OMNI
VEGETARIAN/VEGAN ACTION NEWSLETTER,
WEDNESDAY (2NDWEDNESDAYS), OCTOBER 10, 2018.
Edited by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Forward this newsletter to help advance vegetarianism and veganism.
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OMNI’s OCTOBER VEGETARIAN/VEGAN POTLUCK is Wednesday, OCTOBER 10, 2018 (2ND Wednesdays), at OMNI, Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology. We start eating at 6:00. All are welcome.
OMNI’s director is Gladys Tiffany. OMNI is located at 3274 Lee Avenue parallel to N. College southeast of the Village Inn and south of Liquor World. More information: 935-4422; 442-4600. Or take College to Harold St (at Flying Burrito), turn east (right if you’re heading north). Go one block to Lee and turn left. Go one block to Bertha. We’re the gray brick on the corner, 2nd house south of Liquor World, solar panels on roof!
CONTENTS:OMNI’s Vegetarian/Vegan Action Newsletter #53, http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2018/09/vegetarianvegan-action-newsletter.html
October 10, 2018
Health, Nutrition
Cookbooks
Good Medicine published by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Protection of Animals, Empathy, Compassion
Arkansas
“Happy Columbus and Other Cannibals Day”: End Columbus Day
Vs. Ag-Gag Laws, by Joe Loria, Mercy for Animals
Climate Chaos: Mitigation and Adaptation
National Advertising for Vegan
Avoid Extreme Climate Change: Stop Eating Meat
Book: The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism (UK)
Animal Food and Greenhouse Gases
Vegetarian Action #52 Contents
TEXTS
Health, Nutrition
Cookbooks
Bryanna Clark Grogan. World Vegan Feast: 200 Fabulous Recipes from Over 50 Countries. Vegan Heritage P, 2011.
Chapters: World Vegan Kitchen Essentials, Brunch Around the World, International Munchies, Soups, Salads, etc.!
Donna Klein. Vegan Italiano: Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Dishes. Home/Penguin, 2006. Chapters: Soups, Salads, Pasta, Rice and Other Granins, Vegetables, etc.!
From Good Medicine section on Nutrition:
“Diet-Related Diseases Are Leading Cause of Death in U.S.”
“Plant-Based Diets Reduce Heart Disease Risk Factors.”
“Grilled Meat Increases Risk for Hypertension.”
Section on Prevention & Nutrition:
“Doctors Urge St. Louis Residents to Go Vegan.”
“Plant Protein, Fiber, and Nuts Lower Cholesterol, Improve Blood Pressure.”
Protection of Animals, Empathy, Compassion
“Turkey Numbers Up in State, USDA Says.” NADG (105-18). Carnivorism ARK: “about 2 million more Arkansas-raised turkeys are going to slaughter this year compared with 2017.”
LTE. William Carlyle (NLR). “Unspeakable Cruelty.” NADG (7-30-18).
Lauralee Darr (Mena). “Kindness and Respect.” NADG (8-14-18).
The Humane Society of the United States. Dedicated to stop the pain and suffering inflicted on animals by the ruling animal.
Happy Columbus and Other Cannibals Day!
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 | By Joe Loria - November 22, 2017 |
According to Utah news outlet KUTV, the state has agreed to pay $349,000 to animal rights groups to cover attorneys’ fees and other costs from the lawsuit that resulted in the overturning of the state’s unconstitutional “ag-gag” law.
Filed in 2013 by a group of organizations including the Animal Legal Defense Fund and PETA, the Utah lawsuit was the first of its kind. In July of this year, a federal judge ruled on the case, declaring the state’s ag-gag law unconstitutional. Writing for the District Court of Utah, Judge Robert Shelby criticized the law for “[s]uppressing broad swaths of protected speech without justification" and upheld the right of groups like Mercy For Animals to continue going undercover and exposing abuse at factory farms in the state.
Just last month, Utah waived its right to appeal the ruling. This means the court’s decision stands and remains a victory in the fight to overturn these dangerous laws.
