Go Dharmic
Thank you for not eating us, and thank you for eating with us. At COP26 we will be serving up a range of delicious food that is both vegan and healthy....
03 May, 2021 / No comment
It’s time to address the cow in the room.
Methane.
I can’t help myself.
‘It’s not my fault, it’s yours. I naturally emit methane from both ends and always will. The real problem is the sheer number of us cows that you’ve put on the planet just to make your burgers. A billion cows, at least. That’s a lot of methane. You’re putting us in an impossible situation, if you weren’t intensively farming us animals, forcing us to over-graze and destroy plant life, the saved vegetation would sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, re-wild the planet and reverse climate change. Animal agriculture is the cow in the room, it’s time to address it. Now.’
If grazing lands were restored to forests, that could suck up the CO2 from all our fossil fuel emissions.
Bird flu.
I didn’t deserve it.
‘And now you’re going to catch it. Avian flu is a zoonotic infection with a natural reservoir almost entirely in us birds. By keeping us inhumanely crammed in cages in our thousands you encourage flu outbreaks and massive culls. And the worse news is that strains of avian flu are now mutating to become easily transmissible between humans. A new pandemic may soon be inevitable, but it’s also avoidable. Stop farming us and stop eating us.’
In November 2020, 2.2 billion chickens died or were slaughtered to contain bird flu.
Microplastics.
I can’t swallow
any more.
‘And neither can you. Microplastics are solid plastic particles smaller than 5mm. Once in the sea, they don’t biodegrade so I end up eating them, even though I don’t want to. And then you eat them when you eat me. Exposure to microplastics in laboratory studies has been linked to a range of negative (eco)toxic and physical effects on living organisms. So stop dumping microplastics in the sea and stop eating me.’
We catch and kill 1 to 3 trillion sea animals every year
Obesity.
I’m not greedy.
‘But you are. I keep to a normal weight if left alone, but you farm me intensively – over 110 million tons every year. Factory farming crams us in and we are made to eat so much we can barely walk, even if we had the room to walk at all. We’re fed on hormones to make us fat, fast. And when you eat me, you grow obese on all that I’ve been made to eat. Stop being greedy, stop eating me.’
Obesity-related conditions are some of the leading causes of preventable, premature deaths in humans.
What’s happening at Cop 26
From food for the soul and stomach to food for the mind, all across Cop 26 there will be plenty to sink your teeth into. Vegan food trucks, inspiring speakers, film screenings, interactive debates and more.
How you can help us
We’re all in this together. Find out more about the many ways you can get involved and help make a difference....
11 May, 2021 / No comment
Our speakers at the COP26
FInd out who will be there and where they will be speaking. Check out the provisional list of speakers and their appearance schedules....
11 May, 2021 / No comment
Take it from us animals, your creative accounting, bad maths and simple lies have so far obscured the truth that you need to grasp.
Renewable energy and exhaust-free transportation are great, and should be encouraged, but they won’t begin to solve our climate crisis. You can no longer ignore the true cause of climate change. and we can’t let you.
Animal Agriculture.
Save all our lives – us animals and you humans. Here are five crucial facts we want you to act on.
1. Animal Agriculture is responsible for at least 87% of annual greenhouse gas emissions when opportunity costs are taken into account.
2. Every year you choose to continue consuming animals, you are choosing not to rewild the planet on the 37% of ice-free land that is currently used for grazing animals. This is the opportunity cost of animal agriculture.
3. The planet is being destroyed by both the Killing machine of animal agriculture and the Burning machine of fossil fuels and industry.
4. The safest way to shut down these two machines is to shut down the Killing machine as soon as possible and transition the Burning machine to clean energy at the rate of 11% per year over the next 9 years.
5. It is a waste of our precious remaining time for you to slowly move to clean energy whilst not tackling the Killing machine, which needs your immediate attention. You need to urgently change your priorities in order to be effective.
