Bel Jacobs
Bel Jacobs @beljacobs_com is a writer and speaker on climate justice, animal rights, and cultural degrowth in fashion. She is the co-founder of Fashion Act Now, the Empathy Project, and the Islington Climate Centre in the UK, all of which aim to promote ethical and sustainable ways of living.
IRK: Tell us your “Why”
We are in a climate, nature, social, health and animal emergency – because of the permission one half of the world gives itself to plunder and destroy the other half. This is a crisis of spirituality and of justice. What keeps me going? The knowledge that every ton of carbon we pull back from the atmosphere will save lives. The urgent need to gain some semblance of a stable world for my daughter. The grief of knowing that we are, almost intentionally, losing all the beauty of Earth, the only inhabitable planet in our universe. If we die, and take everything with us, the silence will be absolute.
IRK: What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and the planet?
Ending suffering, both human and animal. Ending cruelty, both intentional and unintentional.
IRK: What are some conscious actions you implement in your daily life?
I’m vegan, the single most impactful thing a person can do to address the climate and ecological emergency. By being vegan, you confront an industry that is driven by multinational conglomerates; steals land from indigenous people; contributes significantly to the climate emergency; decimates land and pollutes water; fails to feed the world adequately (1 billion people and rising are still starving) and subjects over 100 billion land mammals to wretched lives and brutal, terrifying deaths. Veganism is about justice. It’s about how much we as individuals are truly ready to embrace compassionate lifestyles for the good of other people, other animals, and the planet itself.
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet?
That the mycellium network of awareness and empathy that exists now will rise up to replace the brtual, extractivist, exploitative regimes currently taking us to extinction.
What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most? https://sdgs.un.org/goals
It’s tricky because they are all fundamentally interlinked, but probably Goal 15: Life on Land. It will take new ways of thinking to restore ecosystems, new philosophies of justice and equity. And it will enable all the other goals.
