We are hosting a series of free online talks from a variety of renowned speakers. These events will be streaming live on Facebook and YouTube, where you can engage with the speakers by asking questions. If you can’t make the live event, the talks will be available for viewing on both platforms shortly afterwards.
Upcoming talks
Future speakers are being arranged.
Completed talks
In conversation with Earthsave Canada President Dr. David Steele
How things have changed and what the future might hold
David has a Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology from Emory University. Retired from the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, he has also held faculty appointments at Cornell and Queen’s universities.
David has been active with Earthsave Canada for 20 years. He has seen changes in the organization, in governments and in public opinion on how animal agriculture impacts our planet, our health, and the animals exploited. We hope you will join us for a conversion about change; past, current and future.
Big brains in tiny spaces: The effects of captivity on complex mammals
Lori Marino, PhD
Lori Marino is a neuroscientist and adjunct professor of Animal Studies at New York University. She is the founder and President of the Whale Sanctuary Project and Executive Director of The Kimmela Center for Scholarship-based Animal Advocacy. Lori’s scientific work focuses on the evolution of the brain and intelligence in dolphins and whales (as well as primates and farmed animals), and on the effects of captivity on wild animals. She has published over 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers, book chapters, and magazine articles in these areas. Lori also works at the intersection of science and animal law and policy and is the co-director (with Professor Kathy Hessler) of the Animal Law and Science Project at George Washington University as well as an adjunct faculty member at Vermont Law School.
Plant-based diets in the prevention and treatment of chronic disease
Brenda Davis, RD
According to the World Health Organization, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are responsible for 74% of deaths globally. Yet, an estimated 90% of type 2 diabetes, 80% of heart disease, and 30-70% of cancers are considered entirely preventable. The lowest rates of NCDs are in populations who have healthy lifestyles and eat plant-based diets. In this presentation, Brenda Davis, RD reviews the evidence supporting the use of plant-based diets in the prevention and treatment of NCDs. She shares her experiences using plant-based diets in a clinical type 2 diabetes trial in the Marshall Islands and a lifestyle medicine demonstration project in Lithuania. Brenda will discuss the reasons why plant-based diets afford protection and provide practical guidelines for designing plant-based diets that are effective in both the prevention and treatment of NCDs.
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Brenda Davis, registered dietitian, is a plant-based trailblazer and an internationally acclaimed speaker. Brenda has been a featured speaker at medical, nutrition, and dietetic conferences in 25 countries on 6 continents. As a prolific nutrition writer, Brenda has authored/co-authored 13 books with nearly a million copies in print in 12 languages. Her latest book, Plant-Powered Protein, was released in 2023. Brenda has also authored and co-authored numerous professional and lay articles and is a past chair of the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She was the lead dietitian in a diabetes intervention research project in the Marshall Islands. Brenda was the 7th recipient of the Plantrician Project’s Luminary Award in 2022 and was inducted into the Vegetarian Hall of Fame in 2007. She lives in Calgary Alberta Canada with her husband and has 2 grown children and 3 grandchildren.
Plant-based diets and health
Tushar Mehta, MD
There is a plethora of research supporting a plant based diet for long term health. We will review some of the scientific literature that provides evidence for reduced rates of many important chronic diseases by well planned plant based diets. Important practicalities and nuances will be covered, while addressing common myths and misinformation regarding plant vs animal foods and health. Dr. Mehta will also touch on the pandemic risks from animal agriculture, which is a critical future threat that all should be aware of.
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Dr. Tushar Mehta completed medical school and residency at the University of Toronto. Currently, he practices Emergency Medicine and participates in international health projects. Formerly an annual volunteer in rural India, he is now doing work in Haiti (hephaiti.com). He has also works with small NGOs and is medical advisor for Project CANOE in Toronto.
Along with a small team, Dr. Mehta co-founded Plant Based Data, an online database which collects and organizes academic literature regarding the impact of plant and animal agriculture on health, environment, food security, and pandemics.
