Welcome to The Vegan Report. My name is Ryan
and today we respond to an episode from the Jordan
B. Peterson podcast posted on April 17 and titled,
The Best Argument Against Veganism. For that
episode, Dr. Peterson interviews Joel Salatin,
co -owner of Polyface Farm and an outspoken proponent
of regenerative animal farming. Joel Saliton
happens to be featured in Chapter 8 of The Omnivore's
Dilemma, the bestseller of author Michael Pollan.
Both of them, Saliton and Pollan, have been instrumental
in popularizing the idea that animal exploitation
can be humane and ecological. To debunk this
Jordan Peterson interview and set the record
straight, I have with me the perfect guest, John
Sanbonmatsu. John has written The Omnivore's
Deception, which completely obliterates the Michael
Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. The Omnivore Deception
is a true animal rights classic, and I highly
recommend it. I did a whole episode on it. Get
a copy of the book, link in the episode's notes.
And please share this episode everywhere. John
called me an optimist. I don't know if one day
we could hope to see Jordan become vegan, but
at the very least I hope that his supporters
and listeners get exposed to what is really veganism
about. So spread the word. Every gesture of support
is appreciated. Thank you so much. Let's start
with talking about Bill. Let's talk about our
fond memories of Bill. I remember the first time
Bill Gates called me and told me, hey, Ryan,
me and the other globalists feel strongly that
you should start a podcast about veganism. And
I'm sure he also called you to write your latest
book. Yeah, Bill. Yeah, I was on the call with
George Soros at the time, and I had to put George
on hold in order to take the call from Bill.
And he had left his his golf clubs at my Chateau.
So we had to talk about that, too. Yeah, no,
it's it's great to feel like we're part of the
global conspiracy. I don't know how you feel
about it, but I am gives me a sense of purpose.
Yeah, I mean, When he when Jordan Peterson says
that veganism and this whole push to reduce or
stop eating animal products comes from a cabal
of globalist elites So, you know we hear all
this nonsense at high levels among the globalists
about the fact that agriculture is a net pollutant
and that we have to radically cut back, for example,
on our meat consumption, which is something that's
like, oh, I see. So everybody's going to have
a little brain because they eat nothing but plants.
That's your damn theory, right? And so, you know,
you hear about these. Well, if we're all if we're
all eating beans, that might solve the gas problem.
Well, apparently Bill Gates has a solution to
that. I just feel he's he doesn't know any vegan.
in his life. As I do, he doesn't understand how
much of a grassroots movement this is. And as
someone who works in fundraising, I can tell
you, I can attest to the fact that animal charities
are struggling to get funding from the wealthiest,
from foundations. This idea that reducing meat
is popular and well -funded and part of a global
agenda of some sort, it feels ridiculous when
you're part of this community. Well, absolutely.
But I mean, this idea of conspiracy of a small
number of people is, of course, grounded ultimately
in anti -Semitic tropes going back centuries,
right? the propaganda around the so -called Protocols
of the Elders of Zion, which is this document
that supposedly showed that Jews met secretly
to control everything. And I joked about George
Soros because of course he's a Jewish billionaire
philanthropist who gives money through the Open
Society Foundation to liberal charities and stuff
and parties. But in reality, as you point out,
I mean, vegans are, first of all, a powerless
minority. I'm sorry to give a spoiler alert to
your audience. But it's important to understand
or to acknowledge that the kinds of discourses
that Jordan Peterson pervades have a long history.
you know, of demonizing a small group and saying
it's a conspiracy of elites and so forth. And
it's quite striking in this right -wing environment
where we see fascism rising in many different
contexts around the world, particularly Europe
and the United States, although not just there,
that the demonization of anyone who descends
from the status quo is accelerating, that demonization
is accelerating. And it's interesting that veganism
and animal rights has become a focal point. Governor
DeSantis in Florida, for example, issued a proclamation
talking about the global conspiracy, globalists
want to take away people's meat and so on. So
it's all tied up with all this other bad political
stuff about domination of men over women and
so on. It's a lot to unravel. And also the fact
that veganism has been around for decades now.
The vegan society, I think, was born just after
World War II. And even before that, you had the
vegetarian society, you had movements of communities
of vegetarian people. And you can, you know,
go back to the Middle Ages with characters like
Al -Ma 'ri who was arguing for abstaining from
animal products. He's a Syrian poet, again, from
the Dark Ages. Yeah, so this feeling that you
should abstain, that it is immoral to exploit
animals has been with humanity since the beginning
of time, like since hundreds, if not thousands
of years. Well, thousands of years. I mean, the
first person to call himself a philosopher or
lover of wisdom, philosophia was Pythagoras,
from whom we get the Pythagorean theorem. And
the kind of cults that developed after his death
were vegetarian. And part of that seems to have
been an ethical critique of our violence against
animals, because Ovid talks about it in the Metamorphoses
centuries later. Plutarch and Porphyry or some
other ancient thinkers who were talking about
analytics. And also then from the eastern side
in Hinduism and Buddhism and Jainism, we find
critiques of our violence against animals and
eating of animals literally for 2000 years. So
yeah, this idea that it's some kind of conspiracy
of PETA, for example, right? PETA is the kind
of whipping boy or a lot of this stuff. or that
it's a fad. No, it's not. It's been rooted in
civilization for many, many years as an idea.
But I think it's significant that it's become,
as they say, so important in right -wing discourse.
And I think it's precisely because it's kind
of the linchpin that holds together the most
destructive features of our civilization. Our
domination over other animals becomes the basis
for dominating other human groups. To vilify
a group of people as animals or animal -like
is to prepare the way for violence against them,
including genocide. One of the first things that
happened after the October 7th attacks is that
Yoav Galant, the defense minister in Israel,
referred to the people in Gaza as as human animals,
you know, that's who they were fighting. And
so you treat, because we treat non human animals
as things to be destroyed, then you apply that
to a social group or ethnic group, and that justifies
the violence. So again, I don't think I mean,
people think that the issues that we talk about,
about animals is somehow trivial, but I really
don't agree with that. I think that it's It's
central to the whole apparatus of capitalist
production and patriarchy and all these these
things that are keeping humans in a kind of perpetual
bondage of violence and misunderstanding and
suffering Yes, and one last point about this
idea of a conspiracy If vegans were that powerful
with, you know, the global elites and all of
the billionaires, and we had all of them as allies,
then how come Big Ag is thriving right now? Yeah.
