Tuesday, April 30, 2019

VEGETARIAN/VEGAN ACTION NEWSLETTER, MAY 8, 2019


OMNI

VEGETARIAN/VEGAN ACTION NEWSLETTER,
WEDNESDAY (2ND WEDNESDAYS), MAY 8, 2019.
Edited by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

To be removed from this mailing, drop me a note unsubscribe.  

      OMNI’s director is Gladys Tiffany.  OMNI is located at 3274 Lee Avenue parallel to N. College southeast of the Village Inn and 2ND building 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!

This Newsletter is about food and its consequences in 3 categories: food, animals, and climate.  Tell people you know who would like to know about OMNI, our Veg Potluck, and Newsletter.                                


     OMNI’s MAY VEGETARIAN/VEGAN POTLUCK (NEWSLETTER #58), is Wednesday, MAY 8, 2019 (2ND Wednesdays), at OMNI, Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.  We start eating at 6:00.      All are welcome. 

CONTENTS, #58, MAY 8, 2019
HEALTH
Articles in Good Medicine (Spring 2019) by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
“Plant-based Whopper Sales to Expand.”  NADG (4-30-2019).   Burger King is expanding its popular plant-based burger “Impossible Whopper.”
Local economical healthy eating: CiCi’s Pizza.  $12.02 for 2 seniors ($5 discount), soup, all you can eat vegetarian, soup, pizza, salad bar, drink, dessert.   

ANIMALS
Animal Matters from The Intercept on animal rights movement.
     GMOs and pesticides in meat.

CLIMATE
Animal Matters from The Intercept on animal rights movement.
     Statistics on ruin of Amazon rain forest by cattle agriculture.
Philpott, case against carnism.
CNN, British call for significant cut in sheep and cattle production.

Contents #57

TEXTS

HEALTH

Articles in Good Medicine (Spring 2019) praising plant-based eating.
    “Vegan Diet Gives Athletes an Edge over the Competition”
    “Vegan Meals Are Beneficial for Gut Hormones”
    “Time for McDonald’s to Break Up with Bacon”

    “’Bacon Is a Killer’ TV Ad Runs in States Hardest Hit by Colorectal Cancer.”
    “Dr. Barnard Headlines Australia’s First Plant-Based Nutrition Conference”
    “Native Americans Are Healing Diabetes with Plant-Based Diet”
    “’Go Vegan for Someone You Love’ Urge Billboards in India”
    “Physicians Committee Is Top 10 Health Influencer in China”
    “Heather Shenkman, M.D.: “Healing Hearts with a Plant-Based Diet”

Center for Science in the Public Interest
“America’s Food Watchdog.”  Publishes Nutrition Action.
Examples of topics:
Useful vs. useless or harmful supplements
False or deceptive claims on food labels.
Evaluations of specific food
products in every number of NA.

“10 Superstars…For Better Health.”

“Plant-based Whopper Sales to Expand.”  NADG (4-30-2019).   Burger King is expanding its popular plant-based burger “Impossible Whopper.”

ANIMALS

“Animal Matters”: Episode Two.  The Intercept.
The second episode of our video series “Animal Matters” focuses on the transformation of the animal rights movement from a fringe leftist topic to a bipartisan and non-ideological issue. Hosts Glenn Greenwald and Sentient Media co-founder Grant Lingel examine the evidence of that transformation, the reasons behind the change, and how the shift provides opportunities for the animal rights struggle and for a new ideological paradigm in democratic societies.
Watch Animal Matters→
70% of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is due to cattle agriculture. Here are 5 reasons why cows have no business grazing in what was once a thriving forest.
Nov 2, 2014 - Friends of The Earth, October 31, 2014 - HIGH STEAKS: THE CASE FOR ... The Guardian Environment, December 21, 2012- Tom Philpott.

