LISSELOTTE VARGAS

2018-5194

1013-6147

MARIANELA BELLIARD

Take 30 seconds to think about how many times you consume meat or dairy

during the week versus how many times you use some type of transportation,

either by land, air or sea, throughout the week.

Now take 30 extra seconds to imagine our world as it is today but without water,

clean air, with a dead sea and with not enough food for you and your family.

Imagine a world with no rainforests or animals, just empty jungles and air

pollution.

You may think that our main problem is transport and its emissions but no, this

is the truth: livestock emits more greenhouse gases than emissions from the

entire transport sector.

Livestock farming is the main cause of the consumption of resources and

environmental degradation that destroys the planet today.

Just the livestock consumes 30% of earth’s freshwater and 65% of the world's

nitrous oxide, with a 296-fold global warming potential 296 times greater than

CO2 per kilo.

Animal agriculture is responsible for 91% of amazon rainforest destruction,

species extinction, habitat destruction, and overfishing.

Many are also unaware that 2.7 trillion animals are pulled from oceans per year,

because of this our oceans are expected to be fishless by 2048.

And according to Greta Thunder, a young environmental activist: “the extinction

rate today is between 1,000 – 10,000 times higher than what is seem as

normal”

Isn’t all of this scary?

And yet despite all these things, the main defenders of the planet do not want to

deal with the main cause of environmental devastation, which is livestock

farming, because everything is a business. They just want to make sure they

have a steady source of funding.

My initial thoughts awhile reading all the complications were, why is anyone not

doing anything? Why is our government not taking initiative? These issues

affect all life on Earth!

And then I remembered what Chris Jordan said: “When you face a horror of our

world, whatever one it is, when you really go there and face it, only then it

requires that one defines oneself in relation to that thing”.

That gave me a lot think about.

Only when we live the experience, we learn, we act.

Until then, it’s hard to open up our eyes, hearts and minds.

Overall, we are one as a community and as a race. And there’s a solution: our

diets.

Believe it or not, science has shown that a change in your diets will impact a lot

more the world than trying to reduce our water consumption and transportation

(thought all plays its part).

This is the key to resolve this all.

Ant the best part is that it will not only benefit the world, it will also benefit you.

Yes, you.
The leading causes of death in our country — type II diabetes, obesity, heart

disease, and many types of cancer — are largely preventable on a whole foods,

plant-based diet.

In addition to this, you can be sure that the majority of most processed foods

are up to the limit of grease and sugar, which is specifically designed to be

difficult to resist, so you will be doing good to yourself too by changing your

lifestyle.

As we observe, we are facing a major species extinction on Earth, as we

haven't seen since the disappearance of the dinosaurs and a clearly existential

threat in climate change, which is the most important issue of all, so I exhort you

to start to care cause if you don’t, then you are not paying attention.

Thanks for your attention, I’d be happy to take questions if there’s time.

MacKay, Fiona. “Looking for a Solution to Cows' Climate Problem.”, The New York
Times, 16 Nov 2009.