Fighting Speciesism On Earth Day

Speciesism is defined as discrimination in favor of one species (usually humans). It is considered by some in the animal rights community to be no different than racism or sexism. To that end, international environmental organizations -- formerly comprised entirely of humans -- are being asked to diversify their membership and include representatives of other species in their leadership and decision-making processes. "Anything less is just giving lip-service to the idea that all species are inherently equal," explained one activist. "It denies the most basic tenets of animal dignity and pride. Until they practice what they preach, they cannot be taken seriously," said the spokes-being. (Although the speaker happened to be human, he preferred the term "spokes-being" over the antiquated and biased term "spokesman" with its speciesist presumption of human leadership.)

Another spokes-being of the Animal Empowerment movement explained, "Ideally, we hope to reach a stage in which each phylum or class of animals would receive representation so that true biodiversity could be achieved in our decision-making process. In fact, there's no guarantee that the representative of phylum Chordata or of class Mammalia would be human. It's arrogant of us to assume that position for ourselves. We're making decisions that affect every species on the planet. We could envision a day in which these global environmental meetings took place without human representation." The initial goals are more modest: to select Animal Parliament Representatives for a first meeting (APR-1), tentatively scheduled for Earth Day in Geneva, Switzerland.