Ten Days, Fourteen States and 3,100 miles
A nostalgic road trip that sparked revelations for survival
SOS #156 -- J. Morris Hicks -- (5-3-22)
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Last month, to escape part of the cold mud season in New England -- we decided to make what is likely to be my final visit to the land of my roots in Tennessee (where I was born), Mississippi (where I grew up), Alabama, where I graduated from Auburn University and in Georgia, where I started my career.
On days 3 and 4 of the trip, we enjoyed two segments of the beautiful Natchez Trace Parkway -- one in Tennessee and one in Mississippi. Too bad, we humans don't take care of the entire planet the way the good folks in Tennessee and Mississippi take care of this national treasure.
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My last time in Mississippi was almost thirty years ago -- for my 30th high school reunion in Greenville, a medium sized town on the Mississippi River. Much has changed in my hometown over the years and it was depressing for me to see.
So I choose to remember Greenville as it looked about fifty years ago, pictured here:
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On the plus side, there is one part of downtown that is even better than I remembered -- the levee that protects the entire Mississippi delta region from flooding.
Sitting atop that levee is my Subaru with the green Vermont 4Leaf plate -- next to the parking lot serving the lone remaining floating casino in town.
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So what about those revelations in the title? Since I left Mississippi sixty-two years ago, a lot has happened on our favorite planet. For starters, the global population has almost tripled from three billion to the nearly eight billion that we have today.
Since then, we have learned that our planet is only capable of supporting about one billion people for the long term -- if everyone were living the highly wasteful and destructive American lifestyle. Sadly, global and national leaders don't understand that pearl of information, nor do they want to understand it.
After all, those leaders are all expected to keep the economy growing -- regardless of what that means for the future of today's children. We all know that if the economy suffers -- that our leaders will not get re-elected -- even if they are successful at slowing or reversing climate change. But of course that won't happen, since hardly any of them are even talking about it.
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Revelation #1 Runaway Economic Growth
We never connect the dots between economic growth and laying the
foundation for a sustainable future
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To put it simply, our overall system of government, along with our insatiable economy - do not encourage us to take the appropriate steps when it comes to nurturing the environment which is so crucial to the future of of human life on Earth.
The image below represents the current state of the economy -- and the trucking industry is well represented. While I did not take this particular photo on our trip, I saw scores of scenes like this one in every state that we visited.
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Especially at the rest stops on the interstate highways, there are literally hundreds of trucks.
Scenes like the one above got me thinking about our nation's economy and what has happened to it in the last twenty-five years since giant companies like Amazon began taking over the production and distribution of way too much "stuff" all over the world.
Don't get me wrong; I am not blaming Amazon. They're just playing by the rules of the economy that is based on the maximization of the consumption of "stuff" in a world of finite resources.
Unlike the days of my youth in Mississippi when there was a lot of local manufacturing and distribution -- nowadays we have an entirely new ballgame:
- The average home is much bigger and requires more furniture and gadgets to meet the ever-increasing demands of the typical consumer.
- People eat out much more frequently -- and most often they choose the fast food restaurants that feature food that is a disaster for both human and environmental health.
- All of those trucks on the freeway are necessary in order to keep this politically necessary economy humming.
- Making matters worse, we now have a steadily escalating war in Europe -- that has led to a hefty spike in the price of fuel for most automobiles/trucks in the world.
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Revelation #2 re Climate Change
Most heads of state in the world are likely not even aware of its leading driver -- and they spend little time worrying about it.
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Let's face it. With all of the economic and political disruptions taking place at a time when Noam Chomsky is telling us that we've never been this close to midnight on the doomsday clock -- there is simply no way of knowing if the G20 nation's leaders are spending ANY time worrying about climate change. |
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Speaking of Noam Chomsky, now at age 93, it's hard for me to believe that one of the smartest, best educated and most informed persons on this planet can talk for a full hour regarding survival issues like nuclear war and climate change -- and not mention a single word about the #1 driver of the latter. Click his image to watch his April, 2022, one hour video.