No, I mean, it's just so absurd. And yet, as
the saying goes, a lie will travel halfway around
the world while the truth is still pulling on
its trousers. I mean, it's It's a topsy -turvy
environment. We're going to be talking about
Jordan Peterson, but one thing that struck me
not for the first time was just how wacko his
views are about climate change. He's a conspiracy
theorist. He says that arguably some of the carbon
emissions warming the planet are human produced.
Arguably, there's no argument But because he's
very glib and very, you know, he has a PhD and
he's very confident in his own skin, it's amazing
how easy it is to fool people who want to be
fooled. I think that's really important. It's
not just that he's glib and he's a good propagandist
and ideologue. He's speaking to the worst parts
of the human personality and people who want
to believe the lies, really lies that he's purveying.
Yes, let's talk about climate change. He does
bring some interesting points about climate change.
And I want to start with this. You don't need
to be a climatologist to understand the impact,
the negative impact of animal farming on the
environment. If you just, you know, go and visit
rural areas and pay attention or have this discussions
with people living in those areas about the impact
of livestock farming on the ecosystem, you would
realize quite quickly, that it is a very negative
impact. So, yeah, there've been studies about
this that, for example, grazing animals, however,
wisely, that's quote stewardship is the results
in something like a 75 % biodiversity loss. Now
all for to be sure all forms of agriculture are
ecologically damaging one way or the other. I
mean, but the lowest impact is vegan farming
without any animal inputs. As soon as you have
animal inputs in there, in addition to committing
injustices against the animals, you've just created
new inefficiencies that simply weren't there
before and are not required. So one of the things
that was interesting about the Peterson interview
with Saliton is this claim that Well, there have
always been ruminants who have been producing
gases and why aren't all of these animal rights
people and environmentalists concerned about
the wild bison? We hear a lot of noise about...
how cows are contributing to global warming,
which, you know, is an idea that's really struck
me as rather specious right from the beginning.
Because, like, the buffalo did that, too? Like,
I see, so huge herds of grazing animals are bad
for the planet. That strikes me as highly unlikely.
So, and I know they talk about methane, but,
you know, people talk about a lot of things.
Now, it wasn't clear whether they were only talking
about the past or today, but I looked up the
number of... these animals today. There are only
six to nine million feral pigs, for example,
wild pigs in the United States, and I think 20
,000 or 30 ,000 wild bison. So we're talking
about an order of magnitude, more than an order
of magnitude of cows and sheep and pigs and so
forth. I think 130 million pigs are killed every
year in the United States and over 30 million
cows. millions of sheep, and then the billions
of chickens. In addition to their suffering,
we have to look at the enormous ecological impact,
which I read somewhere is something like 400
pounds of carbon emissions per capita in the
United States. Humans eating chickens causes
that. So again, it's like this Orwellian inversion
of the facts. But as I explained in my book,
it's really about bad faith. It's like people
wanting to believe that they can by embracing
regenerative animal agriculture or smaller scale
farming, that's somehow going to solve the ecological
calamities that get produced. And as you say,
if you live near a farm, maybe in your observant,
maybe you notice this. But I'll tell you this,
here in Massachusetts, there are You almost never
see wild animals anymore. It's incredible. They've
just been decimated by a whole variety of things
and people just don't notice. So I think that
most people seeing a denuded landscape or you'd
have to... grown up in nature to really appreciate
what's lost. And I think more and more people
are growing up in completely synthetic and indeed,
digital and virtual worlds where they don't even
notice the losses that are piling up at our feet.
Yes, and you go into that in the beginning of
your book, actually, which, you know, it was
a touching passage of the book. because we all
had that experience at some level. It's environmental
destruction is a trend, and it's kind of exponential.
So yeah, we've all been affected with that. And
let me add to what you said about those wild
herbivores, big herbivores. Those creatures are
part of an ecosystem that, you know, balances
itself. This is not the case for the cows that
we're farming, that we're exploiting. So add
to this, you know, the the layer of how he's
like ignoring the the ecosystem and the environment
and the complexity of that whole question. Yeah,
it's, you know, people talk about humans as being
at the top of the food chain. And that's a very
common way of understanding our place in nature.
And it's completely not true. First of all, if
you or I go into a swamp with an alligator or
a crocodile, we're going to realize pretty quickly
we're not at the top of any food chain. But beyond
that, there's really, there's not that idea of
a food chain. It's this vertical model of a hierarchy,
but actually it's a food web. There are all these
interconnected organisms, plants and animals,
a kind of harmony that developed over the course
of millions and millions of years, a billion
years of evolution. And as you point out, the
animal agriculture system is not part of that.
It's this artificial thing that was just thrust
into the terrestrial sphere, and it's destroying
the web of life. It's consuming the web of life.
It's the most ecologically destructive force
on the earth, which people don't realize. That
really drives me nuts. People think, well, global
warming is the worst environmental disaster.
First of all, that's not true. It's the mass
species extinction crisis, which is even worse,
which is partly caused by global warming. But
animal agriculture and the fishing industry,
put those together, they are the most destructive
force on the earth, along with the capitalist
system for sure, which is intertwined with it.
But getting back to a point you made earlier,
it's like the meat industry, the animal industry
in general is so incredibly powerful that it
papers over and occludes or covers over what
are simply undeniable facts about the disappearance
of species across the earth. depletion of topsoil,
the dumping of nitrogen runoff into the oceans,
which is causing algal blooms and killing fish.
