People often ask me: “Why are you a vegan? Is it for ethical or health reasons?” as if it is a binary issue. Statements like this exemplify there is tremendous opportunity to raise the level of consciousness about the true insidious and pervasive impacts of the single behavior of an animal-based diet/culture. To illustrate this dilemma, I would share with you some facts that I have collected. Bear in mind, according to the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, there are 3 stages of truth: ridicule, violent opposition and acceptance. Please approach what I am about to share with an open mind and a spirit of understanding this critical issue.
ETHICS: Vegans are indeed individuals that recognize and respond with their behaviors consistently with the fact that animals are fellow sentient earthlings, other nations who share this planet, with the same inherent right to live free from human harm and exploitation as anyone. Although the term vegan is new (Vegan Society est. 1944), this recognition and behavior is not a new phenomenon, as many of the world’s most intelligent mental giants throughout historical millennia have all recognized this fact: Socrates, Seneca, Plato, Pythagoras, Buddha, Hippocrates, Da Vinci, Count Leo Tolstoy, Franklin, Albert Schweitzer, Einstein, Gandhi, Coretta Scott King and Stephen Hawking. Mahavira, the Jain patriarch of the sect of Indian culture over 6000 years old, taught “Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture or kill any creature or living being.” In July of 2012, Stephen Hawking participated in the Francis Crick Memorial Conference where the world’s leading prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists gathered to share their latest findings on the comparisons of human and non-human brain functions, and it was at this meeting they drew up one of the most important documents for those engaged in the vegan/animal rights movement in support of what intelligent humans have intrinsically and instinctually understood for so long: The Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness. The conclusions that animals experience life in the world equally to humans are solid, and this has a profound ramification wherein the only responsible reaction is a rapid vegan shift. While many people conveniently claim the vegan label for many different reasons (diet, allergies, optimal health, disease mitigation/prevention or reversal, environmental concerns, taste preference etc.) vegans are those who recognize animals are individuals and take specific actions in multiple ways (eating plant-based alternatives, supporting sanctuaries, instead of zoos or circuses that use animals, using alternative plant-based consumer products such as cosmetics, clothing and other textiles and goods that do not contain animal products or animal testing, and adopting from rescues and shelters instead of breeding or shopping for pets in recognition of that fact. Vegans chose to opt out of the system of exploitation as much as is practicable and possible in modern times. Vegan activists engage society and the power structure to empower a vegan shift.
SCALE: Over 300 million American’s demand for animal products equates to 10 BILLION land and 17 BILLION aquatic animals unnecessarily slaughtered in this country a year. Someone once helped me conceptualize this as such; if you count to a million by 1 number per second, it will take you 12 days- if you count to a billion by 1 number per second, and it will take you 32 YEARS. 27 BILLION animals are mercilessly and reprehensibly contract killed a year on behalf of the American public. As much as we would like to deceive ourselves, this cannot be done humanely. Besides, how is unnecessary killing ever humane? Humane means the best in humanity: Kindness, love, compassion, empathy, respect, dignity, justice etc. Humane cannot ever mean killing someone who is perfectly healthy in the prime of their life, unnecessarily, and certainly not for a mere taste preference, or even culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction. Truth, justice and liberty can never and will never logically equal the following mentality “Do not tread on my right to tread on others.” that pervades the current human perspective. Globally, the animals destroyed figure skyrockets to 70 Billion animals (which does not include aquatic life- which escalates the sentient lives taken into the trillions). At this rate, global fisheries are collapsing as the majority of them have been over-fished. Over 90% of the larger ocean fish are at critically low populations. Unless we do an immediate plant-based shift in our social infrastructures, we will witness the greatest specter of human caused global collapse of the previous 5 mass extinctions in earth’s history.
