On February 9, 2022, me and Henry Hutchins met with Joel Remland, a former faculty member of LREI. Joel has been a vegan since he was a freshman in college.

He talked about how being vegan can help slow climate change, due to factory farms being a major source that contributes to climate change, from a lot of methane emissions from animals. Joel talked about about how to spread this idea, and how to suggest veganism to others to help protect the earth.

Joel says to not use angrily protesting, or using purely strong emotion, like many people do, instead of using thought out words, having a civilized conversation about veganism, when trying to spread the idea of having a vegan diet, to be more efficient in spread the main idea.

Joel mentions how a lot of people say they want to protect the environment by doing things like not using plastic items, but when it comes to changing people’s diet, many people don’t because they feel like they can’t change something as important as their diet or because the issue of factory farming isn’t as well talked about and known.

Other problems with factory farms that Joel mentions is that certain meat products, only one, could be made from many different animals which risks people getting illnesses from the food, especially considering the conditions the animals are put in, in factory farms. Also the workers at factory farms are put under pretty harsh conditions, with minimum wage.

So one of the main ideas is that everyone should consider switching or at least trying to switch their diet to veganism, because many meat or dairy products are made from factory farms, and this is not talked about as much as other causes of global warming because some people don’t want to have to realize this. But Joel says he does have some hope in this cause because many people around the world are becoming vegan or vegetarian. Factory farms need money to keep running, if they aren’t funded they will begin to slow down.

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On Wednesday, February 16, me and Henry Hutchins met with Vidisha Rai, who is a member of the FFAC (Factory Farming Awareness Coalition.

She told us a lot about how factory farms are big part in climate change, and why a lot people don’t realize the effects of them, and she also told us about how factory farms keep prospering in a cycle.

So, one of the biggest reasons that factory farms are prospering is because the government gives a lot of money to them, so that there products cost less, and the government gives much less money to food producers that are not factory farmed, so their products will cost more. And the reason for this in America, is that factory-farmed products are bought a lot more than other products, and then in result the government gives more money to factory farms, and then they prosper, and more emissions happen.

Because of this, Vidisha mentioned that people’s diet is a very important factor, because in order for factory farms to prosper people need to give them money, so she recommends instead of, for example eating a burger, you should try an impossible burger or a beyond burger.

We also asked Vidisha if she thinks that the factory farm cycle will ever end. She says that eventually it will probably end, because it depends on everyone in society, to not support factory farms, to consider a vegan diet, and she thinks that if enough people join this idea, the factory farm cycle will not be able to function, and it will break.

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On Jan 21, my group presented our social justice project about Global Warming to the class. I helped create the slideshow, and I learned a lot while creating the presentation.

One thing that I shared in the presentation was, “I think that a big step towards preventing global warming would be to maximize renewable energy supply, which is also having effort being put into already, and another thing that could happen is using less greenhouse gas emitting transportation, most cars, trucks, etc. There is a lot that can be done or focused on to help prevent global warming.”

My group partner, Hutch, also talked a lot about over-fishing, and factory farming, which are also big causes of global warming.

I am also looking forward to meeting with and interviewing people who are very involved with this topic, and know a lot about it.

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