Earthling Ed

Edwardhttps://youtu.be/r-BTN8Ajs04 "and the teacher was like yes Edward" "Ed" Winters (born: 1994 [age 28])https://www.up.pt/casacomum/agents-of-change/2-ed-winters/https://www.bigissue.com/culture/books/meet-earthling-ed-the-vegan-debater-and-activist-exposing-lies-of-the-meat-industry/ better known by his online name Earthling Ed, is an English vegan content creator, animal rights activist, educator, lecturer, and best selling author.
==Personal life==
As a kid, Ed and his family treated vegetarianism as a joke. At the age of 12, while eating dinner with his family, his stepdad made the same joke they often tell, "what’s the best part about having a vegetarian over for dinner?" to which Ed responds "more meat for us". He then bit into a chunk of beef when he feels something chewy. He looks at the chunk of beef and sees a vein, he realizes that he’s not eating beef, he's eating a cow.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_LIdW7MP8E Not long after, he’s in English literature class and the topic of vegetarianism comes up. His teacher asks the class what they think of being vegetarian. Ed answers, "all vegetarians are pale, weak, and skinny."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt3XYexmu74
In 2013, at the age of 18 when he and a vegetarian friend were eating pizza, Ed wanted to add bacon, but his friend said no, arguing that animals should not be killed for a pizza topping. Ed didn’t understand. He argued that those animals are bred into the world for this purpose, that we give them life and they give us bacon in return.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3u7hXpOm58
Another time in 2013 Ed visited Barcelona Zoo in the hope of seeing more sea lions there. However, during that particular experience he was upset by the way the sea lions were being used for a show where they had to perform tricks, and then after seeing a bear sat on their own in a tiny enclosure he promptly left the zoo feeling saddened and conflicted.https://www.instagram.com/p/B4p8_TxFBrM/ Following this, not long after he was inclined to watch the documentary blackfish with his girlfriend.
On the 14th of May, 2014, Ed was scrolling through the BBC when he stumbled across an article about 1,500 chickens killed in a lorry crash on M-62 in Manchester with many more with broken bones and wings, their bodies crashed and twisted. He thought to himself about how much pain these animals must be in and how much these animals must have been suffering. He then decided to go vegetarian along with his girlfriend because of that.
however at the time he still thought that vegans were weird, crazy extremists, who took everything too far. He also thought they were forcefull, preachy, and self righteous. He would say stuff like "why do vegans have to be like this?" he added "after all I'm a vegetarian and you don't hear me going on about it". However that all changed when he watched the documentary earthlings, a film that uses undercover footage to expose humanity's use of animals as pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and for scientific research. Initially he didn't want to watch the documentary, but his girlfriend was insistent that they should watch it after seeing an instagram post about it by PETA. He claimed that "it was propaganda" and "probably set up by PETA to fulfill their agenda." However one morning after weeks of trying to get him to watch it she just sat down and watched it, it interested him so he ended up watching it with her. It was so much worse than he expected, he says he was completely shaken. When the documentary ended he was emotionally devastated so he decided to spend some time with Rupert the hamster, who was the first pet (or "companion animal") he ever had, in the hope that he would cheer him up. He gave him some broccoli and as he watched him munch away he thought about how "Rupert was an individual, with his own likes and dislikes", he also thought about how awful it would be if someone were to hurt Rupert. He then realized that the animals for which he pays to be killed also feel pain and suffer just like Rupert, he decided that being vegetarian was not enough, so he decided to go vegan.
After going vegan, he donated all of his animal derived clothing to a charity shop.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCjfghyvKVc
==History==
Not long after becoming a vegan in a conversation about veganism, a man surprised him with the claim that soy farming is very harmful to the environment. Ed didn’t know how to respond to the argument and felt that he had let the animals down and enabled this person to continue eating animal products with more of an eased conscience. Following the conversation, Ed watched as many documentaries and YouTube videos on veganism as he could find, he also read books and looked at online resources about veganism - all of that he did so that there won’t be any more conversation in which he won't know how to respond to an argument against veganism.Winters, Ed (2018). 30 Non-Vegan Excuses & How to Respond to Them.
In December 2015, while still a student at university, with the encouragement of his partner, Ed created his YouTube channel "Earthling Ed", where he began to upload content on the topic of veganism, in which he mainly raised debates on the topic of veganism in street interviews.
==Activism==
Ed campaigned to ban fur from London Fashion Week (2016 - 2018). He co-founded and organized The Official Animal Rights March, and worked to turn it into a global event.https://www.patreon.com/earthlinged In 2020, this video, caused a London bakery to turn vegan overnight.https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/bakery-turns-vegan-after-watching-video-on-dairy/
===Surge===
In 2016, Ed co-founded the animal rights organization Surge, which he also co-directs. The aim of Surge is to spread awareness through creating media content and campaigns, as well as through educational programmes.https://earthlinged.org/ They investigate farming practices,https://www.surgeactivism.org/uk-pig-farminghttps://www.surgeactivism.org/marksandspencer answer questions,https://www.surgeactivism.org/whyvegan and offer volunteering opportunities.https://www.surgeactivism.org/volunteer
===Unity Diner===
In 2018 Ed announced the opening of Unity Diner, a non-profit vegan restaurant in London where all of the profits go directly back into helping animals. He founded it in September 2018 with a group of friends. All of their straws, takeaway containers and coffee cups are 100% biodegradable and plastic-free. Their staff uniforms and merchandise are ethically made with 100% organic cotton and chemical-free vegan ink. Their payment system is paperless. They offer vegan dog treats, and donate food waste to rescued animals.https://www.unitydiner.co.uk/ All profits go towards the Surge Sanctuary. He travelled the UK in The Big Vegan Activism Van for over 7 months, as part of a Surge project.
