THE NAB: LSESU GIFT SHOP and The Chronicles of Nonia
Beaver Issue 832 | 17.03.15
the
newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union
Student Body Has No Beef With Meat Free Mondays
Feature Interview: Emily Brothers
• Highest turnout at any UGM this year • Motion asks LSESU to lobby school • Unclear when meat will go
Liam Hill Managing Editor
Comment:
AT THE PENULTIMATE Union General Meeting of the term – and of the academic year – a motion proposing the introduction of Meat-Free Mondays was debated, and subsequently passed by a margin of 454 in favour to 366 against, with 11 voters registering as ‘undecided’. With 833 votes cast, the motion became the most voted-on motion of the year so far. The motion, proposed by Sara Hyder and Raisa Huq, will mandate the elected Sabbatical Officers and the Environment and Ethics Officer to lobby the school to stop serving meat on Mondays in The Bean Counter, the Fourth Floor Restaurant and Café Bar, The Garrick, Café 54, Plaza Café and George IV pub. The motion would also mandate the Trustee Board – which will next year include present Environment and Ethics Officer Nadia Raslan – to “offer students a wider variety of
meatless and dairy-free foods within SU catering outlets.” Sara Hyder’s proposition of the motion began with the environmental justification for the policy: “We want the LSE to recognise that animal agriculture is the most environmentally regressive industry,” she said, adding that we produce enough food for 10 billion people, but divert much of that to animal agriculture, and over 1 billion people suffer from malnutrition as a result. Raisa Huq, seconding the motion, echoed Hyder’s points about the environment, adding: “This is not about forcing vegetarianism down anyone’s throats.” The motion was opposed by Jon Ray and Maurice Banerjee-Palmer. Ray made it clear to begin with that he supported Meat Free Mondays in principle, but had specific objections to the motion in terms of how it was phrased. BanerjeePalmer also began by stating his support, in principle, for Meat Free Mondays, stating that he enforced them in his own flat.
Meat Free Mondays: “Maybe young adults should symbolically ‘opt-in’ to meat eating by slaughtering their own dinner” page 10
FemSoc:
“Discussing whether song lyrics can be classed as ‘rapey’ does not help women who suffer horrendous forms of physical violence” page 11-12
Ray’s argument was that the impact of Meat Free Mondays at LSE would be negligible, since LSE’s catering services already have very high environmental standards in terms of the sourcing of its food. Banerjee-Palmer suggested that a part of his rationale against Meat Free Mondays is that it would inevitably be seen as a ban, which would be bad publicity for the Students’ Union. “We don’t want to alienate people,” he said, “we want to bring people along.” He added that a better proposal than prohibiting meat one day a week would be to consider ideas along the lines of ‘nudge theory’ to encourage people to consume less meat with incentives. Following the formal proposition, seconding and the oppositions to the motion, all the speakers coalesced on stage to take questions from audience members. This format lent itself to very specific questioning about specific clauses of the motion and facts claimed within the motion. Continued page 4
White Privilege:
“Look to the sons of Arab Sheiks who cruise Knightsbridge in their Porsches; just because you are white doesn’t mean you have privilege” page 9
Sport The City
LSE Volleyball in The end of European Finals OPEC?
Page 31 Page 23
George Greenwood meets first openly transgender parliamentary candidate Continued page 25