As critical research has revealed, climate change scepticism and inaction are not about science but ideas, and specifically the ideas that conform our worldview. Drawing on key theoretical approaches to climate change denial from the social sciences and humanities, this paper discusses the ideological dimension and, more especially, the anthropocentric denial underlying our failure to respond to climate change. We argue that the speciesist anthropocentrism inherent in the current dominant ethics is what prevents humanity from reacting to the main human-induced (...) drivers of global warming. Encouraged to do so by current mainstream ethics, humans overpopulate the planet, grow at the expense of other species, and indulge in cruel, unhealthy and unsustainable practices. We counterpose this ethics against the egalitarian, non-speciesist approach of the animal ethics movement, positing that it represents the next radical reflexive movement and could be used to break the climate deadlock. Animal ethics allows links with inegalitarianism and privilege that may help address climate contrarianism and climate inaction much more effectively. (shrink)

Animal Suffering and Public Relations conducts an ethical assessment of public relations, mainly persuasive communication and lobbying, as deployed by some of the main businesses involved in the animal industrial complex - the industries participating in the systematic and institutionalized exploitation of animals. Society has been experiencing a growing ethical concern regarding humans' (ab)use of other animals. This is a trend first promoted by the development of animal ethics - which claims any sentient being, because of sentience, deserves moral consideration (...) - and more recently by other approaches from the social sciences, including critical animal studies. In this volume, we aim to start an entirely unaddressed discussion within the field of public relations: the need to problematize the ethics of persuasion when nonhuman animal suffering is involved, particularly the impact of persuasion and lobbying on compassion towards other animals in the cases of food, experimentation, entertainment and environment management. The books provides an interdisciplinary, theoretical discussion illustrated with international case studies from experts in strategic communication, public relations, lobbying and advocacy, animal ethics, philosophy of law, political philosophy and social psychology. This unique book merges the fields of critical public relations, animal ethics and critical animal studies and will be of direct appeal to a wide range of researchers, academics and doctoral students across related fields. (shrink)

In this volume, we suggest new perspectives with which critical animal studies (CAS) can contribute to the development of knowledge and praxis in two fields-dehumanization and critical border studies, both concerned with human migration, refuge, and territorial or other borders. CAS is an interdisciplinary field that reflects on the ethics of humans' relationships with other animals, how the oppression of nonhuman animals intersects with other forms of oppression, and how economic interests drive oppression. CAS scholars reject disinterested analysis to champion (...) liberation for human animals, nonhuman animals, and the Earth. (shrink)