I mean, it just goes on and on. It's a cascade
of catastrophes. And then along comes Joel Saliton,
Michael Pollan, and these other critics and farmers
who tell us, oh, there's a better way to do this.
There's a way that we can have our meat and eat
it too. even have our conscience and keep going
along with the system. And it's just a kind of
elaborate set of lies really and half truths,
a mythology to reassure the consumer that things
aren't as bad as you think and we're moving to
a brighter future. And there isn't any future
for life on this planet given this trajectory.
There just isn't and people don't They won't
realize it until there's no freshwater. All the
freshwater aquifers in the United States are
almost depleted, mostly due to animal agriculture.
Even the American cities are sinking into the
ground because the water has been taken up. Well,
that water took God knows how many thousands,
hundreds of thousands of years to get there,
and it can't just be replenished. But it's like
a dream world that we're all living in and not
Not understanding that we're like, it's like,
you know, use the metaphor of thin ice. We're
skating along without understanding that there's
just nothing beneath us, you know, as we begin
falling. Yeah, that was a weird tension in the
conversation or kind of a contradiction because
here is Jordan Peterson making the point that
we're not in a dire situation, ecological situation,
but that the same time that you know, it was
preferable to do sustainable farming, Allah,
John Saliton. And then you think, which is it?
Are we in an environmental crisis? And is, you
know, the exploitation of animal causing destruction
and havoc all around us? Or is, you know, the
climate crisis a myth and we're not in a dire
situation. But then, you know, what's the point
of doing the kind of farming that John Salton
is defending? Joel Salton, sorry. Yeah, thank
you. No, that's really that's a great point.
It's true. Like they want to have it both ways
that they're trivializing. the environmental
crisis, denying the basic facts of global warming,
and yet at the same time, appealing to a broad
swath of consumers, including a lot of liberal
consumers, I would point out, who think that
they are environmentalist and care about the
earth and vaguely concerned about animal welfare,
whatever, making these arguments at the same
time that say, well, this is better for everybody.
So it's an implicit acknowledgement, as you've
said, of of a problem that needs to be fixed.
And animal agriculture is a problem that needs
to be fixed. It just can't be fixed. That's the
issue. If you're going to have eight to 10 billion
human beings on the earth, and you're going to
try to provide them with literally trillions
of dead animals, including sea life, without
tearing up what I described as the web of life.
without causing enormous suffering to the beings
through this mass violence. It simply can't be
done. I mean, just prima facie. As I say, at
the first glance, it can't be done. And on examination,
it can't be done. Nor should it be done. I mean,
even if there was a way to, as Salvaton claims,
to have forms of animal agriculture where the
animals thrive for a brief period of time, There's
a contradiction involved in saying that you care
about the quality of the lives of the animals,
and then you're going to inflict extreme violence
against them. You're going to kill them. Well,
if their lives are meaningful or worthwhile,
then how can you kill them like that? How can
you kill them when they're juveniles also? They're
young animals. They're not like a chicken in
the wild can live, I think, up to 15 years or
more. not the bioengineered ones that Saladin
uses, but, you know, in their natural habitat.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that
many chickens are killed in like six weeks, but
certainly within months. So yeah, again, I keep
coming back to the word Orwellian because it's
the way that these folks use language and manipulate
the information, the facts to suit their arguments.
It reminds me of totalitarianism, honestly. And
in a way, we live in a totalitarian culture vis
-a -vis other species. It's just taken for granted
that doing these things to other animals is natural
and right. And so everyone goes along with it.
Yeah, I found it so revealing that Soliton kept
making the point that the best skill you could
develop in your life is communication and the
mastery of language. And he said the secret of
his success and the success of his farm, I think
it's called polyface. Polyface. What a funny
name. When you think of the hypocrisy of his
arguments and his words, but Yeah, the secret
of that success was marketing and the relationship
he was developing with his clients. I have moms
come up to me with their little 10 -year -old
in tow. My son wants to be a farmer or daughter
wants to be a farmer. What would you suggest
to them? the amateur theater group, enroll them.
Right, right, right, right. Get them, get them.
So counterintuitive, Dave. Yes, and they look
at me like, yeah, become a storyteller. Storytellers
are what change the world. Yeah, right, that's
exactly right. And so, obviously, 82, this is
before computers, before internet, any of this
stuff, and so we basically did a three -prong
approach. I put together a slide program. you
know, the old Kodak carousel, you know, a slide
projector. And at that time, every city had a
very vibrant kind of, you know, philanthropy,
you know, Rotary Club, Ruritan, Kiwanis, Elks,
Toastmasters, Elks, Moose, right. And they do,
you know, weekly or monthly dinner meetings.
And they're always looking for an interesting
program. And so I put together a carousel program,
how we can heal the planet with pastor -based
livestock. And so, yes, it very much, you know,
echoes the point you're making. Call it marketing.
I'll call it lies. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm
forgetting the name of the fellow who created
the very term public relations, but he had been
originally to help during the first or second
World War. I'm so, so bad with this at the moment.
I can't remember. But what is that difference?
Propaganda is simply mass psychological manipulation.
Well, that's what marketing is. You get people
to think that they want something. You get people
to think they need something, and then they buy
it. So Saliton brags about the fact that he spent
his life committing acts of violence against
animals and then basically manipulating people
into thinking that it's okay and it's just, it's
good for the environment. I mean, it's just ludicrous.
