Without a doubt, the most powerful weapons we have to fight climate change are our forks. Two peer-reviewed papers proved that point long ago: one by World Bank researchers Goodland & Anhang in 2009 and the other by Dr. Sailesh Rao in 2019.

The 2009 paper (at right) put animal agriculture's share of GHG emissions at 51% and the Dr. Rao's 2019 paper pegged the number at 87%.

Even the 2006 UN FAO paper, produced in collaboration with the totally biased meat, egg and dairy industries, put the number at 18% in 2006 -- a number that is almost 50% higher than the world's entire transportation sector.

Regardless of what number you choose to believe, eliminating or cutting way back on animal-based foods is the single most powerful step that any individual can make with regard to slowing climate change.

It's also the quickest and healthiest step that anyone can take and it can even save you a lot of money.

Since making the switch to a whole food, plant-based diet almost twenty years ago, I have saved at least $80,000 on food.

It is a powerful little book that concisely covers all of the above when it comes to attacking the #1 driver of climate change.

Dr. Sailesh Rao and I are certain that we will never slow or stop climate change soon enough to survive long-term, unless we take the single most powerful step possible: moving quickly in the direction of 100% plant- based eating.

Yet hardly any scientists or leaders in authority -- anywhere in the world -- are even mentioning this powerful truth. Could the reason for that omission be a combination ignorance, politics and/or greed?

Wanting to help everyone in the world take powerful steps toward fighting climate change as quickly as possible, our free gift is the 4Leaf Guide below. It is a compact book that I wrote with Dr. Kerry Graff in 2015.

Only about a two-hour read, it has a total of 37 concise chapters and is still very relevant in terms of helping us stop humanity's greatest threat: climate change.

Dr. Graff wrote about half of the 37 chapters as she described how this book is being used in her family medicine practice. My chapters are more focused on things like saving money, nurturing the environment and slowing climate change.

If you prefer a paper-back or a Kindle copy of the 4Leaf Guide, you can find both on Amazon for $8.88 and $4.44 respectively. If you would like to order ten or more paper-back copies at a discount, let me know. jmorrishicks@me.com

Below is a look at the back cover of the 4Leaf Guide, with praise blurbs by Dr. Neal Barnard and Dr. Michelle McMacken. She is now working with Mayor Eric Adams of New York City in an effort to help all New Yorkers reclaim their health while also doing some wonderful things for the environment.

Once again, here is the handy link to:

The time remaining to slow climate change is limited. The IPCC has been warning us for decades that we must make sharp cuts in CO2 emissions in order to prevent the worst effects of climate change. But for political reasons, they never even mention the overwhelming importance of what we eat.

Even if we're able to give away millions of copies of the 4Leaf Guide, it still won't be enough. And, even if these efforts are accompanied with a sharp drop in the global consumption of animal-based foods -- it will still be several years before the international media will pick up on the story.

For global media coverage in the near term, we need some bold actions followed by staggering results being reported by some very large employers.

In the section below, I explain how just one of those large employers might get the ball rolling.

The A.R.C.H. system described below was made possible by the simple algorithm within the 4Leaf Survey. Read on...

The envisioned ARCH System was designed to enable large employers (businesses or governments) -- all over the world -- to save billions of dollars on healthcare.

By gently helping all of their employees move steadily in the direction of a whole food, plant-based way of eating -- those employees (via the ARCH system) are quickly able to discover vibrant health. That means their body seeks its ideal weight, they are able to reverse most chronic diseases and they get off of most, if not all, of their medications.

What is ARCH? In a nutshell, along with a corporation's EMR (electronic medical records system) ARCH is an automated reporting, data management and communications system that leverages the power of 4Leaf eating for humans to promote disease-reversing dietary excellence for each employee via our simple 4Leaf Survey.

Someday soon, when the first large corporation embraces ARCH and sharply cuts their cost of healthcare, two things will happen:

A truly Win-Win proposition. While helping billions of people reverse their chronic diseases, ARCH enables our 4Leaf clients to simultaneously attack the leading driver of climate change, animal agriculture.

Consisting of 12 simple, multiple choice questions about eating habits, the survey can be completed online in less than 2 minutes. Click this image to take the FREE 4Leaf Survey.

Based on each individual's score on the survey (from minus 44 to plus 44) the ARCH system sends custom messages of encouragement and then monitors improvements.

As each person adds more whole, plant-based foods to her/his daily routine, their 4Leaf scores go up while their various health bio-markers improve. With committed leadership, coupled with $$ incentives for the employees, we are highly confident that ARCH will start driving down the cost of healthcare in client corporations or governments in less than six months.

Then, guess what happens when "a few" large corporations start promoting healthy eating among their employees? Other large corporations who don't undertake similar initiatives -- will no longer be able to compete with those who do.

For example, Ford and General Motors each have over 150,000 employees worldwide, along with a corresponding cost of healthcare that is likely north of two billion dollars a year.

A relevant factoid. It was reported over ten years ago that General Motors was spending more on healthcare than they were on steel. That brings up an interesting possibility...

If Ford elects to employ the ARCH system to lower their cost of healthcare, in all likelihood, GM will no longer be able to compete with Ford unless they follow suit. How so? Again, as I state near the bottom of the archby4leaf.com landing page:

— J. Morris Hicks

What kind of money is at stake? In just the United States, the cost of healthcare is north of...

So why haven't large employers like Ford, GM and other large corporations around the world tapped into this simple and powerful way to improve their bottom line? It is likely a combination of ignorance, politics and power.

The current CEO of Ford, Jim Farley, took over that role in October of 2020 at age 58. If he had suggested an idea like ARCH to the board of directors back then -- they would have probably thought that he had lost his mind.

But that was almost two years ago. Now that he has settled into the position, he might be able to safely float such a "radical" idea. I would love the opportunity to help Mr. Farley become our very first ARCH by 4Leaf client.

We are near certain that the ARCH system will work, but it is very important that the project be led by the CEO. If not at Ford, GM or some other large corporation, where can we launch this project first?

It would make a lot of sense to launch it in an organization where the CEO (or mayor) is already an enthusiastic fan of the power of whole, plant-based foods to reverse chronic disease.

I know of just one such organization. Read on...

The UN, the IPCC, elected officials, academia, the clergy and every other leadership organization in the world are all failing us. Not a single one of them is advising us to move urgently in the direction of a way of eating that represents the single best chance that humanity has to save itself. Not one of them!!!

We the people can make it happen. Here's a one-pager about the ARCH System that explains how a simple, yet powerful tool like that could literally change the world.

Remember, as our clients' respective cost of healthcare goes down, so does the single largest driver of climate change: animal agriculture.

The above one-pager was written in 2016 and we're still looking for our first client who has the knowledge and the courage to make it happen.

We got to the #2 executive at Staples a few years ago, but we never did engage them as a client.

The special leader we are seeking may turn out to be Mayor Eric Adams of New York City -- an organization that has over 300,000 employees.

Last month, I described a Perfect Storm Opportunity whereby Mayor Adams could literally change the world by helping thousands of his New York employees take charge of their health, a crucial step that saved his life -- as he described in his own book, Healthy at Last.

For more details about ARCH, check out this incredibly powerful, yet unbelievably simple tool at archby4leaf.com

Don't have time to watch the entire Honolulu video? Click here to view all 60 slides in that talk

jmorrishicks@me.com 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

This 83-minute documentary is all about the findings that were documented in Dr. Stephen Emmott's 2013 book. TEN BILLION.

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. Dowd focuses on the problem; not the solution. I prefer to focus on both.

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.

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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Click here to learn more about this free online dietary assessment tool.