CARBON PRODUCING/CLIMATE CHANGE: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” in 2006 identified livestock as the leading human contributing cause of climate change. Global Warming CO2 emissions from agricultural livestock equate to 18%; exceeding the mere 13% the most widely held assumption of world transport by 40%. The World Watch Institute also issued a follow-up study “Livestock and Climate Change” to the original UNFAO study, stating the impacts of livestock are much greater- 51%. It has been made clear that a vegan in a hummer does more for the environment than a non-vegan on a bicycle. Mainstream media, our government and even environmental groups and leaders (Greenpeace, We-Can, Repower America, Rainforest Action Network, 350 etc.) have failed to inform the public of this critical factor and make it part of their campaign strategies. Everyone is being told to conserve energy by buying CFL light bulbs and hybrid vehicles or invest in expensive and dangerous deep drilling carbon sequestration, and alternative energies- which although they are helpful, are environmentally intensive, polluting and most of which many people can’t afford to do anytime soon. Other campaigns include divestiture and civil disobedience including arrest. Why aren’t they offering such a simple solution of at least eating a plant-based diet? Everyone can do it locally, affordably, sustainably, TODAY, starting with their next meal!
WATER: Intensive and polluting- Animal agriculture is EXTREMELY water intensive- not just to irrigate crops to feed livestock and water for them to drink. CLEANING those to prep for slaughter or milking and cleaning livestock processing facilities uses tremendous amounts of water. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of water pollution via agricultural runoff from industrialized conventional chemical dependent farming practices. In addition the animal waste run off ends up contaminating water supplies and surrounding crops lands and causing horrible bacterial outbreaks such as Phiesteria, e-coli, MRSA and salmonella causing flesh eating suffering and death of wildlife and people. To make 1 lb of “meat” it takes 2,500 gallons of water, to make 1 gallon of milk it takes 750 gallons of water. Living vegan can save 1.3 million gallons of water a year. Potable water is becoming scarcer every day, so polluting what is left of it is ensuring desperate times ahead. Did you know the lack of potable water is the number 1 killer of humans worldwide? http://h2opodcast.com/water3.html#mb
NATIONAL SECURITY: How we use water today determines how much longer we will have it to use at all in the future. It affects our nation’s security as wars will be started to gain control over this precious necessary resource. Private corporations, such as Nestle and Coke are already jockeying for complete control of the world’s dwindling fresh water resources. (Flow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO2rPUkKGww ) and disaster preparedness plans need to be ready for when it does happen. The ancient and massive Ogallala Aquifer, which spans from Texas to the Dakotas, and has taken millions of years to accumulate, is expected to be depleted within the next decade due to our consumption vastly exceeding the hydrologic cycle’s ability to replenish it. This is a major source of water for Midwestern crops; 90% oats, 80% soy, 70% corn (genetically modified megalithic mono-crops where former forest land has been cleared to create) are grown here and primarily being fed to “livestock”. (“Mad Cowboy” by Howard Lyman 1998). Furthermore, we are meddling in other nation’s affairs, to create the level of consumption that has jeopardized our national security (Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins) Our nation’s population needs to be educated of these facts and our policy makers need to act.
ECONOMICS: Our laws and economics need to be changed, re-factored and implemented to include environmental costs and sustainability thresholds and no longer reliant on increased population for growth- or we will literally consume ourselves. It takes 500 years to accumulate 1 inch of topsoil and we have consumed the majority of topsoil around the world already. A massive project to review intensive and inefficient uses of fresh water and including those that pollute it and prohibit issuing and renewing of permits for those operations; especially CAFOs and slaughterhouses. The PEW Commission report, “Putting Meat on the Table” in (April 2008) conceded “CAFOs are unsustainable.” for many reasons, and contribute directly to factors such as rising healthcare costs, and even more frightening; antibiotic resistance/ineffectiveness. A new approach to economics and agriculture must include the P4. P4 (PPPP)- Purpose, People, Planet, Probity (or Purity or Principles). http://www.businessballs.com/ethical_management_leadership.htm This can only exist in a post- revolutionary world vegan shift and to redefine laws that end the control of corporate money in our present governmental processes. Bottom line: NO ECOLOGY = NO ECONOMY
HUMAN RIGHTS AND HEALTH (Physical & Mental): Livestock production practices need to end immediately. No one really wants to do these jobs. They are extremely dangerous, and unhealthy, both mentally and physically, for workers who must desensitize themselves and objectify these beings to function in this horrifically insane reality. Studies by The Animals and Society Institute have proven this has a backlash on the communities that support these workers as they are more inclined to commit violent crimes. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the town butchers were recruited to run the ovens and gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps. Who else could do such a thing but those who can desensitize themselves to committing violent acts against the weakest, defenseless, sentient beings who equally warrant freedom, dignity, respect, mercy and compassion? Slaughterhouse workers are ranked as “unskilled labor”, yet these extremely dangerous jobs, quintessentially described as “jobs Americans won’t do” engenders a system exploiting “illegal” migrant workers who often become indentured servants and are frequently sexually assaulted, abused, injured and disabled with no legal recourse. The domestic, “legal US resident” of the mentally challenged demographic are also often recruited for these jobs for similar reasons; they don’t know their rights and they will take the abuse. This is an exploitative system in every way! (Slaughterhouse-Gail A. Eisnitz) (Fast Food Nation- Morgan Spurlock).