The Climate Healers position paper, Animal Agriculture is the Leading Cause of Climate Change, has just been peer-reviewed and published by the Journal of Ecological Society in volume 32 in the 2021 issue. This paper establishes the scientific basis for concluding that animal agriculture is responsible for at least 87% of greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2006, the U.N.’s report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, estimated that animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. Then, in 2009, the World Watch Institute report, authored by two respected World Bank Environmental Assessment (EA) specialists revised that estimation, saying animal agriculture is responsible for at least 51% of greenhouse gas emissions. Now, this latest assessment revises it further.
What accounts for these widely divergent estimates? It comes down to how the calculation is made. Prior calculations failed to include the negative impact of forests lost to animal agriculture. Almost half of all ice-free land is used, in some way, for animal agriculture, either for grazing or to grow crops to feed the eighty billion animals raised and slaughtered for food yearly. Those destroyed forests are no longer storing and absorbing carbon dioxide, which is the primary gas heating the planet. The key point is that trees store carbon dioxide, or CO2. By eliminating trees, carbon dioxide increases in the earth’s atmosphere. This key fact is not being properly accounted for in the calculations that are widely accepted by governments, NGO’s, private industry and the media. For more, please watch this video by Gerard Bisshop or this video by Vegan Evan.
The people we are proud to have along side us
A big thank you from all us animals to the people who speak out and speak up for us and for you too.
Alec Bosse
Director
Plant-Based World Media
Alyssa Berris
Executive Director
Vegan Option Canada
Dr. Amir Kassam
Professor Amir Kassam OBE
FRSB, CBiol, PhD, MS, BSc (Hons)
Anita Krajnc
Executive Director
Animal Save Movement
Arvin Paranjpe
Executive Director
United in Heart
Rev. Chef Beth Love
Founder
Eat for the Earth
Christopher Eubanks
Founder
Animal Protection Equality Intersectionality (APEX ADVOCACY)
Colleen Burns
Director
Plant-Based (R)evolution
Connie Kennair
Darlene Levesque
Executive Director
Nation Rising
David Jenkins
University of Toronto
Canada
Élise Desaulniers
Executive Director
Montreal SPCA
Ella Heyder
François Jaquet
Centre de recherche en éthique
Montréal, Canada
Gwenna Hunter
Founder
Vegans for Black Lives Matter
Dr. Howard Nye
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta
Jane Tredgett
Founder
Humane Being
Jenny Henry,
Co-Founder
Nation Rising
Jenny McQueen
Animal rights activist
Animal Rights Toronto
Jonathan Grill
M.D., C.M, CCFP
New York
Jonathan Leighton
Executive Director
Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering (OPIS)
Jordan Reichert
Deputy Leader
Animal Protection Party of Canada
Dr. Kathleen Kevany
Associate Professor
Dalhousie University, Faculty of Agriculture, Truro, Nova Scotia
Dr. Keval Shah
Bachelor of Dental Surgery
Scrap Factory Farming
Marilyn Kroplick
Leader
In Defense of Animals
Naomi A. Halloum
Managing Director
Million Dollar Vegan
Nicolas Treich
Economist
Rob McNeil
Director
Eating Animals Causes Pandemics (EACP)
Dr. Robert C. Jones
Associate Professor of Philosophy
California State University
Dr Sailesh Rao
Founder and Executive Director
Climate Healers
Dr Shireen Kassam
Consultant Haematologist and Lifestyle Medicine Physician
Plant-Based Health Professionals UK
Sorin Ionescu
North America Liaison
Animal Rebellion Turtle Island
Stephanie Cabovianco
Campaigner & Coordinator
Climate Save Movement
Stephanie Gravel
Co-organizer
Calgary Animal Save
Sue Donaldson
Department of Philosophy
Queen’s University
Sue Spahr
Founder and Co-Host
Calling All Vegans
Dr. Tushar Mehta
Founder
Plant Based Data
Valerie Trew
Director
Child Care and Learning Centre
Yves Bonnardel
Founding member
Cahiers antispécistes and Veggie Pride
Dr. Zahra Kassam
MBBS MSc FRCPC DipABLM
Oncologist, Assistant Professor University of Toronto