You can't even, I mean, you couldn't scale up
Saliton's farm anyway. I mean, it's a big enough
operation where they're killing hundreds, thousands
of animals every year. But even so, they're just,
first of all, there isn't enough land on the
earth to do the kinds of things he's talking
about. And second of all, the way that capitalism
works as a system, and he's a libertarian, so
he's not critical of the system, right? Is that
as Marx pointed out 200 years ago, It's built
to create monopolies. Because the system is based
on competition, the bigger the company has the
advantage and it gobbles up the smaller company
and so on. And you can look at every sphere of
society and see every industry, whether the military
industrial complex or the media industry or the
meat industry. And you see companies getting
bigger and bigger and bigger over the last, especially
the last 30 years. This notion that we're going
to go back to small -scale animal farming, the
small family farm, it's ridiculous because the
economic pressures are going in the exact opposite
direction. Look at Nyman Ranch. Bill and Nicole
Nyman ran this enterprise of selling so -called
pasture -raised organic animal products. and
they were the toast to the liberal intelligentsia
in the United States, given a lot of real estate
in the op -ed pages of the New York Times. Well,
they sold that, I think, to Coleman beef, and
then that was bought by, eventually, the chicken
operation, maybe the beef operation, too, were
bought by Purdue. Now, Purdue, of course, is
one of the largest killers of chickens in the
world, as well as a huge corporate polluter.
They employ child labor. immigrant child laborers
who would get injured or killed on the assembly
line, this assembly line and slaughterhouses.
So, well, that's not an accident. I mean, you
know, that's simply the free market, right? So
again, like if you accept all of these premises
about natural hierarchy, about God having created
a capitalism really to help us out, I mean, then
there's a certain logic to the arguments. But
if you don't accept these flawed premises, then
the whole thing, the conclusions fall apart.
So I haven't looked into the mind of salt. And
I'm pretty sure he understands that he, you know,
he's a smart guy. I think he knows that his model
cannot be reproduced at scale. And capitalism
is smart in that way, you know, It identified
the demand for animal products and it conceived
a way to Respond to that demand in the most efficient
way and that's how we have factory farming I
think they've already you know questioned themselves
Can we can we adopt a soliton model and the answer
was obviously? No, and the fact that you preach
to people, you know go into rural areas and invest
in homesteading and you can have your backyard
chickens and so on. Well, most people cannot
even afford a house. How do you want them to
be able to afford that lifestyle? And let's not
even talk about the lifestyle. Let's just talk
about the products that he sells. I did not look
into the price tag, but I'm pretty sure those
are not, you know, the cheap products you find
in your local grocery shop. You know, it's interesting.
I had a, I was part of a debate on Earth Day
a couple of years ago at Boston College here
in Massachusetts. And I was debating a farmer
and an academic at Tufts University who has this
large medium -sized animal farm here in Massachusetts
and has this whole glib presentation about regenerative
agriculture and all these buzzwords. And even
she acknowledged that this is not necessary,
that the animal inputs are there because she
likes to eat meat and her consumers, her clients
like to eat meat and it has this exorbitant price
tag. And what she said is, I believe as I recall,
is something that I've heard before, which is
that, well, the fact that only rich people or
whatever upper middle class people can afford
these products and who seek out these products.
Well, the price tag helps us reduce our meat
consumption, you see, because the problem is,
you know, Michael Pollan makes this argument,
you know, we should we should eat less meat,
but higher quality. But of course, it doesn't
reduce demand at all. I mean, all it does is
create a new niche market of a boutique meat
and boutique animal products for wealthy people.
So yeah, it comes with a high price tag. And
so it can't compete with lower priced products
turned out by JBS or Purdue or. any of these
other mega companies. But again, it's not really
meant to. It's simply, it's in parallel, right?
And this, by the way, I'd say this is also a
problem with some vegan, consumer -oriented vegan.
Yeah, there's this kind of naiveté even among
some vegans that the capitalist market will somehow
create vegan alternatives that will convince
people to change their diets and so on. But if
you look at what's been happening over the last
20 years, there are more vegan products than
ever, specialty products, vegan cheeses and meats
and so forth, and yet per capita meat consumption
is up. More animals being killed than before.
And in fact, some of the very companies like
Maple Leaf Foods in Canada, the largest meat
packing company in Canada, they've taken over
the vegan product line of field roast. So we
have to take a system -wide view, a systemic
view of the problem and understand the forces
that are pushing calamitous forms of animal agriculture.
So again, all this is to say that Joel Soliton's
polyphase farm, apart from the problems of the
farm, the violence at the farm, the suffering
of the animals and degradation of the animals
on his farm, apart from Joel Saliton's lies or
his mythologies about what happens, even that
is all to the side and inconsequential next to
monopoly capitalism and the juggernaut of these
immensely powerful billion -dollar companies
that are keeping humans addicted to these products
that are disastrous for animals and for the earth
and for human health. But I think the thing is
that someone like Soliton and also Michael Pollan,
who are criticized in my book, or Temple Grandin,
these figures are enormously important for the
kind of ideological reinforcement that's necessary
to keep people from questioning the system. As
long as in the back of the consumer's mind, they
can think, oh, well, if I had the money or the
time, I'd go and buy humanely raised pasture
-based whatever, cage -free, et cetera. But you
know, I'm in a hurry and I'm gonna take the kids
to McDonald's. So we're just gonna eat there.
So it kind of gets them off because they think
that deep inside, they're a good person who would
choose this other realm. And in fact, it doesn't
matter. I mean, there's been plenty of investigations
as you know of Chipotle and other companies that
have been supposedly sourcing humane, humanely
raised chickens and so on. And it's a scam. I
mean, the animals are putting gas chambers in
some cases on organic farms and the direct action
everywhere and others have looked at the supply
chain. found, you know, animals, terribly abused
and suffering. So the it's just it's interesting
that this one idea that we should just not harm
our other fellow creatures is so radical, just
the idea so radical that it has to be stamped
down as quickly and as aggressively as possible.
Right? Yes. You mentioned how some vegans have
decided to bet on the capitalist market to, you
know, advance the cause. And, you know, this
is just a window into how diverse the vegan movement
is, how there are people like you, John, and
then there are others who, you know, support,
you know, free market. models. There are conservative
vegans, believe it or not, Jordan. There are
plenty of conservative vegans out there. I had
one of them, Liam Gray, who founded the Wilberforce
Institute. You have vegans of all religion. There
are plenty of Christian vegans. I invited Daniel
Mascarenas, who's studying to become a Catholic
priest. Just like we have Hindu vegans and Buddhist
Vegans, you know, I'm one of them here and you
know the fact that they love to Just generalize
and make us into this monolith Is just so frustrating
Yeah, they're missing out and You know coming
back to global warming You mentioned how the
negative impacts of fishing, I should say, most
plastic in the ocean is a byproduct of those
fishing operations. That is a fact that most
people don't know about. They think it's straws,
Starbucks straws. It's not. We also mentioned
farming and how not all farming is livestock
farming, of course, but also Most crops go to
livestock, so most of the non -livestock farming
that we do, the growing of crops, is not for
human consumption, even though there is famine
on earth. We send that to fatten the cows instead
of our fellow human beings. And I guess I don't
want to overlook one particular point that Jordan
Peterson makes, which is that plants love CO2,
and whatever CO2 emitted by humans will be counterbalanced
by kind of a growth spur of plants. Well, one
of the things that's really struck me as incomprehensible
about the carbon debate is, so I know, for example,
that over the last 30 years, something like that,
the planet has greened quite radically, especially
in semi -arid areas. And that seems to be a consequence
of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, some
of which is arguably human -made. But the net
consequence of that, it's so interesting to see,
is immense green. It's something like 20 % of
the Earth's area, which is like, that's a lot.
And the fact that it's in semi -arid areas means
that exactly the desert -like areas that we're
supposed to expand, according to the climate
doomsayers have actually shrunk. And then, and
I've been thinking that through. Again, more
recently, I talked to Patrick Moore, for example,
and he was one of the founders of Greenpeace.
And Moore has produced these, he's not the only
one, but he's produced these graphs of carbon
dioxide levels across like 500 million years
instead of 250. And we're definitely at a carbon
dioxide low. And so if we tap it up even a little
bit, it makes a big difference. But that's all
to say that plants like carbon dioxide a lot.
And then when there's more of it, They grow and
sequester it. You know, this was the most replayed
part of his video and podcast episode. I guess
people felt compelled by that argument. What
do you make of it, John? Again, you know, the
problem with these kinds of arguments and these
kinds of platforms and podcasters is that they
it's just it's spreading lies by algorithm. at
the speed of light. I mean, there's a lot of
literature on this by media studies people and
sociologists and political scientists and others
looking at the way these lies are just inundating
people's media environments. So it's certainly
true. I mean, there's some evidence that the
more CO2 develops that that of course encourages
plants who thrive in a CO2 rich environment,
but there's a study in Nature in 2021 that looked
into this. And so that's true, but it's also
the case. And during the same period that they
studied, like a 20 year period, I think, carbon
emissions increased and the amount of carbon
in the environment increased. So it's true that
plants do sequester some carbon, but remember
that animal agriculture is the greatest destroyer
of of habitat and biodiversity on the earth.
The rainforest in the Amazon is being burned
down in order to graze cattle for JBS suppliers.
So when people eat a hamburger in North America
or Europe, it's possible it came from the Amazon
and that's destroying the basis of life for mammals
and reptiles and also in birds and so on. So
the fact that plants absorb carbon dioxide and
that they're absorbing more doesn't offset the
overall problem, which is that the gases are
building up in the atmosphere. Methane is something
like 1 ,000 times more potent. I can't remember.
I don't want to get misquoted. I'll just say
it's many times more potent. a greenhouse gas
than carbon dioxide, but it doesn't stay in the
atmosphere for, you know, as long, not nearly
as long. You know, carbon dioxide can be up there
for centuries. So, again, it's Orwellian. I mean,
my friend Troy Vitezi, the environmental historian,
he and Drew Pendergrass have looked at the, done
the math on this, and Troy had an article called
to freeze the Thames River. which I highly recommend,
and he pointed out that animal agriculture has
basically deforested the earth. And if we got
rid of animal agriculture and we got rid of the
monocrops that are being fed to the animals so
that we can then eat the animals, right, we could
reforest the earth and sequester, you know, I
think he said 215 gigatons of carbon that way.
So it would be a natural way to geoengineer our
way at least partly out of the global warming
crisis. So, but you can't get there by turning
over more land to pasture. I mean, the reason
that we have quote factory farms and feed lots
and so forth is simply for capitalist efficiencies.
And ironically, animals raised on feed lots produce
fewer carbon emissions than ones who are grazed
on land. So there's not enough land for the pasture
stuff. It takes enormous amounts of water and
resources, other resources. So it's ridiculous
to think that the plants, by absorbing more carbon,
are going to get us out of this crisis. It's
simply not true. you have eyes. Again, look around
you, look at your neighborhood. The few green
spaces that existed have most likely been built
into condos or some kind of commercial building.
We've seen that in Canada. I've had that conversation
with Liz White, the leader of the Animal Protection
Party of Canada, on how we're losing all of our
wetlands across Canada because we are in this,
you know, home crisis. So we need to build more
apartments and so on. And yet, I mean, if there
are no plants, then how are we going to sequester
all of that CO2? If it's asphalt everywhere,
then you know, how are we going to go about this?
Well, yeah, if I may, I just want to say that
the nature of capitalism is to turn all of nature
into a commodity. You know, the caps production
is organized not around meeting human need, let
alone non human need, right, but about producing
profit for private companies and individuals.
That's simply a fact. That's not, you know, shouldn't
seem controversial to anyone. So the only reason
that meat is produced or milk is exploited, taken
from cows, is to produce profit for the companies
that own them. That's the only reason. And the
longer this continues, the more ecologically
devastating it is. And the people are so wedded
to these kinds of myths about natural human domination,
the inferiority of other species, you know, we
treat them as kind of between slaves and things.
They're not quite things. We recognize they have
something that's not like a thing, but we see
them as, quote, subhuman. And so we've organized
the whole global economy around that. But all
that is to say, sorry, I got off my own track
here that If you are going to be a free market
advocate, then you have to understand that that
comes with total ecological ruin of the planet.