POLLUTION, DEGRADATION and CONTAMINATION: Animal Agriculture primarily via Concentrated/Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) also known as factory farms, generate waste measuring 86,000 lbs of a concentrated toxic chemical soup of hormones, antibiotics, steroids and the myriad of chemical fertilizers and “cides” laden dung (compared to the organic dung of the past) per second! (www.veganvideo.org)The truth is if we weren’t farming so intensively to inefficiently feed our crops to feed other animals and further degrading our lands with over grazing, our soils would not be so depleted and furthermore polluted by tons of petroleum based and carcinogenic chemical fertilizers, herbicides, larvicides, pesticides and genetically modified foods. The leading cause of erosion and desertification is animal agriculture (Livestock’s Long Shadow) Do you realize conventionally grown foods contain 50% less nutritional value than organic foods? (www.ota.com/organic/benefits/nutrition.html) This directly contributes to the over 80,000 manmade chemicals finding their way into the fresh and salt waters of the world. (www.livingdownstream.com) Furthermore, plants don’t eliminate (as in defecate or urinate) or spread infectious disease. The waste from livestock excretions contains significant amount of drugs in addition to the vector of deadly infectious diseases (MRSA/E-coli/Salmonella/Phisteria etc.) it creates for humans and non-humans. The FDA has known since at least 1983 that America’s conventional meat (and dairy) supply is contaminated with 500-600 chemicals not listed on the label. http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/15/style/residue-of-chemicals-in-meat-leads-to-debate-on-hazards.html
RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION/ECOCIDE: Are you aware that over 90% of the Amazon has been burned to the ground displacing and killing countless aboriginal humans, flora and fauna to provide monocrops such as GMO soy predominantly to feed livestock (not humans), so Western countries such as ours can gratuitously gorge on cheap burgers and ice cream? It doesn’t get any more obscene to think we are extinguishing people, animals, biodiversity and destroying the world’s oxygen producer and beautiful places for unnecessary and disease causing animal products. Are you aware only 4% of the old growth redwoods are left in the pacific northwest? Are you aware that millions of our tax payer dollars are used to destroy wild mustangs, wolves, prairie dogs and other wildlife that are mercilessly gunned down, trapped, poisoned or slaughtered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service because they are blamed for competing for resources on public lands leased by livestock ranchers?http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/prog_data/2009_prog_data/PDR_G_FY09/Basic_Tables_PDR_G/Table_G_FY2009_Long_Method_Featured.pdf
Does this not infuriate you? Are you aware that due to inefficient human activities at current human population levels and exploitation that over 30,000 to 50,000 species are going extinct per year- 1,000 times faster than natural rates? The ecological scientists are claiming the Earth is in the throes of the 6th great extinction, and unlike the past, it is because of human (anthropogenic) exploits. This should trump any news we are talking about anywhere and massive summits should be discussing the serious efforts of solving this crisis threatening all life on earth as we know it (technically they are, but they are calling it “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” and going after energy instead of recognizing the real root cause)!!