Judd Tolson.  “For Helpless Animals.”  LTE, NADG (4-13-19).   House Bill 1778, which would strengthen penalties for cruelty to dogs and cats, failed to pass.  No mention of the thousands of animals slaughtered for food for the animal at the top of the chain.

CLIMATE
Tom Philpott.  “High Steaks.”  Mother Jones (May/June 2019).  Philpott continues to make a strong case against carnism: “…a spate of new studies have argued that cutting way back on meat can help our climate enormously.”  See if you have better luck than I in finding the online text of Philpott’s MJ article. 
Combat climate change by cutting beef and lamb production, report says
By Tara John, CNN.  Updated 9:58 AM ET, Thu November 15, 2018\
CNN)new report a British advisory body has called for a 20%-50% cut in the number of sheep and cattle to help combat climate change -- adding to the growing international consensus that eating red meat is not only bad for your health, it is also bad for the environment.
Lamb, beef and dairy production accounts for the majority of greenhouse gases emitted by farms in Britain, with sheep and cattle directly responsible for around 58% of agricultural emissions in the UK in 2016, says the report by the government's Committee on Climate Change (CCC).
The advisory body suggests that a dramatic reduction in the consumption of cow and sheep products could release up to 7 million hectares of grassland, which could instead be planted to create forests and help store carbon.
It recommends that the UK's land under forestry should increase to 19% from 14%.

The committee also said a reduction in beef and lamb consumption would lead to a rise in the consumption of plant-based food, as well as chicken and pork.
The government's "Eatwell Guide" for a healthy and balanced diet outlines the proportion of a person's diet that each food group should provide. The report says that following these guidelines would lead to a dramatic reduction in the amount of red meat eaten by the population, with an 89% reduction for beef and a 63% reduction for lamb. This would also see a 20% decline in dairy products.
The target of reducing sheep and cattle numbers by 20%-50% also relies on people following the recommended diet, with the 20% goal achievable if people replace red meat with chicken and pork. The higher 50% goal would involve people switching to meat alternatives or substitutes.
The report, which has an overarching goal to create a "a new land use policy" that will help mitigate climate change, also includes recommendations to increase Britain's forested area as well as the restoration of the country's peatlands and the reduction of flood risks.

"This is a wake-up call for a complacent government that we must completely transform the way we use land, to avoid climate breakdown and make space for nature," Friends of the Earth campaigner Guy Shrubsole said in a statement.
"As the Committee on Climate Change says, we need to free up land from agriculture by eating much less meat and dairy, and stop landowners burning and degrading peat bogs -- our single biggest carbon store."
Animal farming is responsible for 14.5% of the world's greenhouse emissions, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, making it a significant contributor to climate change. Of those emissions, 65% comes from beef and dairy cattle.
recent report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emphasized the need for people to consume about 30% less animal products. Eating less meat is one of a number of mitigation strategies suggested by the IPCC to overhaul agricultural and land-use practices, including the protection of forests.  A study last month predicted that as a result of population growth and the continued consumption of large amounts of red meat and processed food in the West, the environmental pressures from the food system could increase by up to 90% by 2050.CNN's Meera Senthilingam contributed to this report.

