Animal welfare
Animal welfare
Reducing suffering experienced by farmed animals and wild animals

Quick takes

102
4mo
3
The Belgian senate votes to add animal welfare to the constitution. It's been a journey. I work for GAIA, a Belgian animal advocacy group that for years has tried to get animal welfare added to the constitution. Today we were present as a supermajority of the senate came out in favor of our proposed constitutional amendment. The relevant section reads: It's a very good day for Belgian animals but I do want to note that: 1. This does not mean an effective shutdown of the meat industry, merely that all future pro-animal welfare laws and lawsuits will have an easier time.  And, 2. It still needs to pass the Chamber of Representatives. If there's interest I will make a full post about it if once it passes the Chamber. EDIT: Translated the linked article on our site into English.
30
2mo
2
I made a vegan vitamin supplement spreadsheet! It has vitamin ranges for many multivitamins available on amazon along with price/day estimations informed by this Vegan Vitamin Primer.  Inspired by reading this VOX article on Nutrition (and knowing that I should be taking vegan vitamin supplements for a while now): Just fyi, but the vitamin values in this spreadsheet ARE NOT informed by my own independent deep dive into all the potential vitamins I should be getting or the research behind it. I'm mostly relying on the expertise of this VOX promoted Ginny Kisch Messina, a vegan Registered Dietician with a Masters of Public Health. 
4
5d
1
Open Phil claims that campaigns to make more Americans go vegan and vegetarian haven't been very successful. But does this analysis account for immigration? If people who already live in the US are shifting their diets, but new immigrants skew omnivore, a simple analysis could easily miss the former shift because immigration is fairly large in the US. Source of Open Phil claim at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/research/how-can-we-reduce-demand-for-meat/ :
52
7mo
2
I've just written a blog post to summarise EA-relevant UK political news from the last ~six weeks. The post is here: AI summit, semiconductor trade policy, and a green light for alternative proteins (substack.com) I'm planning to circulate this around some EAs, but also some people working in the Civil Service, political consulting and journalism. Many might already be familiar with the stories. But I think this might be useful if I can (a) provide insightful UK political context for EAs, or (b) provide an EA perspective to curious adjacents. I'll probably continue this if I think either (a) or (b) is paying off. (I work at Rethink Priorities, but this is entirely in my personal capacity).
40
5mo
4
Longtermist shower thought: what if we had a campaign to install Far-UVC in poultry farms? Seems like it could: 1. Reduce a bunch of diseases in the birds, which is good for: a. the birds’ welfare; b. the workers’ welfare; c. Therefore maybe the farmers’ bottom line?; d. Preventing/suppressing human pandemics (eg avian flu) 2. Would hopefully drive down the cost curve of Far-UVC 3. May also generate safety data in chickens, which could be helpful for derisking it for humans Insofar as one of the main obstacles is humans' concerns for health effects, this would at least only raise these for a small group of workers.
37
5mo
9
I was quite suprised to see that 80k doesn't mention animals in their definition of 'impartial positive impact'.  Their definition: "We define ‘impartial positive impact’ as what helps the most people live better lives in the long term, treating everyone’s interests as equal." I'm a bit unsettled by this. I hope they actually do assign value for non-human animals. But even if that's the case, failing to mention it would be weird. In general, I'm concerned that longtermists don't value animals enough. From my experience visiting rationalist/longermist events & spaces, veganism/vegetarianism is less popular than I would have thought. I consider vegetarianism one of the least costly virtue signals, which is why I would expect most healthy people concerned about animal welfare to be vegetarians.
15
2mo
New Netflix show ~doubles search traffic for plant-based eating h/t Lewis Bollard.
27
6mo
2
It seems prima facie plausible to me that interventions that save human lives do not increase utility on net, due to the animal suffering caused by saving human life. Has anyone in the broader EA community looked into this? I'm not strongly committed to this, but I'd be interested in seeing what people have reasoned about this.
Load more (8/39)