I mean, that's what's happening. All the animals
on the earth are dying, reptiles, amphibians,
birds, mammals, insects, all the conscious life
in the oceans being removed, killed. killed off
and that's because of the profit motive and not
just the profit motive but the very dynamics
of the capitalist system which require through
competition of a racist cannibalization of the
earth's resources. So the idea of sustainable
capitalism that is an oxymoron. It's just, we
have the facts. People talk about regulating
capitalism. What are they talking about? We've
had 500 years of efforts to regulate capitalism,
actually, in one way or another, and it hasn't
worked, can't work. So, but it's so bizarre.
I mean, people will go down with this ship. They
really will, clinging to some, like Peterson,
great example, clinging to some reactionary conception
of masculinity. He'll go down with that ship,
you know, you can show him that it's, it's bad
in a million ways, but no, and I got to have
my meat and that's part of my masculinity. And,
you know, so the earth dies, it's the earth is
being swept with droughts and floods and fires
and category five storms and typhoons. And, you
know, but the propaganda system is so intense
and intensive and growing that people can't see
outside it. I find it really frightening. And
here in the US, of course, we find the growth
of this fascist populist right -wing authoritarian
movement that is part and parcel of domination
of all vulnerable groups, from non -human animals
to immigrants to trans people to women. And it's
all of a whole cloth. All of these threads come
together in one web of domination. And the space
for dissent like this conversation, the space
for dissent at the university is shrinking, it's
narrowing constantly. So yeah, I mean, Jordan
Peterson found fame because of his defense of
free speech. Now, animal rights activists are
persecuted in Canada. We have ag -gag laws passing
at a provincial and federal level to just, you
know, shut us up forever. And you know, I did
not see him bravely taking the defense of animal
rights activists, talking about how this is such
a blatant violation of free speech and of democratic
values in Canada. Yet it is and there's nothing
equating that I mean if you apply the same standards
to let's say investigative journalists the world
would be in in fire fire of outrage and It's
not you know, because we're talking about vegans
vegans who want to share images of what's happening
inside slaughterhouses and they can't they can't
and they risk like heavy prison sentences because
of that and Yeah, here he is talking about pronouns
and how there are laws, you know compelling Canadians
to use pronouns. Well What about that other part?
What about that other infringement on free speech?
Are we not going to address it? But I after watching
that conversation I I really felt like Well,
first of all, Joel Saliton makes the point that
his one goal as a businessman is to please his
clientele. No sale is an end to itself. Every
sale is a springboard for the next sale. Right,
of course. You cannot stay in business finding
new customers. The only way you stay in business
is to please the customers you have. enough that
they buzz and tell people about it and bring
them back to you. And that's a long -term relationship.
That's akin to a friendship relationship. You
don't want to play with someone once. Which is
why you don't want to irritate somebody at your
lectures or your presentations. Yeah, because
they're already in the camp. They're the last
people you want to irritate. Exactly, exactly.
They've done all the work coming to you. You
need to do backflips to make them happy. And
so how can you trust someone who has been captured
by, you know, monetary interests like that. That's
my first point. He's not an independent voice.
And then I want to know if this was an advertisement
for polyphase form. I think it's most likely
the case that he had a deal with Daily Wire or
the Jordan Peterson podcast to appear and promote
his farm through a conversation. I feel strongly
that it might be the case. You know, I don't
know enough about Peterson. I know as much as
I want to know. But I didn't realize that he'd
gotten his start supposedly defending free speech.
But it is interesting the way that that discourse
is being used by the far right, Charlie Kirk
being another example. And basically under the
banner of free speech, what they're doing is
what Kirk was doing and what Peterson is still
doing is making room for hate speech. So when
Elon Musk talks about free speech, that's what
it means. Because originally the idea of free
speech was actually to create a space for dissent
against absolutist monarchs or repressive states.
But now, what when people hear the word or say
the word, the term free speech, what they really
mean is, we want to be able to use speech as
a weapon as part of a project of denying civil
and human rights to, you know, vulnerable groups
of people. That's what they mean by free speech.
It's not about freeing speech, it's about freeing
hate, misogyny, racism, And there are certain
forms of speech that we should not engage in.
I'm not talking about state laws, necessarily.
That's a different issue, whether the state had
interest in censoring or monitoring speech. I'm
saying that I should not engage in speech that's
hurtful to others, whether it's my kid or some
group. But that falls out. I just wanted to stay
of the picture completely. Yeah, so I guess the
question is, what do we do about all of this?
And now I'm going to turn the tables on my interviewer
and ask, what's the solution to this? I don't
have the solution to this. I'm a simple podcaster,
but, you know, I think having this conversation
already, you know, and discussing this publicly
for the sake of free speech, you know, and I
I invite Jordan Peterson or his people to invite
you or invite Liam Gray if you want someone who's
more conservative but shares our ideal of a vegan
world on your podcast. Expose yourself to different
opposing views. What's the harm in that? And
so I challenge him to do that. I want to end
this conversation with an important point. You
mentioned how, you know, there is animals are
treated often as slaves and perceived as such,
you know, as objects by those people, those farmers.
Now, Jordan and Joel Saliton agreed in that conversation,
that animals are smart and are sensitive. A few
examples, Joel mentions how rotating electric
fences, so he uses that to replace herding. How
cows are shocked by those electric fences and
hate that and learn from that experience that
they should not approach the fences. Okay, so
now the problem comes down to essentially how
do you move the cattle, right? That's okay. Yeah,
so so we move the so We move the cows every day
around four o 'clock We like the afternoon move
best for a number of reasons, but it's electric
fence one strand of electric fence cows are very
smart They they don't want to get shocked and
so we just go out and and open open a cross fence
So imagine a ladder with rungs And so our permanent
wires, our permanent fence, is the stringers
on the outside. Our portables are the rungs on
the inside. And we can expand and contract those
based on how big the herd is, how much grass
there is. Then later Joel and Jordan agree that
animals learn quickly and love keeping a routine.