Asparagus – The only vegetable on the list is also the most surprising entry. Asparagus creates 8.9 kilos of emissions per kilo produced, according to the NRDC. But how?  
The problem is mostly in the air miles. NRDC's Sujatha Bergen explains: "Much of the asparagus in the United States is flown in from Latin America, which results in greater climate emissions than foods that are transported by trucks. While it's not the only produce item that is flown into the country, a higher proportion of it is transported this way than most other common fruits and vegetables (many of which we import from Mexico). In general, if people are looking to minimize their climate impacts, they should avoid air freighted foods as much as possible."
Pork – One kilo of pork creates 7.9 kilos of carbon emissions. The NRDC estimates that changes in the American diet avoided approximately 271 million tons of climate-warming pollution between 2005 and 2014, roughly equivalent to the tailpipe pollution of 57 million cars for one year. In the list of foods that contributed the most to this reduction, pork is third behind beef and orange juice.
Veal – Another entry that belongs to the beef and dairy cattle supply chain, veal has a lower environmental impact than beef because the calves are slaughtered at a younger age, typically at around 20 weeks versus 18 months. Each kilo creates 7.8 kilos of carbon emission, according to the NRDC.
Chicken – Eating less chicken meat is one of the contributing factors that have led to a reduction in per-capita emissions linked to food in the US, but poultry still ranks in the top 10, with just over 5 Kg of CO2 per kg of product.
Hide Caption
9 of 10
Turkey – Turkey has the same carbon footprint as chicken, at around 5 kilos of emissions per kilo of meat.
The NRDC has excluded from this list some foods that most people are not familiar with or are difficult to deliberately avoid, because they are often used in ingredients in other products as opposed to purchased directly by consumers in large amounts. These include: lard and beef tallow (11.92 kg of CO2 per kg of food), dry milk products (10.4 kg of CO2 per kg of food), and other added fats and oils such as palm oil (6.30 kg of CO2 per kg of food).
Beef – Beef is widely recognized as the most climate-damaging of all foods. A 2017study by the Natural Resources Defense Council on food consumption in the US calculates that each kilogram of beef produces 26.5 kilograms of CO2 emissions -- the highest among all the foods observed in the study, and five times more than chicken or turkey meat.
Animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5 percent of the world's greenhouse emissions, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, making it a significant contributor to climate change. Of those emissions, 65 percent come from beef and dairy cattle.

Reducing beef consumption is an effective way of curbing global emissions. According to the NRDC, Americans now consume 19 percent less beef than just over a decade ago, in 2005. This is equivalent to a reduction of 185 million metric tons of emissions, or the annual tailpipe pollution of 39 million cars.
But why is beef so bad? "The feed is largely produced using lots of pesticide and fertilizer, which requires fossil fuels," explains Sujatha Bergen, one of the authors of the study. "Also, the digestive system of the cows produces methane, which is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. And the manure emits additional greenhouse gases."
Lamb – Another ruminant, lamb, comes at number two -- confirming that red meat is particularly resource-intensive and, as such, damaging to the environment. For each kilo of lamb meat consumed, there are 22.9 kilos of emissions, the NRDC study estimates.
Meat production also requires large amounts of animal feed, mainly the resource-intensive corn and soy. The synthetic fertilizer and the manure used to grow these also releases nitrous oxide, a climate-warming pollutant 298 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
Butter – The third most damaging food, by some distance, is butter: one kilo of butter equals nearly 12 kilos of CO2 -- about half as many as beef. It belongs to the same supply chain, making dairy and beef cattle an environmentalist's nightmare. 
While Americans have greatly reduced their consumption of red meat in recent years, the NRDC reports that butter and other dairy products such as cheese and yogurt actually enjoyed a surge in the observed period, from 2005 to 2014.
Butter is the most climate damaging of all dairy products because there are several steps involved in producing it that are energy-intensive: "For example, butter production requires separating raw milk into low-fat milk and cream, pasteurizing the cream, cooling the cream, ripening and churning," Sujatha Bergen told CNN.
Shelllfish – Shellfish costs the environment 11.7 kilos of CO2 for every kilo of food produced, just marginally less than butter. Along with milk, pork, and high-fructose corn syrup -- widely used as a sweetener in soft drinks -- shellfish is among the key foods that Americans are eating less of. Overall, changes in the American diet since 2005 have led to a 10 percent decrease in per-capita climate pollution related to food, according to the NRDC.
Cheese – Another dairy product, cheese, comes in fifth place with 9.8 kg of emissions per kg produced. "Our list is a an average of several common cheeses," explains Sujatha Bergen, "Cheeses that require refrigerated transport or are flown in from abroad, however, tend to have higher climate impacts."

