GONE!
In the last 439 million years, there have been 5 great extinctions that wiped out between 50 and 95 percent of the species then living, events so devastating that the earth took millions of years each time to repopulate and rediversify. And right now, we are living through the 6th such event. It's projected that by the end of the century, half of the millions of species of plants and animals that now populate our planet will be gone--forever. Half!
This knowledge is beyond a wake up call, it is an ecological four alarm fire, one whose urgency places a heavy burden of responsibility on each if us. This mass extinction is being driven by two factors: our numbers, and our choices. Mother nature allows for no appeals. Very simply, if we don't reduce our population, and if we fail to align our lives with ecological reality, these changes are going to be made for us the hard way, through cataclysmic environmental collapse.
This is not a conspiracy theory or bunny hugger hysteria. Seven out of ten biologists now believe that mass extinction poses a major threat to our species' existence, a threat even greater than global warming.
And so, given that the science is well established that one of the top causes of environmental degradation, resource depletion, species loss, and global warming is animal agribusiness, why aren't we as a society putting our focus on switching to a plant-based diet? Adoption of such a diet, in one step, makes a massive reduction of our individual environmental impact across the board. At the same time, it can improve our health and, most significantly, end our participation in the injustice and indignity endured by over 51 billion animals each year.
Is the consumption of meat, dairy products and eggs so important to us, so defining of our lives, that we are willing to gamble our very existence, and the existence of half of all other species, by continuing what is essentially an ecologically self-destructive way of feeding ourselves? This question should weigh heavily on each of us, and doubly so for animal advocacy organizations that funnel massive resources into largely symbolic reform of existing animal husbandry practices, effectively diverting public attention away from the overwhelming crisis facing our planet. Given the accelerating rate of extinction, can we afford to invest our time, energy, and resources in anything but actions that quickly and directly address the problem?
To learn more about the role of animal agribusiness in our planetary environmental crisis, see Vegetarian is the New Prius. To learn more about the role some animal advocacy groups are playing in distracting the public from this issue, see Hogwash: Or, How Animal Advocates Enable Corporate Spin.
"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. " -- George Bernard Shaw
For valuable information on debunking the "humane myth" visit: Humane Myth.Org at http://www.humanemyth.org/
Please visit Tribe of Heart at http://www.tribeofheart.org/
If you have not seen the documentary Peaceable Kingdom, a "must see", it will be shown at the VegFest (https://www.facebook.com/ClevelandVegFest?ref=ts&fref=ts) on Sat., June 1st. Tribe of Heart's James Laveck and Jenny Stein will be at the VegFest as well as film subject, Harold Brown. Join the screening event at this site: https://www.facebook.com/events/193560817462926/
Additionally, James LaVeck will be speaking at VegFest as well.
Visit Harold Brown's website at: http://www.farmkind.org/