Dr. Mehta is interested in an evidence and data based approach to ecological issues, embedded in humanitarianism.
Dr. Mehta receives no funding for his work, and Plant Based Data receives no direct or indirect funding from food industry sources, or have any other financial conflicts of interest
Would you rather be born a beef calf or a dairy calf?
Roi Mandel Briefer, PhD
Milk production is widely considered less harmful to animals than raising them solely for their meat. However, there are objective reasons to challenge this belief. I will first present four key facts about dairy production that highlight the role of the dairy industry in producing meat. Second, based on data collected from 70 world-leading bovine welfare experts, I will show that animals born in common dairy herds, regardless of whether they are used to produce milk, red-meat or veal, are likely to experience worse welfare conditions compared to animals born in common beef herds. Thus, I will argue that contrary to a common shared belief, milk consumption seems to compromise the welfare of bovines to a greater extent than raising them solely for their meat. The toll of milk production on animals, alongside the pressing environmental need to reduce the global consumption of animal-based products, may require a thorough revision of our current societal, political and moral decisions.
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Roi Mandel Briefer is a cognitive psychologist with a PhD in Animal Welfare. Roi works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Copenhagen. His research involves the behavior and welfare of farm animals (mostly cattle), and more recently the behaviour of humans and free-roaming cattle in nature parks. Roi is currently exploring tools from the field of Human Behaviour Change/Modification to improve dog and owner welfare.
The Canadian University Initiative: Transitioning universities towards plant-based meals
Eleanor Carrara
Universities are our highest centers of learning. They have an inherent responsibility to adhere to the science and educate their students on the planetary benefits of a plant-based food system. The Canadian University Initiative was launched in the fall of 2020 to encourage university leaders, their food service professionals and their students to transition towards plant-based meals with a target of 60% plant-based meals by the end of 2022. Eleanor Carrara will discuss the progress made by several major universities across Canada over the past 2 years as well as what is coming up in 2023.
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Eleanor Carrara has been a committed lifelong environmental and animal rights activist with a focus on transitioning institutions to a plant-based food system. Eleanor launched the Canadian University Initiative in 2020, working with the senior leadership to promote the plant-based transition. Eleanor is the co-founder of the Plant-Based Cities Movement, Outreach and Policy Lead with Canadians for Responsible Food Policy and a member of the Coalition for a Sustainable Food Transition. Eleanor’s professional bio can be found at www.linkedin.com/in/eleanorcarrara
The ecological impacts and solutions with food systems
Nicholas Carter, MSc
There is a major gap between the public perception of what actions reduce environmental impacts versus the scientific reality. This presentation explores the scientific literature with visually informative diagrams and data and dives into the debate between animal sourced vs. plant-based foods. Topics covered include land and ocean protection, big picture land use and other environmental metric comparisons, eating local and organic, regenerative agriculture, how to spot greenwashing, and what are the real solutions? Having helped compile what’s likely the largest open access library of peer-reviewed studies as it relates to the urgency to shift to plant-based diets (plantbaseddata.org), Nicholas Carter provides the highlights here and explores ways to address this complex issue.
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Nicholas Carter, MSc, is an ecologist and co-founder of PlantBasedData.org, a library of peer-reviewed articles on the environmental, health, economic, and zoonotic disease evidence to shift to plant-based diets. His research focused on the global greenhouse gas emissions that are attributed to animal agriculture. He recently prepared a scientific report on the impacts of agriculture in Canada that included carbon modeling with Navius Research (featured in the National Observer). He also helped launch and leads a climate data hub that’s part of the largest network of climate data centres with the Canadian Centre for Climate Services. He is regularly invited as a panelist (such as at Center for Biological Diversity), as a scientific reviewer (best selling book “The Proof is in the Plants”), as a consultant for documentaries such as Milked and Meat the Future, or is interviewed or written for numerous media outlets (The New Republic, Plant Based News, Plant Proof, Sentient Media, etc.). As an environmental and climate analyst, Nicholas brings in expertise in environmental and economical impacts of agriculture, climate, zoonotic diseases, and regenerative plant-based farming systems.
