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How Sunday lunch at nan’s led to a vegan’s battle against the climate crisis

<span>Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

In 1991, 17-year-old Alex Lockwood was flipping through the Guardian Weekend magazine in his family’s car, en route to a family Sunday roast, when he spotted an image that changed his life. A harpooned whale, its body bloodied and lifeless, drew him to a feature about its killing.

“That picture just shook me; it seemed so wrong. When I got to my nan’s house it hit me that the roast on the table was an animal that had also been killed.” He became vegetarian, then vegan, and nearly three decades later is one of the founding members of Extinction Rebellion’s new sister organisation, Animal Rebellion, which formed in June and plans to blockade London’s Smithfield Market – Britain’s largest meat distribution market – in October.

For almost a year Extinction Rebellion has made the headlines with its use of civil disobedience to pressure governments and corporations to act on the climate crisis, prompting MPs to pass a motion declaring a climate emergency in May. Inspired by its success, Animal Rebellion has set its sights on making Britain’s food system plant-based. While the group believes the meat and dairy industry is inherently cruel, the focus is predominantly on the environmental arguments. Lockwood, now a senior lecturer focusing on vegan and environmental issues at the University of Sunderland, says: “We can’t fix the climate emergency without ending the animal agriculture industry.”

Veganism as a solution to the climate crisis has become a key discussion point in recent months. Amid record-breaking temperatures over the summer, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) proposed a major shift towards plant-based diets, warning that it will be impossible to avert climate catastrophe by reducing carbon emissions from manufacturing, power plants and transport alone. As thousands of fires blazed in the Amazon rainforest in August – many of them started to clear land for cattle rearing – and released huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, calls for boycotts of beef and other animal products grew louder. Animal agriculture accounts for 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, more than all transportation combined.

Animal Rebellion wants everyone to go vegan – but, like Extinction Rebellion, its main goal is system change rather than telling individuals to change habits. Tomorrow about 50 activists from the group plan to stage a “reforestation” protest in Parliament Square: armed with spades, they aim to plant a two-metre-high walnut tree there, as well as dozens of seedlings, though they aren’t sure how far they will get before police make arrests.

“We’re doing this because we need the government to act to stop deforestation,” says Simone Scampoli, Animal Rebellion’s action team coordinator. “We’ve all seen images of the Amazon on fire, but deforestation is happening all over the world to rear animals and grow crops to feed them. We know trees are essential for absorbing the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming.”

Tomorrow’s protest is also a practice run of civil disobedience for the Smithfield Market blockade, which will be part of Extinction Rebellion’s next “movement of movements”, International Rebellion, encompassing other groups, starting 7 October. About 2,000 volunteers are signed up to take part in the blockade, set to begin with a training session at an undisclosed location, before they march to the market ahead of its opening for business at about 11pm. Protesters will camp in front of the market overnight and aim to hold on to the site for two weeks, blocking vans and lorries from entering. “It’s going to be lively and joyous, with singing, dancing, a boat, lots of fruit and veg stalls, a festival atmosphere,” Lockwood says. “We want to turn Smithfield Market into Britain’s most vibrant and colourful fruit and vegetable market.”

Animal Rebellion says it has received messages on social media threatening violence if they go ahead with the protest. “We’re a peaceful, non-violent group and we’re all quite scared about that,” Lockwood admits. “We don’t want to cause trouble or hurt people’s livelihoods. But Smithfield is the symbolic seat of the UK meat industry, which is driving climate change, and if we carry on our current trajectory there won’t be any jobs left.”

To many, Animal Rebellion’s goal of ending animal agriculture may seem unthinkable – much of the current debate revolves around reducing meat and dairy rather than cutting it completely. Commenting on Animal Rebellion’s planned protest, a spokesperson for the National Farmers Union said: “Farmers take the issue of climate change extremely seriously, which is why we have set our own target to be net zero by 2040. We believe British livestock has a crucial role to play in achieving our ambition. Our extensive grass-fed system means British farmers produce some of the most climate-friendly meat in the world. It is already 2.5 times more efficient than the global average.”

Lockwood says that the 2040 goal is too late and relies on technology that has not yet been developed.

Also commenting on the protest, James Tumbridge, chairman of the City of London Corporation’s markets committee, which includes Smithfield Market, said: “We will work positively with any protesters to allow peaceful demonstration, but our first aim must be the uninterrupted safe operation of the market. The intended protest is potentially very damaging to the workers at Smithfield Market. The men and women who work there are vital to feeding London, and we have a duty to protect their livelihoods and the food supply.”Animal Rebellion has been trying to engage Smithfield Market in dialogue, Lockwood says. “We recognise that butchers and meat industry workers have a deep pride in feeding the nation,” he explains. “We want them to carry on feeding people, but with plant-based food, in a way that’s sustainable and just.”

Who are Animal Rebellion?

Founded by around 12 people in June, including Dr Alex Lockwood (44), Dan Kidby, animal rights activist and the core founder of Animal Think Tank, Dilan Fernando, a 25-year-old from Australia who left his banking job to focus on organising social movements, and Esther Salomon (19), who has deferred starting her politics degree at Edinburgh University to work for Animal Rebellion full-time.

How big is the group?

Around 100 organisers, with 2,000 volunteers signed up for the Smithfield protest next month.

What are its aims?

To get the government to tell the truth about the climate emergency, reduce greenhouse gases to net zero by 2025, and set up a citizens’ assembly. Also to start a debate on switching to a plant-based food system.