Contents #57, April 10, 2019
Health
Articles in Good Medicine (Spring 2015) by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
     Articles for Nutrition
     Articles against Animal Testing
     2 Progrressive Bills Pass in CA Lege
Center for Science in the Public Interest, Nutrition Action Health Letter
Healthline, EcoWatch, Vegan Sources of Calcium
Burger King Expanding Plant-based “Meat”
2 Chemicals in US Food Banned in EU

Farm Animals
PCRM’s Campaign against Experimenting with Animals

PETA v. Industrial Food Production

Climate
Google Search:  Climate Change, Global Warming, Cattle, Meat


Contents #56  March 2019




                      
END VEGETARIAN/VEGAN ACTION NEWSLETTER,
WEDNESDAY (2ND WEDNESDAYS), MAY, 2019, #58.

Monday, April 22, 2019

EARTH DAY 2019 POPULATION GROWTH V. CLIMATE



OMNI
EARTH DAY, APRIL 22, 2019:
POPULATION GROWTH V. CLIMATE
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and ECOLOGY
Contents
Google Search 4-19-19
Organizations:
Negative Population Growth
Population Connection
A Few Recent Books on the Climate Catastrophe
     McKibben, Falter (2019)
     Rich, Losing Earth (2019) 
And on Population
Arkansas Google Search

Top stories, Google Search 4-19-19

People also ask
What will the population be in 2019?
What is the theme of Earth Day 2019?

What will the population be in 2050?

What's the world's population in 2018?
9 hours ago - Fifty years ago, in 1969 when astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon, the world's population was 3.6 billion; ...
Apr 11, 2019 - Please click the photo to view the ad as it appeared in these publications. EARTH DAY 2019. ENVIRONMENTAL MESSAGE TO AMERICA
The Theme of Earth Day 2019 (April 22) is Protect Our Species! ... growing at a rapid pace; by 2050 two thirds of the world's population will live in urban areas.
7.7 Billion (2019) The current world population is 7.7 billion as of April 2019 according to the most recent United Nations estimates elaborated by Worldometers.
By 2050, population is projected to reach 9.7 billion. ... about 80 million people per year, 200,000 per day, 9,000 per hour, 150 per minute and 2.5 every second.
Posted on February 1, 2019Population Connection members made 2018 ... Celebrate Earth Day 2018 with Population Connection! Posted on April 20, 2018.
Would you like to raise awareness about population growth during Earth Day this year? If you have an hour or two, join other local Population Connection volunteers to inform your community about protecting ... Population Connection 2019.
Apr 8, 2019 - April 22, 2019, marks the 49th anniversary and 50th observance of Earth Day ― a day intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the ...

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ORGANIZATIONS CONCERNED WITH STABILIZING POPULATION GROWTH
📣📣CALL TO ACTION🌎🌎
Negative Population Growth npg@npg.org via npgorg.ccsend.com 
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Working Together for a Livable Future.

Earth Day 2019: A Call To Action

A Smaller Population Is Key To An Environmentally Sustainable Future!

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As we race toward Earth Day on April 22nd it is time to both celebrate and educate. 

This will be the 49th Earth Day celebrated here in the U.S. and around the world, since 1970, when countless millions of the earth’s inhabitants opened their eyes to the ravages that humankind was placing on our tiny planet of limited resources.

The launch of Earth Day greatly influenced the thinking of NPG’s founders, who were convinced of the need to get people focused on the fast-paced rise in population numbers here in the U.S. They created Negative Population Growth only two years later in 1972 and, as it quickly enrolled thousands of members, it grew to be one of the premiere population-focused groups in the nation.

Today, the activism of NPG members and supporters continues to play an important role in the fight for responsible population policies—especially working to forcefully push back against the ever-growing “open border” lobby and quell the soaring number of illegal and legal immigrants entering our country. It is a battle we must win!

Concurrent with that campaign, NPG also remains in the forefront of the environmental movement. We are presently compiling the returns from our 2019 NPG Member Environmental Survey and will release the results soon. This is our first full-fledged gauge of member input related to our environmental activities and we are looking forward to using the opinions shared to better shape NPG’s future environmental activism.

