
Our relationships with nonhuman animals are complicated, frustrating, ambiguous, and paradoxical. When people tell me that they love animals and then harm or kill them, I tell them I’m glad they don’t love me. We observe animals, gawk at them in wonder, experiment on them, eat them, wear them, write about them, draw and paint them, move them from here to there as we “redecorate nature.”
People are starting to pay attention to their carbon footprint — how their lifestyle choices tread on the earth. We need to also pay attention to our compassion footprint. In their own ways, animals are constantly asking us to treat them better or leave them alone, and they’re fully justified in making this request. If they could put the request into words, what might their manifesto look like? (READ MORE)
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