Newkirk on PETA’s lessons for eco-activists

PETA isn’t an environmental group. At least, not in my book.

That’s because, in the eyes of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, animal rights trump environment values whenever the two conflict.

From time to time, I’ve snickered and sneered at the controversial animal-rights advocates over their headline grabs, moral certitude and occasionally shallow grasp of many of the indirect, environmental forces that actually do harm animals. It was the snicker’s turn last week when PETA staffers criticized President Obama for killing a fly.

All that said, I find it difficult to argue against two qualities of the organization:

1) PETA does fight on the side of the angels. I mean, how else can you describe a group of poorly paid people who have given their lives over to empathy and protection of the helpless and abused?

2) And PETA’s damned effective at what it does. While it shouldn’t get all the credit, the group’s high-profile PR campaigns have played a big role in expanding empathy in this country for animals since PETA”s founding in 1980.

So after fly-gate buzzed by, I got to wondering what environmental groups could learn from PETA. To my surprise, Ingrid Newkirk, the group’s founder and president, was the person who return by e-mail with a call. (She may have been particularly accessible because she’s in the middle of a book-signing tour for The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights: Simple Acts of Kindness to Help Animals in Trouble.)

I found Newkirk somewhat inconsistent and not particularly precise in the detail department. For example, she’s simply wrong when she says that farm animals are the largest single source of greenhouse gases. But she also comes across as charming and refreshingly honest. After 29 years at the helm of PETA, she still personifies the energy, humor, creativity and certitude that have made the group a force to be reckoned with.

Often — I hate to say — environmental advocates come off as the opposite: Careful, politically correct, humorless and boring. Certainly, the mission is different if you’re lobbying Congress or trying to gain a consensus on an issue, rather than just drawing attention to your cause.

Still, wouldn’t a lot of environmental groups benefit from the no-holds-barred, controversy-baiting approach of PETA?

I interviewed Newkirk for my weekly Media Mayhem column, which is already up at Mother Nature News. But here’s a transcript of the full conversation:

Ken Edelstein: The main thing I want to ask you about is how PETA’s been so successful over the last three decades at at capturing pop culture’s attention. But first, is there a simple broad way of saying what PETA has achieved over the course of 29 years?
Ingrid Newkirk: [Regarding the first thing you said], we’ve been able to get so much of a change in public perceptions about who animals are as opposed to how we can use them because we’re not shrinking violets. We’re rarely embarrassed to take on any issue, or to stand up for any animal, no matter how small or insignificant.
What have we achieved? I can see results from the correspondence we get especially from young people, many of whom are Vegan and would not touch leather or another dead animal product if it was handed to them wrapped in 500 dollars.
When you see crash test dummies on TV, you can thank PETA [because of pressure brought on car companies to stop using animals]. We pressured NASA so that they can use human data [instead of sending animals into space]. …

Edelstein: It seems to me that raising awareness is basically what PETA does.
Newkirk: Yes. We want to make sure the animal in every occasion is never forgotten, which is the exact opposite of what industry wants. …We say hold on, if an animal had something stolen or taken away from them, like its life, or was harmed in every way, we want you to be aware of it, because you have a lot of power as a consumer. Most people think they’re kind and most people pay someone else to be cruel for them. But if they know what they’re doing causes cruelty [they’d prefer not to make the cruel choice].

Edelstein: It seems like people say PETA did something that went too far every six months, but each time PETA emerges more popular than before.
Newkirk: You’re absolutely right. And “fly-gate” is a great example of that — which by the way wasn’t by design. It was a press invention. It took on a life of its own. But we benefited because we did lots of [talk] shows that talked about the government pest control programs for coyotes and starlings, and more people just became aware of [animal injustrices] they hadn’t thought about before. …
[Typically] people come to our website to mock but they stay on to read something they see there. They may sign the petition against Canadian seal hunts. ….When they come there, they see something that has to resonate with a decent person. Most people think they’re kind.

Edelstein: With each controversy, PETA seems to grow. Is PETA still growing?
Newkirk: Everyitme we do something that could be considered embarrassing, a number of people will distance themselves and so they’ll cancel their memberships. Usually new people, who aren’t used to the controversy. We’re always offending somebody.

Edelstein: But it’s still worth it to spur the controversy?
Newkirk: Of course! We’re not here to win a popularity contest. … If we’re telling people what they already agree with, what’s the point of us being here? We’re here to get people arguing. We’re here to put animals on the map in a major way. … The economy has hurt [membership growth and fundraising]. Animals are at the bottom of the barrel and people recognize that, so we’re very fortunate that others make up for that [by giving more].

