Creating a Vegan World, with Tobias Leenaert (vegan), Part 1 of 2

On today’s show, we will introduce Tobias Leenaert (vegan), co-founder of ProVeg International and author of the book, “How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach,” in which he discusses pragmatic strategies to bring about a vegan world. Tobias travels the world to give talks on vegan advocacy, strategy, and communication.

Tobias is a strong proponent of effective altruism, a philosophical and social movement that advocates rationally altruistic acts that do as much good for the world as possible. He believes it aligns very well with the vegan and animal-people rights movement. Let us hear him explain how veganism can benefit from the effective altruism approach to focus more on its results and impact.

All around the world, millions of people are realizing how vital it is to create a vegan world as urgently as possible. Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan) has been sharing this message for decades. “It’s not difficult to make this world into a paradise. First of all, just stop killing humans and animal-people, that’s it.” “The world cannot continue to eat the way we do, to supply us the way we eat. We just don’t eat, we waste, we destroy. Truly, truly, we are very unintelligently managing the resources of the planet. And we have only one planet. And so many, many people already, and we keep killing it and destroying it in different ways. It’s not correct. It’s not right.”

What is the quickest or most effective way to achieve the vegan world we all dream of so much and that we know is so critical to the future of our precious planet? In his book, “How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach,” and in many of his lectures, Tobias focuses on what he describes as “flexitarians” or “reducetarians.” “The number of reducers, or flexitarians, part-time vegetarians or vegans, they are a much more interesting demographic because they’re much bigger. They create demand. And the thing is that the more of these (vegan) products there are, the easier it gets for people to shift further and further on the vegan spectrum.”