COP27 began two days ago in Egypt
What will they NOT get done?
They will not address the #1 driver of climate change.
SOS #183 -- J. Morris Hicks -- (11-8-22)
How do I know they won't address it?
For the simple reason that they never have.

We already know that the IPCC, with nearly 200 countries represented, is now meeting in Egypt -- and that they are not likely to make any progress toward effectively fighting what is by far -- the single largest driver of climate change.

Worse still, their failure to take the #1 driver seriously -- leads to global complacency that will lessen the chances that ANY world leaders will ever take the reduction of animal agriculture seriously enough, and soon enough, to prevent our demise as a species well before the turn of the century.

Complacency spells big trouble for our future as a species.
This is the one week of the year when most people around the world are reminded of climate change. Sadly, even the UN's Conference of the Parties (COP) fails to acknowledge what is by far, its single largest driver.

Honestly, they have been brainwashed for so long about the under-reported role of animal agriculture -- I am not confident that most of those delegates even know what the real numbers are.

As for food, they probably think they are doing their part by providing a couple of vegan options on the COP27 menu. Of course, the items below will be well-represented there, as they always are. A truly sad situation.
So what is missing? Why doesn't the IPCC, who the world is holding responsible for "managing" climate change, ever even mention the #1 driver? Two reasons:

  • ONE. As with most of the citizens in the developed world, the folks at the IPCC have been led to believe that animal agriculture is not nearly as big a driver of climate change as burning fossil fuels for heating or for powering our many forms of transportation. Not true of course, but what we have is a case of the fox guarding the henhouse in terms of the numbers regarding animal agriculture that the IPCC has been given.
  • TWO. Although they are aware that growing food animals is a large driver of climate change, there has never been a large clinical trial that proves the superior efficacy of a plant-based diet to promote human health while reversing many chronic diseases. After all, what good is fighting climate change if don't get "enough protein" to stay alive for goodness sakes?
An emerging idea. Last week, I discovered a recent video that has been seen almost 800,000 times in the past two months. It's all about how we go about feeding a crew of 5,000 aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford.
After watching just a few minutes of the 8-minute video, my mind was racing. With over 5,000 sailors on board, the 100 cooks on this mighty ship must prepare more than 17,000 meals every single day.

While watching, I asked myself this question: What if 10% of the crew were fed by cooks who had undergone extensive training in making delicious and nutritious meals from nothing but whole plants?

Think about the data that could be gathered/analyzed by the end of a six-month deployment. With a variety of incentives, it shouldn't be that difficult to randomly select a sample of 500 sailors who would volunteer for such a powerful experiment.

We already know what the results would likely be. Compared to the other 4500 sailors eating the Standard American Diet (with animal protein at every meal), these 500 sailors would have a chance to play a key role in a worldwide wake-up call. Here's a list of five likely results:

  • Their frequency of chronic diseases, like type 2 diabetes and hypertension, would decline sharply during the cruise.
  • As a result, their collective frequency of prescription drugs would also decline or be eliminated in many cases.
  • With improved immune systems, they would also have fewer common colds, and Covid, than the rest of the crew.
  • Their average Body Mass Index (BMI) would improve from over 27 to less than 24. (American average is roughly 30 -- up from less than 28 in just the past twenty years)
  • Their cost of food per-person to the US Navy would be at least 30% less than the huge quantities of animal-based foods being fed to the rest of the crew.

As a result, after four or five months, most of the 500 men and women eating a whole food, plant-based diet would very likely not choose to return to their old way of eating at the end of the deployment.
Last week, I discovered a Navy veteran who is perfectly suited to play a key role in that project.
A vegan, she survived a 6-month carrier deployment.
A few years ago, after her deployment on the USS Carl Vinson (pictured here) Nicole Hadden wrote an article about her experiences of...

At the beginning of her piece, she describes not expecting any special dietary considerations in her six month deployment. Her article began with this statement:

I love eating plant-based, and I’ve never found anything that made me feel so good in so many ways. I feel healthy, and I get to help the environment and animals—wins all around!

Navy or not, I was committed to keeping this crucial element of my well-being.
After describing her vegan adventure at sea for six months, she summed up her thoughts at the end of her piece:

While on the ship, many people found out I was vegan and proceeded to tell me their own stories. Many had been vegan or vegetarian before but gave it up in the military.

After a few months of staying vegan on the ship, I
started to hear more admiration than criticism from my shipmates. They wanted to know how I did it.

The biggest takeaway I’ve gathered from my time in the Navy is that there are always healthy plant-based options to choose from. It just takes some planning and a little creativity.

Try your best to stay positive; think ahead and create a viable food plan; stay flexible in food choices based on available options; and don’t be too hard on yourself if you slip up. The goal is to continue to do the least amount of harm to our bodies, to the environment, and to the animals.