Is it possible that he, along with most world leaders, could actually be ignorant of the fact that animal agriculture is the leading driver of climate change and the fact that moving too rapidly to lower GHG emissions could promote even more rapid climate change in the near term due to a not-so-well-known phenomenon known as global dimming?
Click on this image to read the piece entitled What is Global Dimming? (also known as the aerosol masking effect)
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A far superior strategy would be to first take steps to drastically reduce animal agriculture in order to hit the pause button on global warming; then later, to gradually bring fossil fuel emissions down to zero.
On a brighter note. On Day 4 of our road trip, we visited with a friend in Mississippi, Benjy, who was my classmate from 1951 to 1960. In recent years, he launched and now manages the Greenville History Museum near the levee, where we paid him a visit. When I sent him a thank-you note for his hospitality, I attached a pdf copy of our 2020 book Outcry and mentioned the fact that it contains several personal anecdotes from Greenville in Chapter Two.
- Jim, Glad to see you made it home safely and it was great to see you and meet Justine. Thanks for the book and I will definitely check it out. I am one of very few folks here that give any credibility to the climate situation.Y'all take care. Benjy
There you have it. Hardly anyone in Mississippi, and many other states, is even aware that climate change is happening -- much less knows anything about the deadly threat it poses to the future of humanity.
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Revelation #3 re Sustainability
People are oblivious to our unsustainable way of living in the modern world
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While driving those 3,100 miles and watching all those trucks, I had a lot of time to think about our future and our prospects for someday learning to live in harmony with nature.
None of our elected leaders and/or dictators in any of the 195 countries are even talking about the need for all of us to get real serious about totally re-designing and replacing our grossly unsustainable way of living in the developed world. Furthermore, it's likely to get much worse in the next few decades -- as the people in the emerging nations aspire to live like we do in the more prosperous nations.
Here's an image of just how inefficiently we are living the Great American Dream. The only way this system of living could be more harmful to the environment is if each of the homes below were sitting on much larger lots.
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In addition to all of our many sustainability issues, we continue to add more than six million mouths to feed every month in a world where the world's most prosperous and most influential nation (the USA) seems to be hellbent on outlawing birth control.
To be sure, we need to completely re-think our entire way of living in the developed world and we must develop a solution that will be acceptable to Mother Nature. That's exactly what we tried to do in our 2020 book, OUTCRY.
Chapter Seven in that book begins with this quote about the need for a vision.
“If you don’t have a vision, you’re going to be stuck in what you know. And the only thing you know is what you’ve already seen.” — Iyanla Vanzant
We love the above quotation, especially the last line about only knowing what you’ve already seen. The problem is that what we’ve already seen cannot be sustained by our ecosystem. How much greener must we live to survive? How close are we to living sustainably now?
We strive to answer some of those questions in Chapter 7
Click image below for a free look at that chapter.
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To my knowledge, OUTCRY is the only book ever published that features a summary of the "outcries" from the natural world, consensus conclusions of nine “big picture scientists" about our dilemma — AND an envisioned sustainable civilization of the future (using today’s technology).
If you're really serious about doing your best to provide a truly sustainable future for your children, you should get the entire e-book for seven bucks on Amazon -- and start talking about this most serious of all topics with your friends and family.
Actions begin with conversations -- and I know of very few people who are actually talking about the unprecedented environmental dilemma in which we find ourselves.
Once folks learn enough about our collective dilemma, it's really very simple relative to what we must do. But will we? So far, it's not looking very likely. Check out my final revelation from our eight-day road trip...
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Revelation #4: Only One Viable Solution!
Eat Plants & Eliminate Animal Agriculture ASAP
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My colleagues, Dr. Sailesh Rao, Glen Merzer and I are all near certain that our ONLY safe pathway to sustainability is a rapid shift toward plant-based eating -- all over the world.
