Save our Planet

Come join us for a 2 minute ‘freeze’ on the 22nd of the 2nd month and be part of history at the “Be Veg, Go Green - Save the Planet” event.

Concerned about the current situation that our planet is facing, the Association members from the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association from over 20 countries are hosting a climate change event, “Be Veg, Go Green, Save the Planet,” on February 22, 2009. Countries that are hosting the event include Australia, Belgium, France, Chile, Argentina, Bulgaria, Mexico, New Zealand, Ireland, Indonesia, S. Korea, Costa Rica, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Colombia, Thailand, Togo, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Peru, and the United States.

The purpose is to bring awareness to the urgency of climate change and the number one solution to stop it in its track: Be Veg. Though similar in theme, each country has their own unique program for the day. One main activity that the “Be Veg, Go Green, Save the Planet” international campaign is the “2 Minutes to Change” activity.

Do something meaningful and fun on your Sunday. Join the event in your local area. Check out the website for more information, http://www.feb22event.com.

Photo by my friend, C.

Hurray! The Australians are jumping on board to fight climate change! According to this article, “Give up red meat, go green” , the Public Health Association of Australia is recommending that Australians lower their carbon emission by eating less meat. In fact, the organization advises less dairy, too:

“A small reduction in eating red meat and dairy would be a positive step for the environment and generally a positive step for health.”

Getting food locally is just not effective enough to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, according to Michael Moore, the association’s chief:

“Reducing the amount of food that comes from cattle would actually have a greater impact on the environment than sourcing (food) locally.”

The good news is, in light of the Public Health Association of Australia’s recommendation, the country’s dietary guidelines are under review by the National Health and Medical Research Council. Let us hope that Australia will honestly and rationally look at the scientific data and come to with the same conclusion like the city of Cincinnati in Ohio, USA. Perhaps this time, Australia will consider a national implementation of a climate action plan to promote a more environmentally friendly diet.

Photo by my friend, M.N.

At last, some good news! The city of Cincinnati in Ohio, USA, is doing what it is supposed to do, inform and advise its citizens about what is best for themselves and the planet: Eat more fruits and vegetables, cut back on the meat to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Kudos, Cincinnati, and thank you!

In October 2007, its City Council unanimously called for a climate action plan. That’s what we need in every city on the planet, a wise council that acts on behalf of the people. As a result, the Climate Protection Action Plan: Green Cincinnati Plan was developed and eventually passed in June 2008. The 212-page long action plan include a Climate Protection Food Task Team with the goal to reduce “consumption of meat in individual and institutional diets.” It cited scientific data from the United Nations report “Livestock’s Long Shadow”:

A 2006 report by the United Nations‘ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Livestock’s Long Shadow, found that the production of animals for food is responsible for over 18% of the planet‘s greenhouse gas emissions. This is more than twice that of the office buildings and homes (8%) and nearly 40% more than transportation emissions (13%). This figure represents 9% of the planetary carbon dioxide emissions, 37% of the methane (mostly from livestock flatulence and waste matter) and 65% of the nitrous oxide; the latter two gases having 23 times and 296 times the global warming potentials of CO2.

The report concluded “The livestock sector emerges as one of the… most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global” and finds it must become a major policy focus.

The city really did its homework. The action plan cited the results of an earlier study done by the University of Chicago - Diet, Energy and Global Warming:

…the added burden of meat diets above plant based diets accounts for 6% of US total greenhouse gas emissions. The Standard American Diet (SAD), of which around 28% of the caloric intake is derived from meat, produced 1.485 metric tons CO2 equivalent emissions (per person per year) more than an all plant based diet (a conservative figure). A red meat eater’s mean diet increased this number to 2.52 tons CO2e. This is the equivalent difference between driving a sedan (Camry) and an SUV. A diet of just 20% meat produced an added GHG burden of 1 ton CO2e per person annually; this is the difference between a year of driving a standard sedan (Camry) and the highest efficiency hybrid (Prius).

With 80% of annual world deforestation connected to animal agriculture, an area the size of a football field is razed every second, a practice which has been termed “the ‘hamburgerization’ of our forests”. A single SAD meal levels 55 square feet of rain forest.

“Hamburgerization of our forests”. That’s food for thought. As we can see from an earlier post, countries such as Brazil do not really care and continue to raze down forests to increase beef production. Fortunately, there are cities that are paying attention and take the threat of climate change seriously.

Admirably, the city came up with some great suggestions to be more green:

A public campaign to educate Cincinnatians about the environmental (and specifically the planetary warming) consequences of meat consumption. “Fight Global Warming, One Bite at a Time” or “Cooling the Earth… with my Fork!”

The Green Cincinnati plan provides over 80 recommendations for specific changes to reduce the city’s carbon footprint. Part of the action plan includes bringing the information into schools and educating parents, less meat provided by the school cafeterias, and (I like this one) one meat free day a week with vegetarian or vegan options every other day. Fresh fruits and vegetables will be more readily available. Detention centers will also have a similar menu. It doesn’t just stop there. The city plans to encourage privately owned institutions - hospitals, sport facilities, restaurants - to do the same. Hats off to the wise City Council of Cincinnati!

Source: The Independent

While the oceans are stressed, the ice melts in the North and South poles, the rivers and the sky polluted with methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide, the human race continue to irresponsibly pillage the Earth to satisfy its insatiable appetite.

How can we not hear the moans of Mother Nature? Why can we not see the signs of warning from the planet? Why do we persist to deny that our planet is in peril and heedlessly continue our apathetic and irresponsible actions?

Despite the alarms sounded by the world’s scientists, some countries still do not care enough to act on their advice to reduce carbon emissions. Less than a week ago, an article by the Independent in the United Kingdom reported Brazil is razing the Amazon rainforest to raise more cattle. The Brazilian government doesn’t give a fig about the environment.

The South American country has the world’s largest cattle herd and is already the biggest beef exporter on the planet. Now the Brazilian government is seeking to boost its share of the world beef market from 30 per cent to 60 per cent in the next decade.

How can Brazil fulfill its pledge to reduce deforestation as part of the country’s plan to curb climate change? It is the opposite! The country is already the fourth biggest greenhouse gas emitter!

Brazil gives lie to its promise to take action on climate change. Instead, it is making the situation worse. The Brazilian government is destroying trees instead of planting more trees. By burning up trees, the carbon dioxide stored in the trees are released into the atmosphere. On top of that, they’re doubling the number of livestock, pinpointed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as the number one contributor of greenhouse gas.

This is mind boggling! Why do we do this? Why can’t we behave more responsibly for the sake of everyone else on the planet? Why can’t we think beyond our consumption habits for the good of mankind? No one die from eating less meat. In fact, we won’t die from not eating meat. The ancient Desert Fathers proved it. They lived on a vegan diet of figs, bread, and water, sometimes just herbs and water. The ascetic Christian saints of the past like Saint Anthony, Saint Hilarion, and many others have proved it. The Buddha, Guru Nanak, Kabir, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, the Orphics, the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Sufis, and many others have proven it.

If climate change isn’t stop, there will be untold sufferings when Mother Nature finally released the stress put upon her by the activities of humankind. The governments need to be more responsible. Brazil needs to clean up its act! Each of us can do our part to help, and it begins with our food choices.

We’re polluting our air, we’re polluting our oceans and we haven’t done enough to stop it. It’s not really our fault because we didn’t know, but still that’s no excuse to be apathetic about the pitiful state we’ve driven our planet into. Every day millions of tons of carbon dioxide get absorbed by oceans around the world, making them more acidic. We may not see it but marine life is dying. To compound the problem, up to 100 million tons of nitrogen from human activities are washed away into rivers and seas annually. This explosion of nutrients caused huge growths of algae, which consumed an enormous amount of the oxygen. As a result, other marine life perished and vast areas of the oceans turned into what we call “dead zones.”

In an article published by BBC News in March 2004 reported the conclusion from a team of scientists at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science:

“The history and pattern of human disturbance in terrestrial, aquatic, coastal and oceanic ecosystems have brought us to a point at which oxygen depletion is likely to become the keystone impact for the 21st Century…”

Where is all this nitrogen coming from? They come from nitrogen-enriched fertilizers, the burning of fossil fuels, forests and grasslands, and the draining of wetlands.

Currently, there are dead zones all over the world: in the US, the Baltic Sea, Black Seas, parts of the Adriatic, South America, Japan, China, Australia, and New Zealand.

Source: National Geographic 

If we don’t take action now, it’s not just the fish and other marine life that will suffer, human beings will also be gravely impacted. We are destroying our potential natural sources of medicine.

Source: BBC News

Yet, we still don’t pay attention. In 2005, scientists sounded another alarm:

Marine species are under threat from rising levels of acidity in the oceans, says the UK’s Royal Society.

Unless carbon dioxide emissions are cut, there could be irreversible damage to ecosystems, it warns.

It has gotten to the point where oceanic acidity is irreversible in our lifetime. The news is not good. It’s a vicious cycle. As the oceans become more acidic, their ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide is reduced, and as the level of carbon dioxide increases, the rate global warming is accelerated.

Dr Carol Turley of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory said that ocean acidification is a “sister” problem to that of climate change.

Many of us still do not believe climate change is a reality. How much more evidence do we need before we are convinced that denying the climate problems we face today will only serve to harm us in the very near future?

Less than a week ago, on January 30, 2009, another report has been released and it’s serious: Acid oceans ‘need urgent action’. Over 150 top marine scientists at The Ocean in a High CO2 World symposium are worried:

“We scientists who met in Monaco to review what is known about ocean acidification declare that we are deeply concerned by recent, rapid changes in ocean chemistry and their potential, within decades, to severely affect marine organisms, food webs, biodiversity…”

They’re calling for government action before it’s too late to “avoid not only dangerous climate change but also dangerous ocean acidification”. It’s a good thing that Monaco’s Prince Albert II is supportive of implementing policy changes and encouraging heads of states help reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

“I strongly support this declaration. I hope that it will be heard by all the political leaders meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009.”

