- [Laura] This week, Billie
Eilish and Woody Harrelson
host Saturday Night Live.
81% of New Yorkers think
foie gras should be banned,
and Greta Thunberg sues five countries
for causing climate change.
All this and more on
LIVEKINDLY's Weekly Vegan News.
If you're new to our channel,
you can subscribe by hitting the leaf icon
in the bottom-right corner of the video.
Click the bell icon to
turn on notifications,
and please be sure to
like and comment below.
Actor Woody Harrelson
and singer Billie Eilish
hosted last week's Saturday
Night Live season 45 premiere.
- Do you know where the stage is?
- New kid?
- Harrelson hosted,
while Eilish delivered
the musical performance.
Following their appearance on
the long-running sketch show,
the two vegans teamed up for a video spot
entitled Our House is on Fire.
- Our Earth is warming up,
and the oceans are rising.
Extreme weather is
wrecking millions of lives.
- From California to the
Amazon, our forests are burning.
We are in a climate emergency.
- [Laura] Which Eilish
posted to her Facebook page.
Eilish warns that one million species
are becoming extinct because
of mankind's actions.
This is known as the
sixth great extinction.
According to Pulitzer
Award-winning journalist,
Elizabeth Colbert, author of the book,
"The Sixth Extinction," the
extinction is already underway,
and it may take millions of years
to recover from a large-scale,
human-caused environmental disaster.
The video urges people to
take personal responsibility
for their actions by giving
up major contributors
to climate change.
- And doing what we can to
live in a greener lifestyle
like cutting out meat
and dairy in your diet
and reducing plastic use.
- [Laura] The video is also a
call to vote for politicians
and legislation favoring
aggressive climate policy.
- History shows us that
when enough people rise up
and demand change, those in
power have no choice but to act.
(upbeat music)
- [Laura] Switzerland just
made grinding up male chicks
born into the egg industry illegal.
The Swiss Parliament voted
to prohibit the maceration
of male chicks born into the egg industry.
Since male chickens do not lay eggs,
they're unprofitable to the
egg sector and are disposed of
typically when they are just one day old.
Roughly three million male chicks
are killed in Switzerland every year.
Shredding is not common in
the Central European county.
Chicks are usually killed with CO2 gas.
however, politicians insisted
on a symbolic formal ban.
"This tendency to rear a species
"only for the production
of eggs or for meat
"turns animals into mere objects.
"It has led to absurd practices,
"such as the shredding
of living male chicks,"
the House of Representatives
Committee said.
The Swiss egg industry's
seeking alternatives,
such as farmers raising
male chickens for meat.
It is also exploring
technology that could determine
the sex of a chick before it hatches.
This technology is already
being used in Germany
by a company called SELEGGT.
Researchers use a laser
to create a tiny hole
in the eggshell, extract
a small amount of liquid,
then test it for the
hormone estrone sulfate,
which is only present in female chickens.
It could prevent 45 million male chicks
from being killed by Germany's
egg industry every year.
Vegan egg alternatives are on the rise,
such as the JUST Egg, and
alternatives for baking.
The Swiss public will also
vote on whether factory farming
should be banned in the country
after campaigners collected
the minimum 100,000 signatures
needed to place a measure on the ballot.
Coming up, Greta Thunberg
is suing countries
for destroying the planet.
Coming soon.
Apparel by LIVEKINDLY.
Sign up using the link in the description
to get 10% off your first order.
A new citywide poll reveals
that 81% of New Yorkers
want a complete ban on foie gras.
Considered a delicacy, foie
gras is made from the liver
of ducks or geese who have
been forcibly overfed.
The ban has bipartisan support.
78% of Democrats, 83% of Republicans,
and 88% of Independents want a ban.
More than 50 public interest charities
supported the poll as part of a coalition.
The ban was introduced
by New York City
councilwoman, Carlina Rivera.
If passed, the law would prohibit the sale
of force-fed foie gras in New York City,
upholding humane standards by
protecting animals that suffer
as a result of the inhumane
foie gras industry.
These polling results
demonstrate that New Yorkers
of all political persuasions
oppose animal cruelty
and overwhelmingly support a prohibition
on the sale of foie gras,
which comes from tortured ducks and geese.
Foie gras is already banned in California.
It is also banned in a
number of European countries,
including Finland, Denmark,
Italy, Germany, and the UK.
The Supreme Court recently
dismissed a challenge
to the California ban.
Vegan actor, Joaquin Phoenix,
is taking a stand for the animals.
The longtime vegan is appearing
in a new animal rights campaign
for PETA, targeting speciesism.
PETA timed the campaign
launch around the release
of the highly anticipated "Joker" film.
- Can you introduce me as Joker?
- [Laura] "We are all animals,"
reads the new campaign poster
with the tag, "end speciesism."
The poster was put up
in Midtown Manhattan,
one of New York City's
busiest neighborhoods.
Phoenix also recently
spoke about his views
on animal rights and why he's eaten
a purely plant-based diet
since the age of three.
- I've been vegan since
I was three years old.
And at that age, me and my siblings
witnessed fish being killed
in a really violent and aggressive way,
and it was just absolutely obvious that
that was something that we
didn't wanna participate in
and we didn't wanna support.
To me, it just seems obvious.
I don't want to cause pain
to another living empathetic creature.
I don't understand how
you could witness that
and not be affected by it.
But certainly it's also
the effect that it has
on our environment is devastating.
So, for me it's just,
it's my life and has always been my life
and it's really one of the
most important things to me.
- [Laura] Greta Thunberg
and 15 other young activists
are suing five of the world's
biggest greenhouse gas polluters.
Thunberg and teenagers hailing
from 12 different countries
filed a human rights
complaint against nations
for not using their resources
to prevent the deadly
and foreseeable consequences
of the climate crisis.
