Climate Change is A Choice

Climate change is about choices – our choices.  We all know that we face a serious threat in the form of climate change, especially in Florida.  Sea levels are expected to rise, thus eliminating miles of coastal areas.  Global warming melts polar ice caps and mountain glaciers causing increases in sea levels that threaten coastal areas and small island nations.  Food, water, and security issues are exacerbated by the droughts and floods brought on by global warming.  Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts, and floods have been scientifically linked to greenhouse gasses - carbon dioxide and methane – in the atmosphere.  There is a deep injustice in climate change.  Rich countries grow richer while causing the problem.  The poorest countries are the most affected, and have the least responsibility for the causes

Warming of the climate is directly linked to human activity and choices.  The meat and dairy based diet, the livestock sector, generates the most greenhouse gas emissions according to a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization report.  The massive amount of animal feces produced in factory farms is the largest source of airborne methane in the United States.  Methane traps heat in the atmosphere almost 100 times more effectively than carbon dioxide does.

Pollution is about choices.  Animals raised for the meat and dairy based diet in the United States produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population does – 86,000 pounds per second.  A typical pig factory generates a quantity of raw waste equal to a city of 50,000 people, but without the sewage system.  The runoff from factory farms pollutes rivers and lakes more than all other industrial sources combined.  Chicken, hog, and cattle excrement have polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated ground water in 17 states. 

Use of scarce resources is also about choices.  Of all agricultural land in the U.S., nearly 80% is used to raise animals for food.  Twenty times more land is required to feed a meat-eater than to feed a vegan.  Raising animals for food consumes nearly half the water used in the U.S.  It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat.  More than one third of all the raw materials and non-renewable fossil fuels used in the U.S. are required to raise animals for food.  This includes fuel to produce fertilizer for the crops that are fed to animals, oil to run the trucks that take them to slaughter, electricity to freeze their carcasses, and much more. 

Trees and forests combat rising temperatures, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and provide a defense against climate change.   However, more than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals.  Currently the Amazon rain forest in Brazil is being burned down to provide grazing land for animals raised to be murdered and cannibalized.

The choices you make impact not only you and your family, but the planet, other people, and the billions of sentient beings that are killed in ways that would horrify any compassionate person.  There needs to be a change in human values, hearts, and minds.  We need to plant more threes, and we need to eat a plant based vegan diet.

“The Search For Raoul Wallenberg  - The Truth”, tells the behind the scenes story of the efforts to learn the fate of disappeared World War II hero, Raoul Wallenberg, savior of 100,00 innocent people.  This inspirational story is full of intrigue and surprises.  It will educate, inform, inspire, and empower you!  It goes beyond the past and applies Wallenberg’s qualities of courage and compassion to present day issues. 

“The Search For Raoul Wallenberg – The Truth” is a true story which reaches back over 100 years, touches on the lives of over 100,000 people, involves the governments of four countries, includes hundreds of documents, and both exposes scandals, and showcases heroism.

There are many books about Raoul Wallenberg, the Diplomat who saved 100,000 innocent lives during World War II.  This one is unique.  It is about all the behind the scenes activity involved in the release of his prison records from the Soviet Union, where the idea originated, why it was important, how it was done, and the background of the impartial investigation which followed. In addition, it exposes the people who tried to prevent the truth, the reasons why, who confronted them, and those who worked tirelessly on behalf of this great hero.  I know because this is my story.

The book will demonstrate what an individual can accomplish if they are dedicated, imaginative, courageous, and compassionate.  Further, the book extends into the present and future by advocating implementation of lessons learned, avarice avoided, and compassionate lifestyles adopted.  It applies Wallenberg’s qualities of compassion, courage, determination and imagination to contemporary issues. This includes Climate Change, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Agriculture, Plant Based Diet, optimal health, and showing compassion to ALL travelers on spaceship Earth.   

“The Search For Raoul Wallenberg - The Truth” is available for sale through the website or AuthorHouse.com, Amazon.com, and Barnes and Noble.com.

A presentation by the Author, Sharon Wallenberg can be arranged.

UN Convention Against Speciesism

“Freedom is never voluntarily granted by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Unfortunately, not all the oppressed are in the position to demand their freedom or rights.  Sometimes it must be done on their behalf as in President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which ultimately ended slavery.  Raoul Wallenberg Vegan International has initiated a United Nations Convention Against Speciesism on behalf of all the abused, victimized, and exploited individuals who currently have absolutely no rights. 

The global issues we face, specifically the unsustainability of the meat and dairy based diet, its impact on human health, (causing cancer, heart disease, diabetes) the health of this planet (climate change, pollution, misuse of scarce resources - land and water),and the welfare of our fellow travelers on spaceship earth (the animals) needs to be addressed by the United Nations in a Convention.  A global patchwork quilt approach is not sufficient.

Left unchecked, the global demand for meat, eggs, and milk is due to double from 2000 to 2050, and will have a major impact on land and energy use globally.  The seriousness of this situation calls for a major step in addressing the issue.  A UN Convention Against Speciesism should be created to insure that all aspects of sustainability are taken into consideration, and that all individuals on earth are taken into consideration and treated justly.

Eliminating Meat Will End Starvation Forever

According to experts at both Cornell and Harvard, the optimal amount of meat in the healthy human diet is precisely zero.  Today one billion people are hungry.  20 million people will die from malnutrition. Cutting meat by 10% will feed 100 million people.  Eliminating meat will end starvation forever. 

Currently, poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms.  The West feeds it to livestock so they can eat a steak.  This is a crime!  Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of hungry child, and an act of violence to an innocent being. The Earth can produce enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed. 

Water, as you know, is the new oil.  Nations will be going to war for it.  Underground aquifers that took millions of years to fill are running dry.  It takes 50,000 liters of precious drinking water to make one kilo of beef! Greenhouse gas emission from livestock is 50% greater than transportation: cars, buses, trains, trucks, the whole lot.  If everyone ate a western diet, we would need two planet earths to fed us.  We only have one and she is dying!