Finally, we included below our 2019 NPG Earth Day ad, tied to the theme of TOO MANY PEOPLE, which will run in The Washington Times on or around Earth Day.  

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE OUR 2019 EARTH DAY NATIONAL AD - THEN HELP FUND IT!


On the 30th Anniversary of Earth Day in 2000, former U. S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, who is considered to be the founder of Earth Day, wrote a challenging essay entitled The Environmental Future: How Do We Get There From Here?
  
“Thirty years ago, on April 22, 1970, Earth Day burst onto the political scene. Twenty million people demonstrated their concern over what was happening to the natural world around them – polluted rivers, lakes, trout streams, ocean shores, the air we breathe and much more. The people cared, but the political establishment seemed oblivious to it all. The specific objective on Earth Day was to stir up a public demonstration big enough to shake up the establishment and force the environmental issue onto the national political agenda. Earth Day was a truly astonishing grassroots explosion. It achieved everything I had hoped for. At long last, the environment was on the national agenda, where it will remain as a constant reminder for this and future generations.

This brief essay speaks to the fundamental issue of our time – forging a sustainable society. A sustainable society may be described in several ways: a society whose activities do not exceed the carrying capacity of its resource base; or a society that manages its environmental and resource systems so that their ability to support future generations is not diminished. Every nation on the planet faces the same challenge.

Since the first Earth Day, we have tried a lot of things. We have learned a lot, and we have achieved a lot. It has been a kind of piecemeal approach to the environmental challenge. We tackled the most obvious and threatening problems – air pollution, water pollution, etc. Even after 30 years there is still much to do in these areas. We have learned that almost all environmental problems are either preventable – or at least manageable. With this new knowledge we now stand at the threshold of a “Golden Opportunity” to change the course of history. We can do it by turning away from the uneconomic practice of fueling our economy by consuming our natural capital. Forging an economically sustainable society is the practical and profitable alternative. We know all we need to know to launch a long-term program that will lead us to sustainability.

After three decades of discussion, debate, legislation and education, there has evolved a new level of understanding and concern over what is happening around us. The public is prepared and, in the end, will support those measures necessary to forge a sustainable society if the President and the Congress present a well-documented and convincing case. Failing to achieve sustainability is not an acceptable option. That would be a disaster for future generations.”

HELP NPG EDUCATE THE AMERICAN PUBLIC ABOUT OVERPOPULATION—OUR NATION’S MOST THREATENING ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE!



As we observe Earth Day here in 2019, it has been 19 years since Senator Gaylord celebrated the “Golden Opportunity” that loomed before humankind. And while substantial advancements have been made in cleaning-up and protecting the world’s fragile environment via major human commitments and technological innovations, the issue of overpopulation still screams for attention. It is an issue that must be forcefully addressed and acted on by national, state and local leaders across the board if we are ever going to make progress in creating a more livable world.  

As it has for 47 years, NPG will continue to serve as one of the leading world organizations fighting to slow, halt and eventually reverse America’s population growth. This goal is at the heart of our mission. And with the help of our thousands of dedicated members and supporters we will continue to better educate our nation’s policymakers, as well as the American public, about the devastating effects of overpopulation on America’s resources, environment and the quality of our lives.
        
Get ready! Next year, will be the 50th anniversary of the very first Earth Day and 2020 is sure to be a celebratory year. 

NPG looks forward to joining with countless national and world-wide organizations to emulate Senator Nelson’s actions in 2000, in taking a good hard look at all we’ve accomplished together, renewing the “save the planet” fire within the hearts of global citizens, setting challenging new environmental goals, and moving forward to meet them.  