The complaint evokes the convention
on the rights of the child.
A 30-year-old human rights treaty
that's the most widely
ratified in history.
- Virtually every country
in the world agreed
that children have rights
that must be protected
and those countries that signed
the third optional protocol
on communication have committed
to allowing us to appeal
to the United Nations when
those right are being violated.
So that's exactly what
we're doing here today.
- [Laura] The countries
named are Argentina,
Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey.
Thunberg and the other
youth climate leaders
have not asked for monetary compensation.
Just that the countries
take immediate action
to reduce their carbon emissions.
The petition states that the countries
have made inadequate
pledges to reduce emissions
for the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
"The message that we want to
send is that we've had enough,"
Thunberg said at a press conference.
- Entire ecosystems are collapsing,
we are in the beginning
of a mass extinction,
and all you can talk about is money
and fairytales of eternal economic growth.
How dare you!
(audience applauds)
- [Laura] The US and China,
the two biggest contributors
to global CO2 emissions,
were not included in Thunberg's list.
This is due to the fact that
the aforementioned countries
have been agreed to hear
complaints against them.
It is also because
neither the US nor China
have ratified the part of
the convention on the rights
of the child treaty that allows
children to seek justice.
The following includes
statements from the children
on how their rights have been violated.
They note that they may not have a future
if the climate crisis worsens.
Following her passionate speech
at the UN Climate Summit,
where she chastised world leaders
for failing to do enough
to stop climate change,
Thunberg traveled to Canada
for another climate strike.
Speaking to Scandinavian talk
show, Scavlan, this week.
The 16-year-old told the
host that Schwarzenegger
isn't the first to offer
her an electric car.
"A lot of people have offered to lend us,
"for example, their electric
car," said Thunberg,
according to a translation by Newsweek.
"One of the funniest offers I've received
"is that Arnold
Schwarzenegger has offered me
"to lend his electric car if I want to."
The offer follows Schwarzenegger's
recent partnership
with Veloz, a non profit
that seeks to encourage
Californians to buy electric cars.
In a series of ads,
the executive producer
of "The Game Changers"
posed as a used car salesman,
disguised with a mustache,
making outlandish arguments
against going electric.
While Thunberg didn't
reveal the type of car
the 72-year-old offered
her for her trip to Canada,
he was present at the opening ceremony
for Austrian electric car company,
Kreisel's Research and Development Center
in September, 2017.
In Canada, Thunberg met
with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau said he agrees
with Thunberg completely.
The 16-year-old activist said
that he is not doing enough.
"My message to all the politicians
"around the world is the same.
"Just listen and act
"on the current best available science."
Coming up, Portugal's oldest university
banned beef for the planet.
Tesco is stepping up its vegan game.
The chain recently introduced
dedicated vegan food aisles
in response to consumer demand.
Tesco is the largest
supermarket chain in the UK
and is now home to the
largest private label range
of vegan food.
The introduction of dedicated vegan aisles
follows the announcement
from earlier this month
that vegan meat will now
be sold in the meat aisle.
The new vegan food aisles
coincide with the launch
of the new Wicked
Kitchen vegan meat range,
plus the new Tesco Plant Chef range.
The new additions to Tesco's
popular Wicked Kitchen
include vegan jalapeno burgers, meatballs,
instant vegan mac and cheese,
and deserts like sticky toffee pudding.
The launch follows a
pledge Tesco made in June
to up its vegan offerings by 837%.
The new Plant Chef line has
helped the chain increase
its total plant-based
products from 32 to 300.
It features family meals like
plant-based breaded goujons,
made with soya protein;
Fish-free filets made from seasoned soya
and coated in a tempura batter;
Mushroom pizza topped with
garlic, spinach, and herbs;
And dairy free mac and cheese
featuring a cauliflower,
butternut, and oat milk sauce.
Some of the products will be
offered in the meat aisle.
The supermarket also
recently began selling
the Beyond Sausage,
made by California-based
brand, Beyond Meat.
The University of Coimbra
in Portugal announced a ban
on beef in a bid to reduce
its environmental impact.
The university, which
was established in 1290,
previously served around 20 tons of beef
in its 14 university canteens every year.
The ban, which comes
into effect January 2020,
is part of the university's efforts
to be the first carbon neutral university
in Portugal by 2030.
Beef production generates large amounts
of green house gas emissions,
which contribute to climate change.
The most comprehensive analysis
of farming's impact on the planet,
which was completed by
Oxford University researchers
last year, found that even
the lowest impact beef
generates six times more green house gases
then plant-based protein.
Up to 105 kilograms of green
house gases are emitted
to produce 100 grams of
meat, the study found.
To make the same amount of tofu,
less than 3.5 kilograms of
greenhouse gases are generated.
"We are experiencing a climate emergency,
"and we have to put brakes
"on this projected
environmental catastrophe,"
the University of Coimbra's
rector, Amilcar Falcao,
said in his speech.
"I think the biggest
impact is to make people
"aware of the problem.
"What is more dramatic
is that world leaders
"do not understand that
the future of the planet
"and of our young people, our
children and grandchildren,
"is at stake and that it is too worrying
"not to warn of the problem,
"even if they're small
gestures," Falcao explained.
The rector also announced a
strict policy against food waste
which will include the introduction
of bins for food scraps
in university residences.
The university is also ditching
single-use plastic straws
in favor of paper ones,
and introducing a tree planting program.
That's it for today.
What do you think of Switzerland
banning the shredding of male chicks?
Let us know in the comments below.
Remember to subscribe and
hit the notification bell.
We'll see you again next week
for LIVEKINDLY's Weekly Vegan News.
(mellow music)