===Surge Sanctuary===
In 2020, Winters founded Surge Sanctuary, a home for abused and unwanted animals on an 18 acre site in the rural Midlands, England. The sanctuary is currently home to over 100 animals. They have a sheep named Eric, pigs named Pete, Nigel, Daisy, Maisey, and Kevyn, and cows named Paul, Roo, Moksha and Ella, as well as goats,https://www.instagram.com/p/CK9mq8ngZPo/ turkeys and chickens,https://www.surgesanctuary.org/ geese and ducks,https://www.facebook.com/thesurgesanctuary/videos/meet-victoria-this-sassy-lady-is-a-toulouse-goose-who-came-to-live-with-us-after/393050389194625/https://www.surgesanctuary.org/blog/resident-ducks rabbits,https://www.surgesanctuary.org/blog/rabbit-farm-shut-down-by-activists-now-we-have-12-gorgeous-new-residents and even a dog.https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb79sc8pTRF/ The organization is on Instagram. They have an ecosystem pond, which is designed to benefit the local wildlife, and a wildflower meadow. Plants grown at the sanctuary are used in the Unity Diner.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsIQdSiWwto&t=344s
===Land of Hope and Glory===
In 2017 Winters produced together with Surge "Land of Hope and Glory"- a UK documentary film focused on the use of land animals for consumption using undercover footage. It's often referred to as "the UK version of Earthlings".https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/about The film includes footage from over 100 different farms, In the footage, film-makers unveil never-before-seen undercover footage, even including at least one RSPCA approved farm, which forced the RSPCA to respond to it.https://thevegankind.com/news/land-of-hope-and-glory-vegan-documentary-labelled-uk-version-of-earthlingshttps://web.archive.org/web/20201111214014/https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/land-of-hope-and-glory-film/
===Speaking & podcasts===
Winters has debated and spoke on many different television channels over the years, such as sky news in 2017, two debates on BBC and one on This Morning in 2018, a debate on BBC in 2019, and a BBC debate and GB news debate in 2022. Winters has spoken at over 1/3 of UK universities and at 6 Ivy league colleges, including as a guest lecturer at Harvard University in both 2019 and 2020. He has given speeches across the world, including at the University of Cambridge, EPFL, Google NYC and Google Zürich. In early 2019 he gave 2 TEDx talks, surpassing a total of 2 million views online. His speech “You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again” has 35 million accumulative views online and has been given to thousands of students across UK universities.https://www.youtube.com/@ed.winters/about In 2019 Winters hosted the Disclosure Podcast, where he discussed a variety of veganism related topics.https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbO4IdMhlVR5_sHmPvAhTYZUHDla6z9J4 In 2018, Winters made an appearance on CosmicSkeptic's podcast as well as another time in 2022.https://youtu.be/PRk1Bws3d5g Winters has at various times discussed veganism in schools with young kids, such as 12 year olds and 10 year olds.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkyxsTrDqvE
===Books===
====30 Non-Vegan Excuses & How to Respond to Them====
Winters wrote a free e-book, titled 30 Non-Vegan Excuses & How to Respond to Them, with the goal of “creating a resource that vegans can use to help them learn how to debunk and argue against the most common excuses that people use to try and justify not going vegan.”
====This Is Vegan Propaganda====
Winter's second book, This Is Vegan Propaganda: (And Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You), was released on January 6, 2022. On January 5, 2023, exactly a year after the book was first released, Winters released a paperback version of the book. Winters released it hoping that since it's cheaper than the original, as well as easier to carry around, it would be more accessible and impactful.https://instagram.com/p/Cl4FpT7rLXk/
==Criticism==
In March 2020, Winters posted an image on his Instagram account stating that "COVID-19 started because we eat animals" and "would not exist if the world was vegan". PolitiFact called this "misinformation",https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/18/instagram-posts/vegan-instagram-accounts-spread-misinformation-abo/ and a journalist for USA Today concurred, causing the post to be censored as "partly false".https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/03/18/coronavirus-fact-check-covid-19-caused-eating-animals/5073094002/ on march 19, Winters published an article to Plant Based News titled "Earthling Ed: USA Today Was Wrong To Call My Coronavirus Meat-Eating Post ‘Partly False’"
==Gallery==
318418645 647337390422170 7680511251444953907 n.jpg|Winters with his book "This Is Vegan Propaganda"
idea.jpg|Winters with his cloths from his own vegan clothing brand called "I.D.E.A. Studios"
Earth.png|Winters hugging a turkey at his sanctuary - "Surge Sanctuary"
Edwinters.jpg|Winters at the official animals rights march
tedt2.jpg|Winters giving a ted talk
smiled.jpg|Winters smiling
food.jpg|Winters in a collab with bosh.tv
==References==
Category:Commentary YouTubers
Category:Educational YouTubers
Category:English YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2015