industry groups are fighting animal welfare laws that even many producers have already adapted to
• The hilarious self-pity of a dairy farmer complaining about the difficulty of the unnecessary job they chose
• How Helen and Scott Nearing demonstrated decades ago that plant-based farming offers more freedom than animal agriculture
• The promising development of the Jeremy Coller Center for Animal Sentience at the London School of Economics, bringing multidisciplinary science to animal advocacy

 

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