The beauty and sentience of chickens and turkeys
Karen Davis, PhD
The poultry industry does not want the public to empathize with birds raised for food. To that end, industry propagates a false image of chickens and turkeys as radically inferior to their wild counterparts and to “pets.” I will show who chickens and turkeys bred for the poultry and egg industry really are, based on my personal experience with these birds for 37 years going back to when I met a little hen named Viva who changed my life.
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Karen Davis, PhD is the President and Founder of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl including a sanctuary for chickens in Virginia. Inducted into the National Animal Rights Hall of Fame for Outstanding Contributions to Animal Liberation, Karen is the author of numerous books, essays, articles and campaigns. Her books include A Home for Henny; Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless ‘Poultry’ Potpourri; Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry; More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality; and The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities. Karen’s latest book is For the Birds: From Exploitation to Liberation – Essays on Chickens, Turkeys, and Other Domesticated Fowl. Karen hosts a biweekly podcast series titled: “Thinking Like a Chicken: News & Views.”
Lab-grown mooseburgers? An L’nuwey view on food technology
Margaret Robinson, PhD
This talk will examine how technological developments in food production, such as the creation of in vitro meat, can be perceived from a Mi’kmaw or L’nuwey worldview. Drawing on cultural understanding of animals as relatives to human beings, evident in traditional Mi’kmaw stories, Dr. Robinson will describe how cultural duties and protocols of respect and gratitude to moose might change with the introduction of lab-produced meat products. Mi’kmaq relationship to the moose and changes in this relation over time will be highlighted in relation to our growing knowledge of epigenetics.
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Margaret Robinson is a Mi’kmaw scholar and a member of the Lennox Island First Nation. She is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of English, Sociology and Social Anthropology at Dalhousie University, where she is also the Coordinator of Indigenous Studies. Dr. Robinson is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Reconciliation, Gender and Identity.
Margaret Robinson is a Mi’kmaw scholar and a member of the Lennox Island First Nation. She is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of English, Sociology and Social Anthropology at Dalhousie University, where she is also the Coordinator of Indigenous Studies. Dr. Robinson is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Reconciliation, Gender and Identity.
The plant-based cities movement
Mo Markham & Eleanor Carrara
The Plant-based Cities Movement (PBCM) is a Canadian initiative working to ensure that municipalities are at the forefront of the fight to prevent further climate breakdown. Many are already working toward decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and the PBCM is cajoling many more to get onside.
The time has come to transition to a sustainable plant-based food system.
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Mo Markham is an organizer with the Plant-Based Cities Movement in Canada, Waterloo Region Climate Initiatives, the Eating Animals Causes Pandemics campaign, and the OneHealth Advocacy Project. She has helped create climate strikes; organizes her local vegfest; has had articles and letters to the editor published on a variety of issues; has taken part in animal rights and social justice actions and campaigns in Ontario, in Canada, and across the world. A writer and retired social worker, she has also been active in the women’s and LGBTQ communities. She went vegan 7 or 8 years ago after seeing the effects of climate change in Western Canada’s beautiful British Columbia.
Eleanor Carrara has been a committed lifelong animal rights and environmental activist with a focus on transitioning institutions to a plant-based food system. Eleanor is the Outreach and Policy Lead with Nation Rising, an organizer with the Plant-Based Cities Movement (Montreal area), and a member of the Coalition for a Sustainable Food Transition. Eleanor also heads the Canadian university campaign working with the senior leadership to promote the plant-based transition Universities and Plant-Based Meals.
Veganism and evolution
Gregory Tague
Veganism in some forms can be traced back to Biblical times (e.g., the book of Daniel in the Old Testament) and is alive in, for instance, an ancient Indian religion like Jainism. Vegans avoid harming or eating animals or exploiting animals for their skin, fur, or bodies. Other than for religious reasons, vegans are motivated by diet or health, ethical concerns, psychosocial responses to celebrities or fads, or identity politics in the form of activism.