And then they make the point that it's just like
any other human being out there. The beauty is
that in no time, the cows respond to you coming.
I mean, think about your dog or your cat. When
you bang the dish, they come running. They know
what that is. Well, the cows, when we go out
to move them, roughly, you know, we try to do
it as close to four as possible. You know, if
you got called every day at four o 'clock for
a bowl of ice cream, about 3 .45, you know, your
tail would wag and your ears would wiggle too.
And so the cows are ready, and we go out, and
we just call them, come on, cows! And they just
come running through. We close behind them. Why
do they? Because they know the food will be better?
Because, yes, because they've got a new salad
bar. OK, so they've learned that. They've got
a new salad bar. They've learned that. It doesn't
take them long to learn that. They learn that
very, very quickly. And so you don't have to
herd them. Another advantage to doing it the
same time every day because you establish a habit
with the cows. Animals love routine. Animals
love routine. So do people as it turns out. Yes.
Even though they think they don't. Yeah. Oh no,
we are creatures of routines. And then again,
Jordan discusses the experiments of BF Skinner.
Now they're talking about marketing and how their
marketing meets to people. And he explains how
those experiments that Skinner did on animals,
the same conclusions apply with humans. There's
a famous psychologist, B .F. Skinner, and B .F.
Skinner was the father of reinforcement learning
theory, and that's a big deal. These large language
models, these new AI systems, they're trained
with reinforcement theory. So like this was a
major deal, and B .F. Skinner was a master of
this, and he could... He, in World War II, he
trained pigeons to guide missiles by pecking
on photographs as they were flying across the
sky, right? So Skinner could train animals to
do anything. Now, he noted that you could use
threat and punishment to shape an animal's behavior,
but the best thing to use was targeted reward.
And so what he would do is his animals were hungry,
because they had to be motivated to work for
food pellets. And so he'd have a hungry animal,
Maybe you're trying, so imagine there's a rat
in a cage and there's a little ladder and you
want the rat to go up on the ladder and then
walk across and go down the other side. It's
pretty complicated behavior. So here's how Skinner
would do it. He would just watch that rat and
as soon as it got near, as soon as it made a
move near the ladder, he'd give it a food pellet.
Then it would start hanging around the ladder.
And when it was hanging around close to the bottom
of the ladder, now and then it would put a paw
up. and he'd give it a food pellet. And then
now the rat was doing this quite a bit, and then
now and then it would do this, food pellet. But
the key issue was that he was observing, and
then when he got an increment of behavior in
the direction he wanted, he signified that. Well,
that's what you're doing with your customers,
is you're paying very careful attention, and
then one of your customers does something that
you'd really like them to do more of. You notice
yeah, you tell them you reward them for it and
then now this and so Why is there such disconnect?
How can they accept that animals are sentient
and intelligent? But then they will eat them
exploit them kill them. Well, thank you Yeah,
I think first of all, you know I begin with the
last thing you mentioned which is the reference
to BF Skinner is quite telling because BF Skinner
I mean, that's almost a sense that Joel Salatin
and Jordan Peterson are ignorant men, ignorant
people who have no real understanding of the
science of cognitive ethology or what we now
know about animal cognition and complexity of
feeling. So they make these gestures towards
acknowledging a continuity between humans and
non -human beings. But it's superficial, because
if they were to really sit with that, and if
they were to understand the research, then they
would know, going back to Darwin in Descent of
Man in 1871, that we are fundamentally like the
other beings. So their psychologies are much
more complex than they understand. They just
understand it in terms of being clever, smart.
And then as you say, there's this really sinister
thing going on where they acknowledge that these
are beings with consciousness of some kind, and
yet they're using torture devices against them.
They're committing acts of extreme violence and
aggression against them. They see them as worthless.
and don't let anyone who participates in the
meat economy tell you otherwise because if you're
going to advocate the killing of trillions and
trillions of animals forever not even just like
anything about soliton is apart from the thousands
of animals he personally kills he's advocating
a system that will supposedly be in pit place
i suppose to the second coming since he's a born
-again christian evangelical you know he's he
wants us to be doing engaging in these practices
of violence for time and memorials. So trillions,
what, quadrillions of animals are to die for
what? For profit, for his own sense of himself
as a white man with a commitment to reactionary
and anachronistic ideals of natural hierarchy.
That's really what it's about. And so underlying
this whole thing that these two guys massaging
each other's egos, you have a fundamental contempt
for other life forms. You can't love what you
seek to destroy. And what I argue in my book
and what you believe and other people believe
who've looked at this issue is that other animals
are worthy of our love. Now that may sound like
sentimental or something, but You know the people
in this country millions of whom have cats and
dogs Those folks who aren't vegetarians or vegans
the vast majority of cats and dogs dog people,
right? They understand that their cat or dog
is a being worthy of life worthy of their experiences
and interests and needs and that we they They're
very being calls upon us for empathy compassion
and help like like in building a life together
That insight is completely absent from the kinds
of ridiculous conversations we just saw between
Peterson and Soliton. They're intellectually
dishonest and they're immoral. They are literally
advocating mass violence against completely defenseless,
lovely beings who do not deserve it. They're
not worthless beings. That completely drops out.
of the conversation, and that's what we need
to keep going to the public about. It's not about
sustainability. Even if it was the case that
you could say that regenerative animal agriculture
was not ecologically damaging, so what? It's
still not right. It's still fundamentally evil,
and especially in the face of nonviolent alternatives
like vegan farming. And go to the vegan agriculture
network. People can go to there and see the resources
that vegan farmers are sharing with one another.
It's perfectly possible to have farming without
pesticides, without artificial fertilizers, without
animal inputs of any kind. And if you doubt it,
go into your backyard garden and look what you're
doing. You can actually grow things in the ground.