POPULATION EXPLOSION: Look at this trend in population growth:
1800 = 1 Billion.
1930 = 2 Billion.
1960 = 3 Billion
1975 = 4 Billion
1990 = 5 Billion
1998 = 6 Billion
As of 2012: 7 BILLION and counting – at this population level- what we do really matters.
This is a seriously catastrophic game changer!!! We also need to address population stabilization and reverse this trend of developing countries thinking they’ve arrived because they are now introducing gratuitous meat consumption via marketing franchises such as McDeath’s to demographics (India and China) that previously didn’t consume animal products as a staple. (Animal agribusiness has moved to these regions to create demand as it is tapering off in the Western countries as they have become aware of the problems.) New countries are already rapidly becoming newly plagued with the chronic diseases of the Western diet. I challenge people to abandon the absurd farce and delusion that animal products are a symbol of “affluence” and “prestige”, and recognize animal products for what they truly are in this evolution of our civilization and population;
1) A morally reprehensible and unnecessary yet heinously cruel, barbaric, behavior adapted as uncivilized Neanderthals that is so offensive now, most people (especially adults) refuse to be confronted with graphics of it and immaturely cover their ears and eyes and make loud noises to drown out the truth, or hostilely berate people when they share the truth; as if we have a right to shun personal responsibility and remain ignorant of and sheltered from the consequences of our behavior. If graphic slaughterhouse commercials were allowed to run as often as the cultural programming for fast food and pharmaceutical commercials, the public would most likely be vitally healthy vegans instead of the disease ridden, pill popping, depressed and disengaged population it is today. The veil of deception and societal ignorance is being eroded by a committed group of citizens now numbering in the millions (including well known societal icons) to expose the reality of our food. The USDA is seeing the effects of this in decreases in sales of these inhumane products and a substantial market demand increase toward plant-based alternatives. This isn’t a fad; it is a trend of an informed public who has a conscience or at least enough self-interest not to destroy itself. This should be the foreshadowing of the economic futility and ultimate death of animal exploitation and abysmal failing of what is morally and ethically right towards other sentient beings; fellow earthlings, that deserve to live free from all methods of human supremacy and exploitation. The only thing that allows us to treat them the way we do is to justify their subjugation and exploitation through a concept defined as speciesism. Although this term or concept may not be recognized or understood by the current prevailing numbers of society, in this age of information, people are rapidly becoming aware of it, and society’s behavior shifts are supporting this. Just as sexism is ethically inconsistent, or racism is ethically inconsistent; speciesism is ethically inconsistent. “Animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites, or women created for men.” – Alice Walker. This alone, is so ethically and morally reprehensible that by its own merit trumps: preference, culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction.
2) THE LEADING CAUSE OF air/water and soil pollution and environmentally unsustainable travesty rapidly accelerating biodiversity extinction to the loss of 20,000 species a YEAR via; rain-forest annihilation, ocean dead zones, desertification, erosion, over-harvesting and climate change. Rueter’s Reported in 2007 that at the current rates of exploitation, our ocean’s biodiversity will totally collapse by 2048. Similar studies have proven to be wrong- it usually happens sooner than predicted. Since those statistics were stated, additional catastrophic pressures have occurred: BP Gulf Disaster, and the Fukushima Diiachi core meltdown that has yet to contained, and continues spewing nuclear waste particles into the atmosphere and ocean, unabated. Reports state that it will be over a decade before the Japanese can get this travesty under control! Meanwhile, all species are being slowly, cumulatively, irradiated. This toxic energy waste, which I will point out, is needed predominantly to support the total inefficiency of a social infrastructure based on animal use. The majority of fossil fuels are used to produce the billions of gallons of petroleum based fertilizers, pesticides, larvicides, fungicides, herbicides etc., to produce the majority of our crops in addition to the actual toxic excrement of 10 billion “livestock” pumped full of chemicals (antibiotics, growth hormones etc.) annually. This alone, is so ethically and morally reprehensible that by its own merit trumps: preference, culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction.