After reading her very interesting piece, I started thinking about the possibilities of conducting a massive clinical trial at sea for testing the overall effectiveness of a diet-style that she had been passionately embracing for years.
The Bottom Line
We know that billions of people shifting to a dietary regimen consisting of whole, plant-based foods, will promote human AND environmental health -- and is, by far, our best possible chance to survive climate change.
Now, we must prove it!
Next week, I will write about my dream of having someone like Ms. Hadden play a leadership role in an unprecedented clinical trial aboard the Gerald R. Ford. Since leaving the Carl Vinson a few years ago, she has been studying nutrition and would be an ideal candidate to play a major role in such a study.

Meanwhile, the world's feckless climate leaders are meeting at COP27 in Egypt. And guess who is not there. The world's most admired and most influential environmentalist.
As one who knows the truth about climate change, she chose not to attend and instead is "denouncing the conferences as forums for "greenwashing, lying and cheating."

I am talking about Greta Thunberg, and I am betting that UN chief Antonio Guterres is breathing a sigh of relief in her decision not to attend.

She's the only prominent person on the world stage who seems to be willing to call out the clueless world leaders on this most crucial of all topics.
Like me, she knows that the IPCC is a political group that will never take a strong stand against all of those animal food "partners" listed here. Hence, they will never be able to slow climate change.

That's right, I used the word partners! Just check out the list above -- of the "Livestock, Environmental Assessment and Performance Partnership."

Dr. Sailesh Rao shames them all in a six-minute video referenced below.
Further, I would argue that those "partners" are actually doing more harm than good -- because their prominent presence on the COP27 stage breeds complacency throughout the world as most citizens just assume that our love of animal-based foods is not that big of a deal when it comes to climate change.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Meanwhile, most of the men (pictured below) will be there giving speeches and being admired by people all over the world -- people who believe that they're actually doing all that is possible to slow, stop or reverse climate change.

They definitely are not!
(Definition of travesty: a false, absurd, or distorted representation of something)
Any one of the seven men listed above could possibly take actions that could lead to the aforementioned aircraft carrier clinical trial that just might catch the world's attention.

Two or more of them working together could almost certainly make it happen. More on that plant-based clinical trial topic in SOS Memo #184 next week.

Maybe this powerful new 14-minute video can help awaken our host of feckless world climate leaders -- before it's too late.

This short video below was produced by screenplay writer and author, Glen Merzer and the entire team at Facing Future. Special kudos go to my friend Dale Walkonen and to the co-star, Therese, of the video.

She played the role of our creator as she reflected on her visit to planet Earth after a 50,000 year absence. Glen plays the role of the UN representative who meets with her as he strives to explain the reasons behind the mess we have made.

Click this image to watch; then share it widely.
You too can help stop climate change. Just send a link to this SOS Memo to all of the most influential people you know. And, if you have their email addresses, please send it directly to each of the seven men appearing in the above slide, along with a copy to the Secretary-General of the UN, Antonio Guterres.

If enough people bombard them with the unadulterated truth about climate change, maybe they will be jolted into action.

Maybe they will just do it for these innocent victims...
As always, at the end of these SOS Memos, we provide tons of FREE data & "big picture" reference materials, beginning with free access to our two latest books. After the books below, scroll on down to the:

"Big Picture" Data and Video Section

In closing, do you want to do your part to help people get healthy...while slowing, stopping or even reversing climate change at the same time? Then, share this SOS Memo and the free books below with everyone you know.
FREE: Two "Big Picture" Books
Our health, our planet and climate change
To our knowledge, OUTCRY is the only book ever published that features a summary of "outcries" from the natural world, along with consensus conclusions of nine big picture scientists regarding our dilemma — AND an envisioned sustainable civilization of the future, using today’s technology.

I also refer to this book as the "User's Guide for Planet Earth."
In mid 2022, we began giving this book away free of charge.

We are giving it away because, as Jeremy Rifkin said early in this recent 15-minute video:

"the most important info in all of humanity is going undiscussed."

We're talking about the crucial information regarding how we can possibly slow or stop climate change within a few years.

Want to help relieve the desperate situation in which we find ourselves, read OUTCRY as soon as you can and send it to everyone you know. Just click on the book cover above.
Here is the 2nd book we are now offering FREE to the world public: a quick and easy read that I wrote with Dr. Kerry Graff in 2015.

Using the Power of Food
to Heal Ourselves and Our Planet

This compact book is still highly relevant, focusing on helping people take charge of their health and reverse chronic disease by urgently shifting to a whole-food, plant-based way of eating. 

A fringe benefit of their efforts is the steady downsizing of the leading driver of climate change: animal agriculture. Merely suggesting that the masses cut back on their meat, diary, egg and fish consumption will accomplish very little. 