I encourage you to take a serious look at the information behind that link. Specifically, you should watch a video therein about how humans unknowingly slowed down cooling of the Earth to prevent the next ice age. For your convenience, you can watch that 2018 video on YouTube by clicking here.
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Fast-forward to 2022. We humans are now smart enough to understand how to manage the warming and cooling of our planet in the future. But our leaders of today are not taking that crucial step -- and few of our narrowly-focused environmental scientists fully understand the entire "big picture" about what is happening.
Most of them do not understand that the key to our way out of this situation is the rapid elimination of animal agriculture -- which is the only step we can take that will result in a fairly rapid cooling of the planet.
The alarming chart below illustrates what we have done to the vertebrate biomass of planet Earth. By rapidly shifting back to eating mostly plants, we can begin to bring back some of that rich ecological diversity that existed before humans started destroying the biosphere to grow animals for us to eat.
As you can clearly see, 10,000 years BCE, 100% of vertebrate biomass was wild animals. They now represent less than 5%.
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Below my signature, I have included a host of other references to crucial information about the rapidly eroding ability of our planet to support human life.
We all know that curbing consumption, getting serious about population control and designing/building/populating a totally new way of living along with a brand new, nature-friendly economy will take many decades -- as we move gradually toward a totally sustainable way of living throughout the world.
But we don't have even one decade to make a serious dent in the host of issues in the previous paragraph. That leaves us with one all-powerful choice that will buy us the time we need:
Immediately, stop eating all animal-based foods and replace them with health-promoting, environment-saving, plant-based foods!
Just for the record. The wildly popular Standard American Diet (the S.A.D.) and other similar eating regimens, are the ONLY major drivers of climate change that can be eliminated quickly by any person who chooses to do so.
For all other major drivers of climate change, we need big government involvement and we're simply not going to get that kind for support soon enough to make a difference.
Another HUGE benefit. If you want to enjoy vibrant, disease-free health as you make your new food choices, you will want to make sure that those plant-based items are WHOLE PLANTS, like veggies, fruits, grains, legumes, potatoes, nuts and seeds. What does 4Leaf eating look like? Here's just one of hundreds of variations for a lunch or evening meal.
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The good news is that we are all free to make our own food choices. We don't have to wait for governmental intervention, which will NEVER BE ABLE TO FIX OUR SYSTEM IN TIME.
If you truly care about the future of the billions of innocent children in the world -- you will do your homework and then you will quickly eliminate all animal-based foods from your diet -- and you will begin encouraging everyone you know to do the same thing.
Sadly, during our entire 3,100 mile trip, we saw zero evidence that people anywhere are moving toward eating Earth-friendly plant-based foods. At least 95% of the items on menus all along the way contained mostly meat, dairy, eggs and/or fish.
FYI, it is possible to get a fairly healthy sandwich at Subway. I am also a big fan of the oatmeal at Starbucks or McDonalds. Also, Starbucks has a totally plant-based item called "Chickpea Bites" for less than $8 that works for either lunch or dinner.
As you can clearly see in the graph below; we are definitely not reducing our global consumption of animal-based foods. It just continues to get worse as people in developing nations are beginning to enjoy Big Macs for the first time.
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In order to support most of the global trends toward eating animals, we've now deforested over half the Earth's acreage of trees, which had to be removed to make room for growing animals for us to eat. In so doing, we've turned that massive acreage from a huge carbon sink to a massive carbon source.
And that is why animal agriculture is, by far, the leading driver of climate change and the ONLY ONE that can be eliminated all over the world in as little as five years.
More benefits of eating plants. In addition to rapidly reducing the leading driver of climate change, we will also see a sharp drop in the cost of healthcare as people around the world would begin seeing their heart disease, type 2 diabetes and a host of other food-driven maladies -- simply disappear.
Of course, that wouldn't be good for the profits of the healthcare industry itself, un-employment numbers or the economy in general. Just another reason why our neoclassical system of unsustainable growth economics must be replaced.
How can a score-keeping system (the economy) that requires never-ending growth in a world of finite resources be allowed to continue for much longer?