3) The LEADING contributor to the top 15 chronic diseases that kill Americans; Heart Disease, Cancer, Stroke, Diabetes and a myriad of others. http://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-causes-of-death/ This is what happens when natural herbivores cavalierly behave (or are forced- think Mad Cow and other brain wasting diseases that herbivores fed animal protein get) as if they are omnivores. http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html
If mankind had truly evolved to eat animals, we wouldn’t get degenerative diseases from eating them. People are discovering as medical research advancements continue to prove, that humans can thrive and are healthier eating an organic, whole-foods, plant-based diet; animal products are not necessary for dietary excellence. We have degenerated to using steroids, antibiotics, hormones, irradiation, spraying bacterial viruses, dyes, pasteurizing, homogenizing and requiring the cooking of to destroy the blood, pus and fecal matter enough to make it palatable, appetizing and supposedly safe for consumption. Vegans, and any intelligent individual should, recognize this is NOT NATURAL or SAFE!!! Animal product consumption is the leading cause of human exposure to toxic biomagnification levels of a post industrialization society with over 80,000 toxic chemicals being introduced into our environment! Does this not enrage you? Read “The China Study” or “Whole” by T. Collin Campbell or “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” by Caldwell Esselstyn or “Dr. Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes” by Neal Barnard. Total disinformation is what happens when the country’s governmental organizations are corrupted by corporations and our educational institutions have disconnected control over content. Why does the College of Agriculture run the Human Nutrition programs instead of the College of Human Health Sciences? Can you see the screaming conflict of interest? Telling people these products are nutritious with so much evidence to the contrary and the consequential human and animal suffering. This alone is so ethically and morally reprehensible that by its own merit, trumps: preference, culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction.
4) A Serious NATIONAL SECURITY RISK – Failed states do not increase global or national security. We may have failed states in our own nation in the nearing decade if we do not change our practices today. What is our contingency plan for massive immigration into water rich states when water resources dry up in neighboring states tomorrow due to negligence of our policy makers today? Do our resources, disaster preparedness and ethical laws need a serious review and expedited update to account for this? Will Americans be faced with the ethical dilemma of being called into military service to defend the state against other Americans or perhaps Canadians in the fight for potable water resources? How many wars will be waged over this resource? Americans account for 5% of the world’s population and it is well documented that we consume over 25% of the world’s resources. If the world ate and lived as Americans, it would take the resources of 5 earths. This creates an aggressive culture in which we dominate other nations to get their resources, as so clearly implicated in the war with Iraq for control of oil and minerals. It is a national security issue that is completely avoidable. The sooner Americans stop living lives that require our political meddling and control of other counties and living within our means, the safer we will be as a world and a country. Read “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins or “Interventions” by Noam Chompsky or “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire” by Gore Vidal if you doubt me. This alone is so ethically and morally reprehensible that by its own merit trumps: preference, culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction.
5) Grossly contributes to economic failure, quality of life (due to all the costs and subsidization) environmental damages, researching and treating diseases associated with it. Society is reaching a tipping point towards recognizing how pernicious and pervasive this practice of “livestock” production really is. The Department of Agriculture, state policy makers, and federal government leaders should stop wasting time, effort and resources trying to cling to bad behaviors (slaughter) and a woefully inadequate job of engineering (CAFOs & GMOs) a way around this, while putrefying our environment and attempting to stave off animal rights activists with liberty killing tactics such as: Veggie Libel Laws, Food Disparagement Laws, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and now the AG-GAG laws which have made capturing the violations on film as an undercover investigator a felony offense. Our leaders ought to have the vision to see the path of social justice for all, and should instead be; using all resources available in planning our exit strategy from this catastrophic behavior, phasing these practices out and phasing in green energy and highly lucrative plant based agriculture initiatives such as legalizing and farming industrial grade hemp which can make upwards of 1500 different textiles and is a booming industry for nutritional protein/omega 3/6 amino acids and cosmetics or research and the development of Algal bio-fuels. Ohio, a presently decomposing and polluting rust belt manufacturing state, could be revitalized into a thriving golden greenbelt state if we invested in local companies like Univenture in Marysville, Ohio, that could produce over 39 billion dollars of oil on a mere 3% of our agricultural lands and create 79,000 “green collar” jobs and stop paying for OPEC’s foreign oil. WHY are we not doing this? WHY are we killing senselessly, polluting our home and causing wars??? This alone is so ethically and morally reprehensible that by its own merit trumps: preference, culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction.
