Tomorrow, via Zoom, I will be giving a presentation in China -- during an event sponsored by the Human Health Organization. I am told it will be seen by thousands of people -- but I will only have five minutes to make my case. The title of that presentation appears below my name on this slide:
The title is quite a mouthful, right? So how does one cover such a gargantuan topic in five minutes?
Well, I just focused on the single most important item when it comes to climate change: Our Food Choices that are listed first in my To-Do List for Human Survival:
There are two primary reasons why total replacement of animal agriculture is so important. To be sure, not many of the world's citizens are aware of the second reason below:
- Reason #2. Because of a phenomenon known as the aerosol masking effect (or global dimming), a rapid drawdown or cessation of CO2 emissions around the world would cause the world to warm up even faster than it is now. That's because the particulates in the air from our carbon-intensive industrial civilization actually provide somewhat of a shade, or cooling effect. That "shade" will gradually go away, but removing it too quickly would be disastrous.
So what we must do first is address the drivers of climate change that don't produce large amounts of those particulates. I am talking about animal agriculture.
In Dr. Rao's paper, shown here, he makes the case for completely eliminating all animal agriculture by 2026. Here are a few of his introductory sentences from the paper's abstract. Pay particular attention to the last sentence.
In this paper, we present the results of a Global Sensitivity Analysis (GSA) proving that animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change, responsible for at least 87% of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
The burning of fossil fuels is currently the leading source of human-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, climate change is caused by cumulative human-made greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions and not just current CO2 emissions alone.
While humans have been burning fossil fuels for a little over 200 years, we have been burning down forests for animal agriculture for well over 8,000 years.
For the GSA analysis, we use factual data from the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other peer-reviewed scientific sources.
We show that we need to transition to a global plant-based economy first and that blindly eliminating fossil fuel usage first will accelerate the warming of the planet.
We show that the annual methane emissions from animal agriculture alone cause more incremental global warming than the annual CO2 emissions from all fossil fuel sources combined.
Millions of people first learned, in 2006, about many environmental problems associated with the animal food industry from the
UN Report, Livestock's Long Shadow, which concluded at the time that the world's livestock industry was responsible for driving a whopping 18% of climate change -- 50% more than ALL of the world's transportation, including all cars, trucks, trains, planes, ships and busses.
For the record,
the Goodland and Anhang paper concluded that the animal agriculture sector was responsible for "at least" 51% of greenhouse gas emissions -- more than all other drivers combined.
Now, fifteen years later, there has been zero net progress with regard to Step #1 of totally replacing the global industry that produces animal-based foods. The primary obstacle holding everything back, from my perspective, is what I refer to as the protein myth, a handicap that paralyzes most of the world's humans.
I suspect that more than 80% of the humans in the developed world sincerely believe that we must eat animal protein to be healthy. We don't, as I explain here:
What about Al Gore? Remember his movie about climate change that was aired in 2006? It was entitled
An Inconvenient Truth and was the very first major message of alarm about climate change that was heard by hundreds of millions of people around the world. I vividly remember seeing that movie in a theater in Mystic, CT, in the summer of 2006 -- and finding it hard to believe that he had nothing to say about animal agriculture.
His failure to identify that industry as THE primary driver of climate change (according to the UN) is a travesty and serves to perpetuate the above protein myth that has paralyzed the world when it comes to slowing climate change.
Maybe now is the time for Mr. Gore to redeem himself. It turns out that my friend, Dr. Sailesh Rao, knows Mr. Gore very well and was working for him in 2006 when his climate change movie premiered.
The world needs a well-known spokesperson. Maybe Al Gore could be that person. He has the knowledge and the name recognition to really make a difference. He could basically admit that he was wrong in his 2006 movie, but maybe that was because he, like almost everyone else, believed the protein myth at the time.
Since then, highly regarded scientists and MD's have pretty much laid to rest any argument about whole, plant-based foods not being the best possible way for humans to eat. Remarkably, as the three men below have proven, a diet of whole, plant-based foods actually prevents or reverses heart disease and type-2 diabetes in over 90% of the cases along with a host of other health benefits.
Dr. Campbell has concluded that a complete shift to plant-based eating would reduce our nation's cost of healthcare by more than 70%. And yes, there would also be a huge down-sizing of the cancer industry.
I am honored to count the above three heroes as friends and colleagues and was particularly delighted when, in 2011, all three of them endorsed my first book, pictured below on the left:
The Bottom Line. It's a conclusion that I have already mentioned: The world desperately needs a credible, well-known spokesperson to begin making the delivery of this message their full-time role in life. Maybe the person can be Al Gore.
Since Dr. Rao knows him very well, it would be great if they could get together and talk seriously about the unprecedented peril we are in when it comes to our future as a species. Sailesh ended an email to me earlier today with these words that helped to inspire this SOS Memo:
I stand by the contents of my paper and I've offered to debate anyone on it, including Mr. Gore if he chooses. My offer stands.
I know that he already knows that what I'm claiming is true, but he hasn't mustered the courage to admit it.
Dr. Rao is calling for a global, 100% shift to plant-based eating by 2026. That's just five years away and I will be doing everything I can to help him make it happen.
For success, we must quickly get the attention, and the focus, of some of the world's most influential people: well-known folks like Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton, Prince Charles, Barack and Michelle Obama, Elon Musk, James Cameron, David Attenborough and many others.
Just realized that I have not mentioned one of the primary topics that was included in the title of this SOS Memo: Pandemics. So, here you go, one more slide from my presentation in China tomorrow:
