Why I’m A Vegan | Moby’s Veganniversary #veganforlife

Hi, I'm Moby and this is my little
asteroid.
So, I want to tell you a little bit
about myself and specifically why I'm a
vegan.
So, I was born in Harlem a long, long
time ago, way back in 1965.
And because my parents were
um
complicated
I ended up spending a lot of time with
our rescued animals.
We had rescued dogs, rescued cats
even rescued lab rats.
So, by the time I was three or four
years old, I had learned two incredibly
valuable lessons.
One, that humans were terrifying.
And two
that animals were great.
Then, when I was around three years old,
my father died.
My mom and me and all of our menagerie
moved to Connecticut where my mom had
grown up.
We were very poor, on food stamps and
welfare.
So, we moved into a tiny little garage
apartment. It was really small and cold
in the winter, but it was filled with
animals, so it was actually a fairly
happy place.
See, I unconditionally loved all of the
rescued animals that we lived with.
But, I was also a little suburban boy,
so I loved eating animals.
I mean, I loved junk food, I loved
hamburgers, I loved pepperoni pizza.
Then one day, when I was around 10 years
old, I was walking by the town dump.
As I walked by the entrance, I heard a
tiny little "Mew." coming from a small
cardboard box.
I looked inside the old cardboard box
and I saw three dead kittens and one
tiny, barely alive kitten.
So, I froze. I didn't know what to do.
But, I scooped up the barely alive
kitten and I rushed him home.
My grandmother had an old dachshund
named George and he adopted the kitten
and nursed him back to health.
I named him Tucker and he very quickly
became my best friend.
And as he was my best friend, we pretty
much did everything together.
And a few years later, when I was 19, I
was playing with Tucker one day and I
had this incredibly simple realization.
See, I loved Tucker unconditionally and
I knew that he had this rich emotional
life and two eyes and a central nervous
system and a deep desire to avoid pain
and suffering.
And sitting there with Tucker, I had
this realization that all animals have
rich emotional lives and a profound
desire to avoid pain and suffering.
And just as I would never, ever do
anything to hurt Tucker, I realized in
that moment that I could never do
anything that would hurt any animal.
So, in the summer of 1984, I became a
vegetarian.
Some time passed and I learned more and
more about the treatment of cows and
chickens on dairy and egg farms.
And I concluded that if I wanted to
respect animals and cause as little
suffering as I could, I had to become
vegan.
So, in November 1987,
I became a vegan.
There was just one problem. In 1987, I
didn't know of any other vegans. I mean,
the vegan world in 1987 was tiny.
I found out about one vegan restaurant
in New York City called Angelica's
Kitchen. And even though I was
completely broke and living in an
abandoned factory, I tried to go there
as often as I could.
So, when I wasn't DJing or working on
electronic music in the abandoned
factory, I spent time in libraries
trying to find out as much as I could
about animal agriculture.
I had become a vegan for my love of
animals, but the more research I did, I
realized that raising animals for food
wasn't just killing animals, it was
killing us.
In 1994, I got my first modem and I
found even more information about meat
and dairy production on a bunch of
different newsgroups.
I was horrified by the extent of the
problem
but also weirdly excited cuz I thought I
could help make a change.
I tried to tell people about the
consequences of producing and consuming
meat and dairy, but I was largely
ignored or ridiculed. I talked about
meat and dairy production in interviews
and I wrote about it in liner notes
but almost never found anyone who was
willing to listen.
I did more and more research and I kept
finding more information about how meat
and dairy production and consumption
were killing us, but it seemed like
people were completely unwilling to
listen or even consider change. The data
was showing that meat and dairy
production and consumption was causing
cancer, heart disease, diabetes,
antibiotic resistance, climate change,
deforestation, algae blooms, ocean
acidification and famine and on and on.
It was especially horrifying cuz it was
all subsidized by our tax dollars.
Governments all around the world were
spending trillions of dollars
subsidizing meat and dairy production
when the meat and dairy were making
people sick and ruining the environment.
I was honestly completely overwhelmed by
the enormity of the problem
and also profoundly depressed at
people's unwillingness to listen or even
consider change.
But then sometime in the early 2000s,
things actually started changing.
More and more animal activists started
making movies and writing books and
communicating on social media
spreading the message that using animals
for food was destroying 1 trillion
animals a year and also killing us and
destroying the only home we have.
Politicians are of course still
pretending that they can save the world
while continuing to produce meat and
dairy, but even slowly they are starting
to accept that that's just not the case.
Of course, there's so much work left to
do
but we are making tons and tons of
progress.
And it's worth remembering that if we
all stopped producing and eating meat
and dairy tomorrow, deforestation would
be reduced by 90%.
Health care costs could be reduced by
50%. Water use would be reduced by 50%.
Antibiotic resistance would be reduced
by 80%.
Famine could largely be eliminated.
60% of plastic ocean pollution would be
eliminated. Many pandemics would be
prevented. And one of the leading causes
of climate change would end.
And for me, one of the most important
things, if we stopped using animals for
food, we would save over 1 trillion
animals a year.
Because to be clear, I want to save
people, I want to save animals
and I want to save the only home we
have.
And all of that is why I'm a vegan.