Most corporations and many people see no profit in ethics, so the weight in this argument for ethical veganism falls on establishing the resilience and sustainability of human and environmental health. Issues include uneven food consumption, collective implications of animal farming, and personal gain over community ecology. Corporations and entrepreneurs are capitalizing from a plant-based trend, but often their actions are not fostering the conservation but the exploitation of resources.
Minds, eyes, voices, and hands should be on how a vegan economy across industrial nations can prevent poor health and mitigate climate change. Certainly, ethics are constituents of sustainability goals, as the United Nations is well aware. For developing countries where food instability is a concern, wealthy nations could help them adapt to veganism in the wake of global warming without relinquishing cultural beliefs or practices.
Technology and laws are not primary solutions for achieving a healthy environment. Recycling is not of itself a final solution. Energy loss and food waste, especially from animal agriculture, must be eradicated. This is an argument demonstrating how in our ancestral hominin lineage we were plant and fruit eaters, just like our living relatives, the great apes.
Biologically, we can survive on a plant-based diet. More so, with the mechanism of cultural evolution, the arts as much as the natural and social sciences can educate young people about the benefits of a vegan culture to generate advantageous shifts in attitudes about physical, environmental, and animal well-being.
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Dr. Tague is a Professor in the departments of Literature, Writing and Publishing / Interdisciplinary Studies and founder and senior developer of The Evolutionary Studies Collaborative at St. Francis College, N.Y. He is also the founder and organizer of a number of Darwin-inspired Moral Sense Colloquia and other multidisciplinary events. Books include: The Vegan Evolution: Transforming Diets and Agriculture (forthcoming 2022); An Ape Ethic and the Question of Personhood (2020); Art and Adaptability: Consciousness and Cognitive Culture (2018); Evolution and Human Culture (2016); and Making Mind: Moral Sense and Consciousness (2014).
In book series or journals, Tague’s published work in evolutionary studies spans disciplines across literature, philosophy, law, science, and paleoanthropology. Professor Tague has also written or edited nine other academic books or literary anthologies, including Character and Consciousness (2005), Origins of English Dramatic Modernism (2010), and Puzzles of Faith and Patterns of Doubt (2013). He is the founding editor of the peer-reviewed ASEBL Journal, now website (ethics/arts/evolution), and is general editor of the Bibliotekos literary site and Literary Veganism: An Online Journal.
The critical need to transform Canada’s food system and how we can make it happen
Anthony Garoufalis-Auger
Anthony will discuss how a national scale food system transformation in Canada is possible over the next ten years, in the context of existing barriers and opportunities. With climate breakdown already upon us, the need to rapidly reduce the rate of warming to avert cataclysmic change is more urgent than ever. The science is clear that we need to start immediately shifting away from animal farming towards plant-based protein sources, and that our food systems and diets must change, especially in high-income countries. However, with our federal political parties failing to offer policy solutions that approach what’s necessary, how can we make this happen? Anthony’s presentation will go over the literature to explore what a rapid food system transformation could look like for Canadians. His remarks will also centre the forces at play pushing against what’s required. He will also explore how we can build a broad base and effective movement that can apply the pressure needed to put us on the right track.
Anthony is a Montreal-based climate emergency organizer, climate policy expert, and public affairs strategist. His work focuses on shifting the climate discourse in Canada from incrementalism to emergency-mode action. He is a co-founder of Extinction Rébellion Québec and works with the Climate Emergency Unit where he acts as a sectoral organizer focused on arts and culture, and food system transformation.
Meatsplaining: A new name for an old devil
Jason Hannan
Like other profit-driven industries, the meat industry thrives on an orchestrated campaign of public deception: on seductive rhetoric, clever talking points, shrewd PR tactics, and out-and-out propaganda. What are the main features of meat industry deception? What types of violence and injustice does it seek to conceal? This talk explores the phenomenon of “meatsplaining,” the meat industry’s rhetoric of denial.