In 2011 the factory farming industry started pushing hard for ag-gag laws designed to prevent animal protection groups from exposing abuse and other crimes at farm facilities in dozens of states. Most of the bills were defeated, but a handful of states passed them into law. While ag-gag laws in Idaho and Utah have been overturned, laws in Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and North Carolina remain on the books.
Recently, the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, along with ALDF, PETA, and other organizations, filed a suit against the state’s ag-gag law.
Meanwhile, undercover investigations by MFA and other groups continue to result in groundbreaking corporate animal welfare policy changes, new and improved laws to protect farmed animals and consumers, felony and misdemeanor convictions against animal abusers, and the closure of especially corrupt animal facilities.
MFA is committed to providing this vital public service for as long as it is needed, and we are hopeful that courts will overturn the ag-gag laws still on the books. To learn more about MFA and how you can support our lifesaving work, click here.
Climate Chaos, Environmental Mitigation and Adaptation
Advert. in The Nation (9-24/10-1/2018)
(in caps)“There’s no such thing as a Meat-Eating Environmentalist. Go Vegan.
It takes about 1,800 gallons of water and up to 10 lbs. of grain to produce just 1 lb. of beef. Order a free vegan starter kit at PETA.org. Photo of woman dressed in or painted on map of planet. Maggie Q for PETA .
Leo Barasi. to stop climate change, we need to eat less meat
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15 September 2017, NEW INTERNATIONALIST
15 September 2017, NEW INTERNATIONALISTWhen Jeremy Corbyn expressed interest in shifting to a vegan diet, he was met with surprised comments. But if we want to avoid extreme climate change, Leo Barasi argues that we can’t put off confronting the consequence of our diets for much longer
Earlier this month Jeremy Corbyn made headlines in a new way – expressing interest in becoming vegan, after being a vegetarian for decades.
Although he later denied he was considering the switch, the episode provided a glimpse of a conversation that few people want to have – but which we can’t keep putting off if we are to avoid extreme climate change.
Campaigners have been trying to persuade the public to eat less meat for years. It’s more than four decades since Peter Singer’s consciousness-awakening book and rallying cry Animal Liberation was published. The Vegetarian Society has been going four times as long, since 1847. Over those years, there have been countless exposés of cruelties in factory farms and of the damage that farming can do to the local environment, and doctors increasingly warn of the risks of eating too much meat.
But if the aim of all this was to reduce meat consumption, those efforts have failed. Vegetarianism might now seem part of mainstream culture rather than an eccentricity, but there’s little sign that more people are quitting meat. Nor is there evidence that many people are reducing the amount they eat – data suggests individuals around the world are eating steadily more of it. Even in the US, where meat consumption per person fell during the 2008 financial crisis, consumption is now rising again.
It looks like economics was the driving force, not ethics.
The world won’t prevent extreme climate change if it doesn’t deal with this. Meat and dairy production is responsible for around a seventh of all of human greenhouse gas emissions. If this continues, livestock emissions alone will exhaust the world’s ‘carbon budget’, the amount the world can release before committing to the dangerous warming threshold of two degrees celsius, within around 100 years – even if every other source of emissions is cleaned up. And, with farming emissions set to grow 30 per cent by 2050, meat and dairy may burn through the budget even faster.
There are solutions to this. There’s been a shift in tastes, with chickenbecoming more popular and beefbecoming less so. This has cut emissions– beef warms the planet about four times as much as chicken. But the switch has been so slow that population growth means the total amount of beef eaten is still rising. And, though cleaner than beef, chicken is still several times more polluting than vegetarian alternatives.
Technology might help. Meat substitutes like the vegan Impossible Burger, which release a fraction of the emissions of beef, could make a switch more palatable. As a recent convert to being mostly vegetarian I’ve found that even the limited range of meat substitutes now available help me cut down on meat, as vaping does for smokers (though I’m still far from convinced by cheese substitutes: they’re fine in cooking but on a cracker are about as appealing as their plastic packaging).