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The Bottom Line
A Rapid Shift to Eating Plants is Essential to Slowing or Reversing Climate Change
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How can we make that shift happen soon enough? In my opinion, it all boils down to one word: LEADERSHIP. And, I am not talking about leadership from our governments. For a host of reasons, elected officials will never get this done in time.
We just need a handful of thoughtful, well-known and admired leaders with integrity to step forward and build the most powerful Media/Environmental NGO organization ever.
Beginning late last year, I have been posting a series of SOS Memos that all relate to this urgent topic.
Here are links to six of them. Check them out and then invite me to speak to your group via Zoom (for free) on this most crucial topic in the history of humanity.
Are you still not buying into what I am saying? Do yourself a favor and scroll down to the "Big Picture Data and Info Section" below.
One more thing. Please share today's timely SOS widely.
Ending today on a good note, I took this picture of Justine at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in downtown Nashville -- right next door to the original Grand Ole Opry. At Tootsie's on Day Two of our road trip, we enjoyed a cocktail and live entertainment (no cover charge) in the mid-afternoon -- complete with a terrific 5-piece band playing non-stop country music right next to our bar stools.
Now that's entertainment!!
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The last day of our road trip started at sunrise in Blowing Rock, NC -- (below) on the Blue Ridge Parkway and ended 658 miles later in Monmouth Beach, NJ. |
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Finally, contact me directly at the email address below
with any questions you may have.
J. Morris (Jim) Hicks
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The ongoing "Big Picture" section below will provide you with handy reference materials on this most crucial of all topics.
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PS: Regarding the Saving of our Civilization |
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To clarify, we're not trying to preserve "civilization as we know it." Because what we have now is an extremely wasteful and harmful way of life that is threatening our very existence as a species.
We're talking about replacing it with an entirely new, ultra-green civilization of the future -- and we do our best to paint a picture of that envisioned way of sustainable living in OUTCRY. For what one Ohio State professor emeritus of history had to say about that book on Amazon, click here.
The section below will provide you with an abundance of handy reference materials on this most crucial of all topics.
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"Big Picture"
Data and Info Section
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This section has been appearing at the end of my weekly SOS Memos for six months. It contains links to relevant information that form the foundation of what our options appear to be for responding quickly and appropriately to our global crises.
In order to respond appropriately, we must first grasp the all-important "big picture" regarding how we got to where we are in the first place. The various links below will help you do that.
Added to this section in April of 2022 is my list of five powerful videos that tell the whole story about the health AND the many environmental reasons we should be eating only plants.
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Film #1 in 2014
In 2014, Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn produced their first documentary film Cowspiracy. Executive producer is Leonardo DiCaprio, it runs 90 minutes and has been on Netflix since 2015. In 2020, I met Kip and Keegan in Sedona where I was honored to be able to speak at the same conference with them and other great leaders in this movement like Dr. Sailesh Rao and Dr. Michael Greger.
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Film #3 in 2021
In 2021, Kip Anderson teamed up with British filmmaker Ali Tabrizi, to produce Seaspiracy, an 89-minute film that vividly and alarmingly reveals what is at stake when it comes to the crucial importance of our oceans to our future as a species. Most people have no idea regarding the environmental horrors of commercial fishing -- a disgusting industry that kills dolphins by the thousands and tosses them back into the ocean. It runs 90 minutes on Netflix. Click here to view the trailer.
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Film #4 in 2021
As our situation becomes more desperate, the documentary films become more terrifying. As alluded to earlier, we are literally Eating Our Way to Extinction, a process that is vividly covered in this 2021 film (81 minutes). Narrated and produced by Kate Winslet, you can watch this great film on Amazon Prime or on YouTube for $3.99. The great ocean scientist and former head of NOAA, Dr. Sylvia Earle lends powerful credibility to such a crucial topic.
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Film #5 in 2022
This new film (89 minutes) features a young activist who travels around his country, New Zealand in an effort to find out the truth about the horrors of the dairy industry in his native land. The film uncovers alarming information about the environmental and health impacts of the industry -- leading up to the discovery that we are on the edge of the biggest global disruption of food and agriculture in history. This new film is now available for free at waterbear.com
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Next is a half-hour video that was published in November of 2021. It was produced by Michael Dowd, a non-scientific researcher like me who does a very fine job of explaining the many facets of the obstacles standing between us and our survival as a species.
Dowd has a pretty good handle on most things, but he seems to be unaware of the simple weapon that we can all use to fight the leading driver of climate change. Our forks.
That said, he does a terrific job of describing our ever-worsening dilemma. Click the link below to view this very informative 33-minute video, published November 15, 2021.
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This next item is a free 83-minute documentary film that is all about the findings that were documented in Dr. Stephen Emmott's 2013 book. TEN BILLION. |
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This powerful film will certainly help more people grasp that all-important "big picture." Just click on the hourglass image.
I will continue sharing this TEN BILLION link in future weekly SOS Memos
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More Data re Leading Driver of Climate Change.
Beginning in September of 2021, I have been including links to world-changing scientific information that thought leaders everywhere should read and and share with others.
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What can you do? For starters, you can buy the new documentary -- Eating our way to Extinction for $6 on Netflix -- and watch it often with your friends and family.
Also, you can:
- Share this SOS Memo with everyone you know.
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Get an e-copy of OUTCRY. Visit Outcry page on Amazon and get a much bigger understanding of the situation in which all humans find ourselves.
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Inform all the young people in your world that you are deadly serious about this topic. Urge them to read these SOS Memos and our latest book, OUTCRY.
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- Completely stop eating meat, dairy, eggs and fish today and tell everyone why you are taking such a "radical" step. You're doing it for the innocent children of the world.
- As noted above, do yourself a favor and make sure that your plant-based meals of the future consist of whole plants -- the kinds of foods that prevent or reverse most chronic diseases AND enable your body to effortlessly seek its optimal weight.
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A final word. Hopefully, the kind of crucially serious situationsexpressed in these SOS Memos will soon replace meaningless and trivial topics that dominate a ridiculously large percentage of all of the conversations in the world.
We must all start talking much more about what's really important. That is , we must start doing everything possible to maximize the chances of a meaningful and pleasant life ahead for the young people of the world.
I volunteer to help you do that. For Free. Invite me to collaborate with you and your group via Zoom. To help you jump-start that all-important conversation, I will be happy to present and discuss this topic at length. Here's an advance link to my standard presentation: 65 slides.
Click on the image below to view the slides that I am currently using for those kinds of sessions:
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The image above is a clue regarding the essence of my "family game plan" that is revealed only in my talks. I do not put that in writing.
Want to share some of my SOS Memos with others? Visit my SOS Memos page where the most recent ones are listed first.
Finally, I am confident that if a few million people carefully read and digested OUTCRY, that there might at least be a more robust conversation taking place about our grossly unsustainable way of living in the developed world -- and what it will take to get us focused on maximizing our chances of survival as a species.
To be sure, we must do a lot more than change what we eat -- and OUTCRY helps explain the "why" and the "how" of that proposition.
To my knowledge, OUTCRY remains the only book ever published that features an envisioned, totally-green, ultra-sustainable, super-desirable, future way of living for humans -- along with ideas for how we might get there as quickly as possible.
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Regarding the free Zoom conferences with your group,
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Our book, for a host of environmental reasons, is only available as an e-book on Amazon. As such, it contains hyperlinks to hundreds of references and videos, is less expensive, does not kill any trees and does not have to be manufactured and delivered.
The links below to earlier SOS Memos will help you understand how these ideas unfolded since 2018.
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One more thing. I first started learning about the supreme importance of our food choices in 2002. After studying the topic for eight years and getting to know many of the medical and ecological experts in the field, I co-authored the book below with my son Jason.
You can find it on Amazon in all formats by clicking on the image below:
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Promoting health, hope and harmony on planet Earth |
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