Jason Hannan is Associate Professor in the Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications at the University of Winnipeg. One of his most popular courses is The Rhetoric of Animality, which explores the history of Western attitudes towards animals from the ancient world to the present.
Jason is the editor of Meatsplaining: The Animal Agriculture Industry and the Rhetoric of Denial (Sydney University Press, 2020). His current book project is New White Saviours: The Colonial Politics of Meat, which explores the meat industry’s long history of colonial violence. He is also the Chair of Winnipeg VegFest, the largest vegan and animal rights festival in Manitoba.
What we can learn from the Sexual Politics of Meat
Carol J. Adams
Carol J. Adams will discuss the vegan feminist critical theory developed in her revolutionary book, The Sexual Politics of Meat, first published in 1990, followed by a conversation with Earthsave Canada on topics including: how the Sexual Politics of Meat has been used by activists in the last 31 years, what has changed and what has stayed the same in our cultural narratives around meat, and how the Sexual Politics of Meat retains relevance in the vegan and environmental movements today.
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Carol J. Adams is the author of numerous books including her germinal The Sexual Politics of Meat, as well as Burger, Protest Kitchen, and others. She is the co-editor of several anthologies on feminist theory and animals. She has been an activist against domestic violence, racism, and homelessness, and for reproductive justice and fair housing practices. A new generation of feminists, artists, and activists respond to her work in Defiant Daughters: 21 Women of Art, Activism, Animals, and The Sexual Politics of Meat and The Art of the Animal: 14 Women Artists Explore The Sexual Politics of Meat. www.caroljadams.com
How we can all play a role in making legal change for animals
Camille Labchuk, BA, JD
Building a more compassionate legal system for animals can seem like a daunting task, but you don’t have to be a lawyer to play a role in improving animal protection laws. This talk will cover the nuts and bolts of making social change, and why engaged, every-day citizens are essential to bring Canadian animal protection laws into line with our social values.
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Camille Labchuk is an animal rights lawyer and executive director of Animal Justice—Canada’s only animal law advocacy organization. Under her leadership, Animal Justice fights legal cases in courtrooms across the country, works to pass groundbreaking new laws, and ensures industries are held accountable for illegal animal cruelty.
Camille has litigated to advance animals’ legal interests at all levels of court, including before the Supreme Court of Canada. She regularly testifies before legislative committees, and was instrumental in passing a precedent-setting national ban on whale and dolphin captivity in 2019. She has filed false advertising complaints against companies making misleading humane claims; documented Canada’s commercial seal slaughter; and exposed hidden suffering behind the closed doors of farms and zoos through undercover investigations. Camille also regularly defends and protects the rights of animal advocates.
Camille is a frequent lecturer on animal law, co-host of the Paw & Order podcast, and a regular contributor to national publications like the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.
Going vegan for life: Strategies for success
Ginny Messina, MPH RD
Whether you’re a long time vegan, new to this style of eating, or you’re working to help others move toward a plant-based menu, there are strategies that can help ensure success for the long term. This presentation covers key guidelines related to nutrition, food cravings, making room for mistakes, and the value of managing expectations. We’ll look at practical considerations around vegan food choices and cooking styles, and explore the myth of the “junk food” vegan.
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Ginny is a dietitian with a master’s degree in public health nutrition. She is the author of a textbook on plant-based diets for health professionals and of eight other books including Vegan for Life and Even Vegans Die. She has published peer-reviewed journal articles on plant-based nutrition, taught nutrition to university students and worked as a public health nutritionist.
She has served on advisory boards to national and international science conferences and to numerous animal advocacy organizations. As a nutrition consultant, she writes and speaks about vegan nutrition, preventing ex-vegans, and body positivity. Her latest book is an all-new edition of Vegan for Life, with updated recommendations and new material for vegans and aspiring vegans.