Hi Miguel! Sorry I'm a week late replying to you here. I agree with your point, and I'm updating my document to reflect this. I'm copying your wording, but please let me know if you'd rather I rewrite. I was initially trying to balance minimising respondents' time commitment with pushing on the most important/tractable questions, but I think you're right that expanding the scope of affected animal products could really matter.

This was meant as a joke (I think OP got this) but on reflection it probably wasn't funny / a good opportunity to try to be funny. I actually agree with your empirical/normative point, and I'll retract the comment so others aren't confused.

Hey!

The responses were written with input from animal welfare professionals, but they're only suggestions and I would encourage you to share your own opinions too. I'm happy to talk through the object-level of any disagreements, if helpful.

On images specifically, I agree that misleading pictures could undermine the label's effectiveness but I personally doubt the risk outweighs the reward of informing consumers about the real conditions of animal farming. Whether you choose 'agree' or 'disagree', I think you should detail your thoughts in the 'explanation' section and emphasise that businesses shouldn't be allowed to use misleading photos of animals.

The labels will be imperfect, and it's an open question whether policymakers and the public will stall on further progress. More empirical research here would be good. (If you've not seen it, you might find this resource interesting although it is a few years old). But I think that we have to try to score a goal whenever the opportunity presents itself, and that it's very plausible both that political wins build momentum for the animal movement and that labelling increases public salience of welfare issues.

Independent assessment of welfare claims is covered in question 72. I've suggested strongly supporting it, except in cases where it made the labelling scheme unworkable.

I think it takes about 30 minutes to reply to this consultation, and I think it's absolutely worth doing.

This Google Doc indicates the animal welfare-relevant questions and suggests responses. I encourage anybody to copy-paste these suggestions, or use them as inspiration for original responses. Note that the government recognises "that respondents may choose to use some standardised text to inform their response", and accepts them as legitimate responses.

Thanks @haven for help writing this!

Thanks for writing this, Bella. I relate: I lived with mice recently and spent a lot of time fretting about their well-being as the landlord closed in.

I think that sympathy towards small, liminal animals speaks to an expanded moral circle and that, when we feel powerless to save the animals, bearing witness to their deaths as you've done here might be an important way of paying respect to them.

This is a great success story - well done to all involved!

the core message - some interventions are magnitudes more promising than others - was retained and even extended to other domains: from education, social programmes, and CO2 emissions reductions policies to efforts to change habits of meat consumption and voter turnout (Todd 2023)

Could you point me to the discussion of meat consumption in this source? I can't seem to find it. Thanks!

This is a really interesting resource; inspired me to take Kitcher off the bookshelf. Looking forward to part 2.

(Btw, small typo: word missing in ZFG's thesis title)

I've only skimmed this article, but also Coupet and Schehl (2021) claims "Much of the nonprofit performance theory suggests that donors are unlikely to base donation decisions on nonprofit production".