But technology won’t fix the problem on its own. Even if vegan alternatives keep getting better, most people will need more motivation to switch. As long as the substitutes are neither tastier nor cheaper, many people will wonder why they should stop eating cheeseburgers.
This could be one of the hardest problems the world will have to face as it tries to avert extreme climate change. Other possible ways of cutting emissions – like switching from coal to clean power, or ditching inefficient fridges – bring obvious benefits and are supported by most people. But it will be much harder to persuade nearly everyone to cut down on something they enjoy for the sake of the climate, when arguments about health, animal welfare and the local environment have failed.
My book The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism sets out some of the ways that more people could be persuaded to do so.
The surprised response to Corbyn’s comment demonstrates how far public debate still has to come. If this is one of the world’s hardest problems, it’s also one of the most ignored – few people outside the green movement are prepared to admit that consuming less meat and dairy is necessary. All Corbyn did was saying he’s considering changing his own diet.
Just imagine the outrage if he’d suggested that others should do the same or mooted taxes on high-carbon foods.
But we can’t put off confronting the consequence of our diets for much longer. Cutting emissions is only getting harder, as targets get tighter and easier measures are ticked off. Soon we will have to look at our plates and admit it won’t be possible to prevent extreme climate change as long as we keep filling them with cheese and meat.
The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism by Leo Barasi is published by New Internationalist on 21 September
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| By Joe Loria - November 22, 2017 |
According to NASA, at least 97 percent of publishing climate scientists agree that climate change is real. The debate over whether human activity is causing global temperatures to rise is finished. Quite frankly, it has been for well over a decade. But recognizing climate change while supporting animal agriculture, one of the leading contributors, is just as bad as denying it altogether.
If we don’t do something now to curb climate change, scientists warn the planet faces disastrous consequences—from intensified storms and rising sea levels to the extinction of millions of species. And while not everyone can afford an electric car or solar panels, there is something we can all do: go vegan.
Raising animals for food produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, planes, and other forms of transportation combined. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, carbon dioxide emissions from raising farmed animals make up about 15 percent of global human-induced emissions, with beef and milk production as the leading culprits. In fact, even without fossil fuels, we will exceed our 565-gigaton CO2e limit by 2030—all from raising animals for food.
Furthermore, simply by avoiding animal products, we can cut our carbon footprints in half. Keep in mind that a pound of beef requires 13 percent more fossil fuel and 15 times more water to produce than a pound of soy.
In a recent article, the Alliance of World Scientists, a group of 15,000 scientists from 184 countries, concluded that humans must change their behavior and switch to a plant-based diet to prevent environmental destruction.
It’s time for anyone who recognizes that human activity is a real threat to our planet to take action. There is no such thing as "sustainable" meat, and plant-based alternatives to meat, dairy, and eggs take a mere fraction of the resources to produce as their animal-based counterparts.
But a vegan diet isn’t just good for the planet—it also spares countless animals a lifetime of misery at factory farms. Pigs, cows, chickens, and other farmed animals suffer horribly. From birth to death, these innocent animals are caught in a nightmare: crated and caged, cut and burned, and brutally killed.
Just as there is no question that climate change is real, there is no question that animal agriculture is terrible for the planet. Join the millions of people who are helping protect farmed animals and the planet by switching to a vegan diet. Click here to get started!
CONTENTS:OMNI’s Vegetarian/Vegan Action Newsletter #52, September 12, 2018
Health, Nutrition
Good Medicine (Summer 2018), Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
VegNews (Sept. Oct. 2018)
NADG, Government Consumer Protection
Protection of Animals, Empathy, Compassion
Morton, Humankind
Good Medicine
Peta Global (Summer 2018)
VegNews
LTE
Climate Catastrophe Mitigation and Adaptation
PETA Global, outstanding articles on vegetarian/vegan opposition to meat