6) Does America want to be on the leading edge of progress or suffer economically failing before it sees the benefits of phasing out this barbaric throwback? In a time of the state’s, nation’s and world’s economic crisis (this was originally written in 2009 immediately following the global financial collapse), our leadership needs to be coming up with solutions that save money and create economic stability; not continuing a failing technology that has been weighed, measured and found extremely wanting by respected scientific and agricultural research agency studies! The nation’s financial pressures from litigation and regulatory spending, enforcement, health care funds can be better spent and remarkably reduced if we abolished all animal exploitation operations in the country and didn’t have to regulate enforcement of them. I, and I believe if Americans were educated on the matter, that they would also happily approve the subsidizing of grant or loan processes for the decommissioning and retrofitting of those facilities and the sanctuary care of the refugees of this process, cross training the farmers, and implementation for all farmers who are currently using animals in their agribusiness platform to green energy and plant based technologies and plant-based versions of their favorite formerly animal derived products. This investment would pay for itself within a few short years and catapult our state’s sustainability and economic growth prospects. I know this is a radical proposal, yet it makes sense and will succeed by educating the public at large of its value. Preference, culture, tradition, habit, addictions, ignorance, or corporate interests are not acceptable options to continue this unnecessary practice and ignore the facts of our grave situation as described above. We could be the first country in the world to ban and transition any and all CAFO and animal farms. That is something to be proud of. I was an animal-based diet eating American who loved our food and the culture I was raised on until I got an education and discovered the numerous facts above that compelled me to go vegan and discover what can be a “plant-strong” diet. It is the only choice that is consistently humane and ethical. As with the concept of accepting wind mills and solar panels as things of beauty instead of eye sores, the concept that our animal-based diet and culture is one of privilege and affluence, must be redefined and recognized for what it truly is; catastrophic, unsustainable, unhealthy, inhumane and must, as Albert Einstein recognized more than 60 years ago “evolve to a vegetarian (plant-based/vegan) diet.” A vegan shift must be done with the speed tantamount to a war effort mobilization and unlike so many green energy improvements such as hybrid vehicles, solar panel modifications or weatherization projects; it is one thing everyone can afford to do, TODAY, starting with their next meal. I have faith that Americans, once provided the facts behind this suggestion, can do as I did, and overcome the habit of eating animal products by showing their palate some adventure and discovering the abundance of delicious and alternative foods they never knew existed that are available to them. This alone is so ethically and morally reprehensible that by its own merit trumps: preference, culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction.
7) There is overwhelming evidence that CAFO’s negatively affect the communities they move into; we want to move forward. America needs skilled jobs that promote economic gains, prosperity, pride and peace, not jobs that are classified/personified as “jobs American’s don’t want to do” or bring nothing but a day-in and day-out exposure to violence, oppression, respiratory illness, noxious odors, poor quality of life, polluted water and unscrupulous risks to climate change, our sustainable environment, public health and the workers personal safety (mentally and physically). We have long known our inspectors are spread too thin to adequately ensure public safety in this area of CAFO’s. We also know that they are often too cozy to regulate those they work alongside. The implications of this are: violations on health and humane slaughter standards go unheeded, undocumented, unprosecuted. We know this is happening. There is a reason that green houses have transparent glass walls and slaughterhouses and animal farms have obscuring steel and mortar walls. Both need sunlight to grow and thrive. It is okay to see what is done to grow plants, but what is done to the animals is so violent, horrible and disgusting it must be hidden? This alone is so ethically and morally reprehensible that by its own merit trumps: preference, culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction.