Without any of these things without synthetic
fertilizer and without animal inputs, you know
Yeah, I said one last point but can I just ask
it one more question? Sure. I don't want to you
know, take too much of your time. I know we scheduled
for one hour You mentioned Purdue I think when
Purdue looks at Salatin they think Hey, he doesn't
know it but he's actually one of our best advertisers
because he will give an appetite to people for
animal products and then we will be the one responding
to that demand because again it's not scalable
his business model and also we can do our own
marketing. and use the same arguments that he's
using and tell people our lies about how humane
are treated, you know, our chickens and so on.
So do you agree with that? Absolutely, absolutely.
This whole, you know, my book is partly about
this new discourse of omnivorism, the enlightened
omnivore, or the locovore, the carnal locovore.
all of that stuff, which poses itself as a so
-called alternative to the main animal economy.
It's an appendage of the animal economy. And
what it does is, exactly as you say it, wets
the appetite of consumers. It makes them feel
good about eating animals and animal products.
It papers over the fundamental violence and inequality
and suffering at the basis of it. It strengthens,
therefore strengthens the chain of the larger
animal economy by legitimating the system by
saying in every advertisement, the implied argument
is animal agriculture has been done in ways that
aren't great. So we're going to make it great
again, make agriculture great again. There's
your MAGA moment. And it was never great. So
that's such an important insight, what you just
said, and it's completely, completely true. And
there have actually been studies that have shown
that people who seek out or consume, quote, high
welfare meat are less likely than other consumers
to become vegetarian or vegan. It makes sense.
You know you care maybe you care enough about
the environment you care enough about quote animal
welfare That you are willing to pay a few dollars
more for the product But what you don't want
to do is to question the system You don't want
to question your complicity in an injustice and
this gets you off the hook again I think that
the true significance even though this is you
know hundred there were hundreds of millions
of dollars Bound up with you know, the whole
foods organic meat market and so forth. That's
like a piddling amount with the real strategic
function of all this is to stabilize the wider
global meat economy, whether people know it or
not, the ones like Temple Grandin. Grandin is
a great example because she's the ligature that
brings together the smaller farming and organic
farming operations with the big factory farming
operations. She consults to everybody. She doesn't
care, really. She certainly doesn't care about
the animals. But as long as people like Temple
Grand and Michael Pollan and Joel Soliton exist,
people will think that everything is more or
less okay, or we're on the right track. But there
is no good track for exploiting and killing other
beings. Simply simply isn't. So yeah, Jordan
Peterson, you said that eating plants shrinks
your brain. I think John's is the proof that
it's not true. And also, Einstein was vegetarian.
Da Vinci was vegetarian. I mean, you could go
on and on about how many smart geniuses were
eating plants and not eating meat. I don't know
where this is coming from, the brain shrinking
thing. I get that sometime in the comments of
social media. Honestly, yeah again, it's just
an outright lie. It's a bald -faced lie and I've
been a vegan for 40 years and that and certainly
I Don't know. Maybe my brain is smaller than
I know and my mind is Stupider than it thinks
I'm willing to grant that but as you say Leonardo
da Vinci great example, right is considered one
of the you know I don't know, top two or three
brightest humans that ever lived. And yes, as
you point out, he was an ethical vegetarian.
And there are, and similarly in terms of the
health stuff, as you know, there are all these
high performance athletes like Venus Williams
or Honal the free solo rock climber and just
all these high performance athletes, some of
the best in the world, Djokovic, the best male
tennis player perhaps in history, whether we
like him or not. who have tremendous athleticism.
Science is all on our side about nutrition, as
you know. I mean, that vegans have lower rates
of heart disease, stroke, cardiovascular diseases
in general, type 2 diabetes. And in fact, as
an article, I think in JAMA, Journal of the American
Medical Association just a few years ago, recently
that vegans live longer than so -called omnivores.
Now, you know, as an ethicist, I would argue
that even if it was the reverse, even if there
were slightly better health outcomes from eating
animal products, no, it doesn't justify mass
violence against trillions of beings, you know,
just so I can get my omega threes or whatever.
It's just absurd. But luckily, as I say, the
science is actually in the other direction that
people who eat a balanced vegan diet Do better
in all of these all these things. So Yeah, topsy
-turvy world. That's the bottom line here folks
is that we live in an Orwellian world and it's
it's up to us to break through it and and try
to bring people to to their senses Yes, I'm nicely
push and to go back to your question. What do
we do? Well, I've been thinking, you know I believe
there is I believe more and more there's a division
in society of people who believe the end justifies
the means and those who have moral principles.
And I'm not in the camp of those who believe
that the end justified the means. I'm really
not. Um, and so whatever you decide to do, do
it in a ethical way. If you want to protest,
protest peacefully. If you want to, you know,
oppose their views, do it with intelligence and
thoughtfulness and in line with your principles.
Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. I, when
I see these things or hear about these things
like the Jordan Peterson thing, I get so upset.
I can't even deal with it. So it's good. Do you
do something productive with that, you know?
But I was gonna say that if you decided you wanted
to do another episode on this thing, I would
ask Vasily Stanescu onto the show because he's
the world authority, vegan authority on regenerative
animal agriculture and piercing these myths.
And he's got the facts at his fingertips. Of
course, I would love to have Vasily since having
watched that. famous infamous debate about cultivated
meat, you know, I've been exposed to him. So
I absolutely do not do not know him. No, no,
I don't know him. I'm happy to make introductions
if that would be helpful. Thank you so much,
John. Thank you. Well, best of luck. And we will
we will meet again. But in the meantime, thank
you so much again. And just hope we can make
a little progress here and there, I guess. Of
course, let's be optimistic and positive. I'll
let you hold the hope in this relationship. I
have enough to share. Good, good. Thank you everyone
for listening. I kindly invite you to share this
podcast with the vegans you know. Let's encourage
more people to take action. Again, thank you
so much for caring and I will see you next Tuesday
for a new episode.