Session: G12 - Micro-Roundtable: Can Meat-Eating be Sustainable? The Politics of 'Eco-Carnivorism'

Date: Jun 2, 2016 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location: ICT 114

Joint Session / Séance conjointe: with the Environmental Studies Association of Canada

Chair/Présidente - 1: Sarah J. Martin (Memorial University of Newfoudland)

Chair/Président - 2: Ryan M. Katz-Rosene (University of Ottawa)

Participants & Authors/Auteurs:

Ryan Katz-Rosene (University of Ottawa)

Sarah J. Martin (Memorial University of Newfoundland)

Pierre-André Gagnon (University of Ottawa)

Ali Kenefick (Institute of Holistic Nutri)

Shirley Thompson (University of Manitoba)

Caitlin Michelle Scott (University of Waterloo)

Karolina Rucinska (Cardiff University)

Gwendolyn Blue (University of Calgary)

Can meat-eating be sustainable? The politics of 'eco-carnivorism'

"Meat consumption is one of the most challenging contemporary political and environmental issues because it links personal and intimate eating practices to global debates on climate change, human health and food production. The detrimental ecological impacts of industrial meat production are well known: intensive livestock operations draw heavily upon precious land and water resources and often result in the release of harmful pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHGs). Yet meat consumption – on a global level – is increasing. Livestock accounts for the single largest anthropogenic use of land, and the FAO predicts that meat production will double by 2050. Canadians are amongst the largest per capita consumers of meat on the planet. Clearly the existing trends and trajectories in both domestic and global meat consumption are unsustainable… but does it have to be inevitably so? This Roundtable confronts the relationship between carnivorism and the environment from a normative political economic and socio-cultural framework focusing on the notion of the possibility of more sustainable futures. As a core research question it seeks to answer whether meat-eating can be made sustainable, and if so, what would an alternative to industrial meat look like? The Roundtable speakers each confront this topic from distinct disciplinary/methodological frameworks and present different angles for thinking about a more sustainable future, the varied relationships between humans and animals, and whether there is a role for eco-carnivorism."