8) World Citizen & Individual Responsibility- Environmental degradation is a cumulative effect of the actions each one of us takes, therefore, the solution lies within each one of us. Eating is a fundamental behavior that should be recognized as one of the single most, far reaching, and negative impacts that threatens sustainable life on earth. We are global citizens: we must consider our impacts outside ourselves. The self-centered “personal freedom of choice” or “to each his own preference” days are gone, and are now trumped by the informed ethics of personal responsibility. As the nation leading the world in carbon footprint /consumption per capita and leader of “The Free World”, Americans have a ethical obligation to lead the world as well in this way towards peace thru kindness to those at our mercy and environmental sustainability, vibrant health and well-being. There is no love, peace or compassion in unnecessary killing. We must “be the change we wish to see in the world,” if we do not recognize our hubris to cease and desist this barbaric behavior immediately, not only will we will go extinct, we will be primarily responsible for taking down 98% of all species; truly leaving the meek algae to inherit the earth and probably within the next 50 to 100 years. I can’t think of a more terribly moronic behavior for a species that fancies themselves as the most intelligent on the planet. This alone is so ethically and morally reprehensible that by its own merit trumps: preference, culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction.
9) As an animal lover who also was raised to eat animals and didn’t really contemplate or investigate where my “food” actually came from for the first 26 years of my life, I had conformed and mindlessly bought into the mantra of my culture; “That is their purpose- it is what they are bred and raised for”. It is one thing to be told animal products come from animals, it is another thing entirely to actually witness the processes involved on the level of seeing the oppression, torture and violent deaths that are inflicted on innocent fully sentient and conscious individuals in the animal harming known as “farming” system. When I did finally discover what was happening to the animals raised for “food”, I was so viscerally outraged and so emotionally pained by what I had witnessed, I screamed the most blood curdling, soul piercing, scream I have ever screamed and unabashedly wept into the abyss of despair. I raged “WHY DIDN’T MY TEACHERS, MY FAMILY, MY GOVERNMENT, SOMEBODY, ANYBODY TELL ME???? Had I known as a youth, I would have been vegan immediately. PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THE TRUTH! IF THIS ATROCITY WILL NOT SURVIVE BECAUSE OF AN INFORMED PUBLIC THEN IT SHOULD NOT CONTINUE TO BE INSIDIOUSLY FOISTED ON AN UNSUSPECTING PUBLIC AND DESERVES TO FAIL!!!!!” While I am haunted by what I have seen and often still weep, I’m now organized, galvanized and unstoppable in my odyssey to inform the masses of this global injustice. Hiding the facts behind this wretched industry that this alone is so ethically and morally reprehensible that by its own merit trumps: preference, culture, tradition, personal freedom, corporate interests, habit or addiction. I implore you to join us and making a rapid world vegan shift if you have not yet done so, for the people, for the planet, and for the animals.
Peace thru kindness to all beings.
Love life, Live Vegan!
References/Sources:
The Vegan Society: http://www.vegansociety.com/society/history
Jainsm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
The Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness: http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf
Flow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO2rPUkKGww
NYT Residue of Chemicals in Meat Leads to Debate on Hazards: http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/15/style/residue-of-chemicals-in-meat-leads-to-debate-on-hazards.html
Humans are Plant Eaters: http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report “Livestock’s Long Shadow”
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0701e/a0701e00.pdf
The World Watch Institute report “Livestock and Climate Change”
Click to access Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf
The Pew Charitable Trusts Commission and John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health- A Report of the PEW Commission Industrial Farm Animal Production: Putting Meat of the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America
A life Connected: http://veganvideo.org/
P4 (PPPP) Purpose, People, Planet, Probity (or Purity or Principles). http://www.businessballs.com/ethical_management_leadership.htm
Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death: http://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-causes-of-death/ Humans are Plant Eaters http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html
Water: http://h2opodcast.com/water3.html#mb