Thanks to Covid-19, almost everyone in the world knows about the power of a
wild-animal-origin-pandemic
to kill millions of humans.
What if the next one kills billions?
Hold that thought for a moment while I talk about some very interesting hypotheses from my good friend, mentor and colleague, T. Colin Campbell, PhD.
Dr. Campbell is a Cornell Nutritional Scientist and author of The China Study, a 2005 bombshell book that is filled with scientific proof that most of the chronic diseases plaguing humans -- can easily be prevented or reversed -- simply by shifting 100% to a whole, food, plant-based diet.
What about the prevention of animal-driven viruses? Last year about this time, as Covid-19 was hitting its stride, Dr. Campbell wrote a series of articles in April and May that highlighted the power of that same, simple, whole food, plant-based diet to control Covid-19 in one of two ways: prevention and/or sharply lowering the death rate.
Here are links to all three:
The April 3 Article, an April 27 paper and a May 5 update regarding those two pieces. But, of course, the international media did not share this blockbuster news and Covid-19 is still running roughshod all over the world.
Yesterday, on a phone call with Dr. Campbell, I asked him this hypothetical question:
If every person in the USA had been eating a whole food, plant-based diet since 2016, describe the kind of Covid pandemic we would have experienced last year in this country.
His response. "Despite being exposed to the virus, our immune systems would have taken care of it and it would have been a non-event for the most part."
Now, for that "What If" Scenario
that I alluded to in the title
Fast-forward two years to 2023. An incredibly-powerful
variant of Covid has been detected -- a super-deadly virus that is expected to kill over seven billion people -- leaving just under one billion of us alive.
That "lucky" group of one billion survivors is expected to include those who had already been eating a whole-food, plant-based diet for a few years -- along with a few hundred million indigenous people who had never eaten anything but.
Finally, the news media takes notice!
Regarding the proven science regarding our food choices that Dr. Campbell has been espousing for many decades -- the world's news organizations are finally promoting this simple bit of life-saving information throughout the world:
5-4-23: Urgent Public Service Message
The super deadly, novel COVID-23 Virus is expected to take the lives of over seven billion humans.
The good news is that most of those deaths can be prevented by an immediate shift to a plant-based diet.
Many western countries are rapidly heeding this dire warning and are outlawing any further production and distribution of animal-based foods -- and ordering the immediate removal of the billions of food animals still in the pipeline.
Those same governments are also launching urgent initiatives to produce and distribute those life-saving, whole plant-based foods to ALL of its citizens.
And, yes, we can all still enjoy our traditional holidays with our new, great-tasting, life-saving way of eating.
Meanwhile, back to reality in May of 2021. With each passing month, we are hearing more about climate change and the likely-unavoidable, horrible consequences for humans as primary sources of food and water are disrupted or eliminated -- due to the rapidly declining species of birds and insects which are crucial to the health of the habitat that keeps us alive.
Back to our food choices for a moment. It turns out that not only does the wrong food for our species contribute to widespread disease -- those same poor food choices are arguably the leading driver of climate change. On that note...
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 87% of greenhouse gas emissions. 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 Inter-governmental 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.
This brings up another
"What If" Scenario
What if our rapid response to Covid-23 that includes the elimination of animal-based foods -- also triggers a slight cooling of the atmosphere in just a matter of months?
Up until that time, most climate scientists had been predicting that we had very little chance of ever reversing climate change enough to save our species. But now, with the slight cooling -- apparently driven by our rapid dietary shift, scientists around the world are beginning to express newfound hope for our survival.
Now that they see a plausible pathway forward, they are strongly advising world leaders to take swift action toward transforming ALL elements of our civilization in an all-out pursuit of a way of life for humans that Mother Nature will accept.
At long last, there may be enough urgent action by all leaders around the world to save our species -- as we urgently begin focusing on this question:
Earlier, I mentioned the possible death of seven billion people and up to one billion plant-based-eating survivors.
Those survivors would ensure that we Homo sapiens would not completely go extinct this century. Maybe the message herein will help to ensure that a lot more than one billion humans will survive that hypothetical Covid 23 pandemic.
Hopefully, the process described in this SOS Memo will help to expedite the shift from eating animals to eating nothing but plants. And with that shift will come healthier people, a healthier biosphere, lower cost of healthcare and an entire world with far less cruelty and violence.
The Bottom Line. To summarize, I am suggesting that all eight billion of us might actually benefit from a rogue pandemic that was originally expected to kill seven billion people. How so?
By JOLTING all of us into action immediately -- as the entire world begins focusing on just one problem. And the simple solution to that problem is a lightning-fast shift to a whole food, plant-based diet for humans.
With that process underway, a large percentage of the world's leaders may suddenly have a blinding flash of the obvious when they realize that, if we want to survive longterm, we had best quit MESSING WITH NATURE NOW!
That means quickly answering the question in the above slide about what it will take for Mother Nature to allow us to keep living here. Covid 23 will be just another reminder from her -- that she will always be in charge of this planet.
We had come to believe that we humans own it, but now she has reminded us once again about who's in charge.
That means that with or without the imagined "Covid 23" pandemic, If we don't quickly make drastic changes in our overall "system" of living, there will likely be no humans alive by the end of this century.
Outcry, the entire book, is focused on that entire, "big-picture" system could result from an envisioned way of sustainable life for humans in the future.
Finally -- A Gift for You Today
Just click on this title to read Chapter 27 from the 4Leaf Guide: Cancer, Climate Change and World Hunger. In that chapter, I succinctly explain how our irresponsible food choices are primary drivers of all three.
As for the book itself, I teamed up with a medical doctor in 2015 to write this simple, easy-to-understand, 4Leaf Guide to Vibrant Health. Dr. Kerry Graff wrote about half of the 37 chapters and I wrote the others, all of which are just four or five pages long.
This powerful little book not only helps the readers learn how to quickly adopt a whole food, plant-based diet, it helps them understand the "bigger picture" regarding how our food choices affect our environment and the future of our species.
And then there's Outcry. Want to fully-understand the many ramifications of the question,
How Green is Green Enough, you will love this book. Read what one Ohio State professor
had to say about it.
Outcry describes an envisioned way of life for humanity that is aimed at maximizing our chances for survival long-term as a species. Another possible title for that book could have been:
Radical Thinking for Desperate Times
Hopefully, our straightforward book will help to open more minds as to what might be possible when it comes to living more sustainably than we could ever imagine -- at least five to ten times more efficiently than we are living now.
To our knowledge,
Outcry remains the only book ever published that features an envisioned, totally-green, ultra-sustainable,
super-desirable habitat for humans -- along with steps for how we might get there as soon as possible.
Want to send a link of this memo to a friend? It is #104 on
this list of SOS Memos. Finally, contact me directly at the email address below with any questions you may have.