We cannot pretend that climate change is a myth. We cannot continue to deny that it’s a gimmick cooked up by crooked politicians to put a tax on carbon. We need to face the facts and do our part to help save ourselves and our kids. Every single one of us can do it. We can reduce our carbon footprint by being more green, choose organic to reduce the needs for fertilizer, and reduce our meat consumption. The production of meat from factory farms has been clearly cited by the United Nation’s report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, as being the number one cause of greenhouse gas emissions. These are the little things which we can do, but the constructive impact to the planet is enormous. Be a hero, choose vegetarian or vegan when you go out to eat next time.

Photo by my friend, C.

Climate change didn’t just happen overnight. The signs were there but many of us were too busy with our life, dealing with our own personal struggles to think about something as abstract as global warming and global cooling. Since 2003, scientists have already sounded the alarm. Something was going on with the oceans. Check out this article dated on September 24, 2003 published by BBC News: Oceans becoming more acidic:

The world’s oceans are slowly getting more acidic, say scientists.

It didn’t happen naturally. Mankind has a lot to do with it. The way we live our life is leading us down an environmentally destructive path that will eventually brings catastrophe on our heads if we don’t heed the warning signs of a over-stressed planet.

“This level of acidity will get much more extreme in the future if we continue releasing CO2 into the atmosphere,” said Dr Caldeira.

“And we predicted amounts of future acidity that exceed anything we saw over the last several hundred million years, apart from perhaps after rare catastrophic events such as asteroid impacts.”

The day before, on September 23, 2003, BBC News reported on another sign of distress from the planet, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, the largest ice shelf in the Arctic, has broken up into 2 pieces after 30 years of decline.

The huge mass of floating ice, which has been in place for at least 3,000 years, is now in two major pieces.

The scientists who report the break-up in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) say it is further evidence of ongoing and accelerated climate change in the northern polar region.

Climate change happens as far back as almost 40 years ago. We didn’t heed the scientists words back then, and the state of our planet continues to decline. About a year later, the acidity of the oceans caused much concerns and prompted the Royal Society in the United Kingdom to take action:

The UK’s Royal Society has launched an investigation into the rising acidity of the world’s oceans due to pollution from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

According to the BBC News article on August 17, 2004, the most of the carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere ends up being absorbed by the oceans. Through a chemical reaction, it forms carbonic acid and thus caused the oceans to become more acidic as the absorb more and more carbon dioxide.

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission reports that some 20-25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are being added to the oceans each day.

Researchers believe such dramatic changes in the carbon dioxide system in surface waters have not been observed for more than 20 million years of Earth history.

Why is this even important? It’s important because it could completely devastate marine ecosystems. All forms of marine life - corals, sea creatures, planktons, fish - will be altered and perhaps destroyed forever.

According to research by Christopher Sabine of the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the ocean has taken up approximately 120 billion metric tonnes of carbon generated by human activities since 1800.

The number is so huge, I can’t even imagine it. And it’s not getting any better. We haven’t done much to slow down the emissions. In fact, it’s the other way around. Oblivious to the cries of the oceans, we continue to pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.

Source: Sierra Club

An article published this week on the BBC website reported on some grim news: Global warming is irreversible. This news was based on a report by a team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Colorado, USA. According to the scientists, if we don’t do something now, if governments around the world do not take action, then the effects of climate destabilization would be detrimental to life on the planet.

The team warned that, if carbon levels in the atmosphere continued to rise, there would be less rainfall in already dry areas of southern Europe, North America, parts of Africa and Australia.

The scientists say the oceans are currently slowing down global warming by absorbing heat, but they will eventually release that heat back into the air.

It’s now up to the governments to implement policy changes to steer our planet from the disastrous course that we’re heading into. It’s no longer a matter of each individual country. We have to work together to prevent this global crisis.

According to the scientists, many of the effects of climate change are irreversible. There are ways that we can stop climate destabilization, but the single most effective and quickest one is to stop greenhouse gas emissions from the raising of livestock. The effect would be immediate, where as everything else takes years for the planet to recover. If we just reduce the greenhouse gas immediately, then that’s already more than half the battle won.

Source: chooseveg.com

More than just polluting the air with greenhouse emissions, factory farms are environmental hazards. The Sierra Club posted this on their site:

America’s drinking water, rivers and lakes are at risk from giant, corporate-owned factory farms. Animal feeding operations, many of which confine thousands of animals in facilities, produce staggering amounts of animal waste — 500 million tons per year. Too often, this waste leaks into our rivers and streams, fouling our air, contaminating our drinking water and spreading disease. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, hog, chicken and cattle waste has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states.

The governments can help. We can help. We can do this. Choose a more green diet. Try going vegan a few times a week. This is a battle that all of us need to be a part of because each of us can contribute greatly to the mitigation of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide if we choose to be more conscious of what we eat.

Photo by my friend M.N.