Edelstein: What’s the most successful action that you’ve done that mainstream folks might have thought was outrageous but that really worked out for PETA?
Newkirk: Well, back in the day, when we started, there really was no conversation about fur. Believe it or not, young women really aspired to wear a fur coat. I wore fur myself. …
We started, “I’d rather go naked than wear fur,” which is a campaign that really made you look. Of course, fur sales plummeted. … It’s so cheap that prostitutes are wearing it to keep warm in the winter.

Edelstein: When did the whole sex appeal/celebrity thing get started for PETA?
Newkirk: The first was Hol Lips Houllihan from MASH [the movie; Sally Kellerman.]
In the beginning, we were contacted by some celebrities after the Sandy Spring monkey case, which was big news. You know that got a lot of attention. It was on CBS, and we started getting some calls from celebrities and people who wanted to know what they could do to help stop the absolutely terrible things that were happening to animals in the labs.
Now, of course we’re in a completely celebrity culture. It’s crazy.
[Fly-gate was great example. Sales for humane bug removal devise skyrocketed.] In first 20 hours, 116 of them, left our PETA shelves. God, knows how many of that we’ve sold since then.

Edelstein: How many do you sell normally?
Newkirk: We might sell two a month.

Edelstein: Why are so many celebrities in particular so passionate about your cause?
Newkirk: They all know we’ll do some creative and interesting with their passion for animals. We won’t just send out a petition. We’ll do something interesting. We’ll spin something to their interests. With animals we don’t just have one thing. We have a host of horrors.
Celebrities are like anyone. Most anybody knows that they need to do something because they care [inherently about animals].
Pam Anderson is just a wonderful example of that. She says I don’t want to just live off my body. I want my life to mean something.

Edelstein: Is there a sense that the more provocative you are, the more attention you’ll get for the cause?
Newkirk: Yes. It’s distorted. It’s annoying. And frankly it’s a depressing statement about our culture.

Edelstein: But you take advantage of it anyway?
Newkirk: Absolutely. Silence is a cause’s worst enemy. We’re complete opportunists. It’s our obligation. We need debate. We need discussion. [And controversy spurs that.]

Edelstein: Do you feel like actions or campaigns have been so outrageous that they’ve hurt the cause?
Newkirk: No. It’s an upside down world. What’s causes harm is that you take gentle animals that are scared out of their wits and you cut them up for a sandwich or to test for a perfume.

Edelstein: But I meant tactically. Have any campaigns harmed the cause of helping animals?
Newkirk: I don’t think anyone is going to say, “Oh, look at PETA. I think I’ll eat two steaks tonight” or “I’ll kick the dog.” It doesn’t work that way. … You can throw things at us. That’s OK [as long as consciousness is raised about the plight of an animal].

Edelstein: A couple of environmental questions:  Is PETA an environmental group?
Newkirk: I think we’re a human rights group. We’re an animal rights group. We’re all of those things. … The number one cause of climate change — you can put it all together — all the gasses that come from [coal, oil, etc.], and the number one cause is meat. You cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist. …
[She notes that PETA always has recycled.] Primarily, we’re an animal rights group but recycling pays off by protecting habitat.

Edelstein: Does animal justice trump the environment when the two conflict? For example, you mentioned protecting starlings from government eradication, but starlings are an invasive species that crowds out other species of native birds.
Newkirk: I’m standing in this airport [in Atlanta] and most of the people here have probably come from families that have not been native to this country [for as long as starlings have been]. Should we eradicate them?

Edelstein: PETA seems to stay on message rather than getting involved in other advocates’ battles. I mean, you’re not worried about offending feminists or environmentalists or whomever as long as what you’re doing is helping animals.
Newkirk: I admire Bill Maher. He wrote the introduction to this book. One of the reasons, I admire him is because if there’s a turtle in the middle of the road, the turtle doesn’t care whether it’s a conservative or a liberal who stops so that he doesn’t run over him.

Edelstein: Any advice for environmental groups based on the success that PETA’s had at getting it’s message across?
Newkirk: The lesson is don’t be afraid to be criticized. Stick to your principles. This is America. No one is going to pull you’re fingers out [if you say something to offdend them]. They may say nasty things about you. They may not send you’re their 15 dollars. But at least they’ll hear what you tell them.

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