We want everyone to completely eliminate all animal-based foods from their diet. Yes, that includes cheese, eggs and all forms of seafood. 

For your children and grandchildren, just do it!
Please share today's timely SOS with everyone.

Click the image below to hear my recent (May 2022) 
45-minute talk regarding much of what has been covered in my recent SOS Memos.
Don't have time to watch the entire Honolulu video? Click here to view all 60 slides in that talk

Finally, please contact me about arranging a FREE "live" Zoom talk for your group. They will get a lot more out of my talk if they have read our two FREE books in advance of my talk.

Sincerely, J. Morris (Jim) Hicks

PS: Scroll on down for more "big picture" information that is mainly in the form of powerful videos, most of which are free.

For a concise summary of "big picture" information about our situation, take a look at the landing page of my primary website that I recently updated. Just click hpjmh.com
What about the "preservation" of civilization?
To clarify, we're not trying to preserve civilization as we know it. Because what we have now is extremely wasteful, harmful and grossly unsustainable. It's an incredibly reckless way of living that is now 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.
As for making our stand on the only planet in the universe capable of keeping us alive, this "Big Picture" section below will provide you with handy reference materials on this most crucial of all topics.
"Big Picture" Data and Video Section
Beginning with the timeline of research
Five World-Changing Films
That People Everywhere Must See
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.
Film #2 in 2017
Also on Netflix, Kip and Keegan teamed up again in 2017 to produce What the Health, which is also on Netflix. It runs 92 minutes and may be the best documentary ever that focuses on the health reasons for choosing to eat plant-based. Click here to watch the short trailer. You can also watch the full movie for free on Vimeo.
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.
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.
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
Grasping the "Big Picture"
These 2 films will help in understanding
our unprecedented dilemma.
This 83-minute documentary is all about the findings that were documented in Dr. Stephen Emmott's 2013 book. TEN BILLION.

He brilliantly describes the grossly unsustainable way of living that has brought us to the emergency situation in which we find ourselves. Since I met him in London in 2013, he has become much more serious about the need to abolish the practice of eating meat, dairy, eggs and/or fish at almost every meal.

Just click on the hourglass image. Dr. Emmott delivers a very compelling message from the stage of a theater in London. This 2013 film is still relevant and will certainly help more people grasp that all-important "big picture."
Finally, this half-hour video 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.

As do practically all researchers, Dowd focuses entirely on the problem; not the solution. I prefer to focus on both.
What else can you do?
Probably a lot more than you think
  • Start with the new documentary (Film #4) mentioned earlier -- Eating our way to Extinction for $6 on Netflix. Watch it often with your friends and family.
  • Share this SOS Memo widely: Certainties, Uncertainties & Priorities by J. Morris Hicks.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
I am confident that if a few million people carefully read and digested this book that there would be a more robust conversation around the world regarding our grossly unsustainable way of living in the developed world.

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.


The links below to earlier SOS Memos will help you understand how these ideas unfolded since 2018.
  1. Creative "Idea" for Saving our Civilization (9-21-18)
  2. A Prayer for All Faiths. Taking Responsibility (11-9-18)
  3. If Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy! Deming (12-7-18)
  4. How "Green is Green Enough? (12 20-18)
  5. In the age of Earthism, what about governance? (12-26-18)
  6. "Successor" Civilization? Dr. Rupert Read. (1-24-19)
  7. "I don't want to talk about it." Taboo. (2-7-19)
  8. A Change of Heart on Biosphere 2 (4-11-19)
  9. SOS #1 Doing our "best" won't get it done. (4-18-19)
  10. SOS #7 Willy-Nilly Planet Stewardship (5-30-19)
  11. SOS 13 Donkeys, Spaceships and Survival (7-10-19)
  12. SOS 21 Why Don't We Dream BIG? The GBN? (9-4-19)
  13. SOS 53 Outcry debuts on Earth Day 50th (4-22-20)
  14. SOS 129 Urgent Pre-COP26 message to the world (10-26-21
  15. SOS 131 Anger, Nausea & Disappointment -- COP 26 (11-9-21)
  16. SOS 132 Emerging Ray of Hope for Humanity. Mayor (11-16-21)
  17. SOS 133 Powerful, world-changing integrity (11-23-21)
  18. SOS 134 Crippling impact of ignorance, fear & greed (11-30-21)
  19. SOS 135 The sex, science and supper solution (12-7-21)
  20. SOS 136 Failure of the 4th Estate re climate issues (12-14-21)
  21. SOS 137 Slowing climate change should've been easy 12-21-21
You can join my mailing list and/or find all of my previous postings by visiting the SOS Memos page on my website. 
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