Let's Reverse Climate Change (but not just yet)

In January 1989 The Endangered Earthwas named planet of the year by Time magazine. The fact that the earth was important enough to bump the likes of Benazir Bhutto, Mike Dukakisand Margret Thatcher off the cover means this must have been an important issue. Senator Al Gore wrote the lead article entitled, What’s Wrong With Us? Good question Al. Anyone got an answer? Anyone?
Why would a supposedly rational species act in a way that assured destruction of the source of its life? Yet, here we are again 30 years later still trying to figure out how we can solve this issue with the least amount of inconvenience (remember The Inconvenient Truth?). We are faced with a huge conflict of interests and values. Many of us want to save the natural world and life on the planet but are conflicted when it means giving up a source of personal pleasure or cultural treasure. One of the best examples of this is our attitude regarding the use of animals as a food source.
Everyone has heard by now that eliminating meats, eggs and dairy from the diet is the biggest thing you can do to off-set environmental destruction. That is simply a fact. In the recently published book on environmental solutions, Drawdown, there were one hundred solutions put forward that could not only slow down but reverse global warming. Ten of the top 20 solutions had to do with food choices.
Statistics such as the number of showers you could take compared to the water used for cattle and the forests that could be saved by reducing crops grown for animal feed are difficult to dispute. The stark knowledge that we are killing off all life in the ocean due to the fishing industry and agricultural runoff is not a theory – it is a fact. That doesn’t even take into account for all the green-house gases you could nip in the bud by cutting out all those cow farts. You would think that everyone calling themselves an environmentalist would have cut out animal sourced foods by now. Sadly, not so.
Even seasoned ecologists and environmental warriors continue to dredge up fanciful justifications for animal eating. These pipe dreams embrace better “environmental designs” for cities, encouraging mixed use agriculture (when you hear the word “encouraging” run for the hills) or inspiring visions of hunter-gatherer “oneness with nature” (perhaps a drumming group in the nearest park). The goal of these enterprises in simply this – retreat into your head, make marginal personal changes and hope that someone fixes things. For people who love nature the heart is strangely absent.
The focus is still on maintaining human comfort. Just a short quote taken from The New Ecology, by Oswald J. Schmitz talking about the newest approaches to ecology:
“This fresh scientific role is certainly helping to overcome the human/nature divide by promoting the view that nature – biodiversity and ecosystem functions – must be protected to provide the suite of environmental services, inside as well as outside of protected areas, in support of humanity.”
The anthropocentric vision of nature that drives our destructive impulses is built into our proposed solutions. We cannot seem to locate the humility and compassion to admit that we are prolonging a catastrophe of our own making and killing non-human life in the process for no reason except our own pleasure.
To stop the wilful killing and torture and abuse of non-human life is not only a way to save the planet. It represents the acceptance of an ethic that is life affirming. It goes beyond the fine concepts of bio-diversity, conservation and stewardship and dives into the very spirit of our connectedness with nature. It is the only course of effective action that can be accomplished in an instant and makes a simple daily essential a statement of commitment. It brings the conversation home.
The world needs you - now.