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Negative Population Growth | 2861 Duke St, Suite 36, Alexandria, VA 22314

POPULATION CONNECTION

·         Population Education
Best Data-Centric Lesson Plans for Earth Day 2019
BY LINDSEY BAILEY | April 17, 2019
Earth Day is next week, April 22nd. PopEd wants to help you make the most out of this teachable moment by providing lesson plans that use relevant, real-world data while also emphasizing important environmental themes.
Data is an effective avenue for exploring a range of environmental issues, from climate change to habitat health to water use. The use of real-world data brings these issues to life, making abstract concepts more tangible and encouraging students to develop deep connections and thorough understandings. Not to mention that the use of data encourages critical thinking and analysis skills, both of which are emphasized in the NGSS and Common Core standards. So don’t miss out – these real-world data lessons are sure to be new favorites in your Earth Day resource library.
Three lesson plans for Earth Day that use real-world data
1. THE SIXTH EXTINCTION
In this high school biodiversity lesson, students analyze written articles, graphics, and numeric data to compare modern rates of extinction to background rates. It’s a great activity for APES!
Percentage of Species Gone Extinct Over Time
The data connection: The numbers about extinction rates can be dizzying, but when students do their own calculations, they become more accessible and memorable. Viewing the data in visual format through charts and graphs allows for quick yet striking comparisons.
Why use it on Earth Day? This year’s Earth Day theme is “Protect Our Species.” Scientists assert that we are now in the middle of a Sixth Mass Extinction because of human activities. The observed extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times the background rate with as much as 50 percent of all species headed toward extinction by 2050. Humans are irrevocably damaging the delicate web of life that we so critically depend on, and awareness plays a key role in species protection.
2. WASTE A- WEIGH
Bins in school cafeteria for separating lunch wasteThis elementary level lab activity has students collect their own data on both individual and whole-class lunchtime waste. By weighing their waste every day for a week while implementing new waste-reduction habits like reusable containers and non-plastic utensils, students see how a change in behavior can have an immediate positive impact.
The data connection: What’s more real-world than collecting data about your own life? When students collect their own stats, they not only get practice with data collection and recording methods, but also become engaged in authentic learning and problem solving.
Why use it on Earth Day? According to the EPA, the average American generates almost 4.5 pounds of trash per day. While about one-third of that gets recycled, the rest ends up in landfills where it can leak toxic chemicals into the surrounding soil or water supply. Reducing waste is the most effective way to combat our outsized waste footprint.
3. MEAT OF THE MATTER
Middle School Lesson on Diet Cows PopulationIn this hands-on middle school lesson, students graph global meat consumption, use manipulatives to explore the environmental impact of four different types of protein, and discuss the pros and cons of a shifting global diet.
The data connection: Sometimes looking at data in a new format is key to understanding it. In this lesson, students use a grid and colored bingo chips to display data on various proteins’ impacts on water, land, and the atmosphere. This lesson is a great entry point for discussing the pros and cons of various types of data illustrations.
Why use it on Earth Day? Meat production is an incredibly resource-intensive process. It takes approximately 1800 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef and 33 percent of all cropland is used to farm grains, fruits and vegetables for livestock. Decreasing consumption of animal-based foods can have a significant positive impact on the planet.
For the next couple of months, PopEd will continue to share classroom resources and lesson plans that highlight the use of relevant data from the world around us. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter OR search #PopEdRealData and #PopEdTheme to stay in touch and get exclusive access to a slew of engaging lessons!
 Image credits: Graph: “Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction” by Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anthony D. Barnosky, Andrés García, Robert M. Pringle, and Todd M. Palmer. Science Advances, Volume 1(5):e1400254, 19 June 2015; Waste bins in cafeteria: Portland Public Schools; Cows: Climatenexus.org 

This Earth Day, Save the Planet: Eat more plants!
BY HANNAH EVANS, POPULATION CONNECTION
Posted on April 18, 2019
April 22, 2019, will mark the United States’ 49th anniversary of Earth Day—an annual celebration of the planet’s natural beauty and a call to action for environmental conservation. While publications and news reports continue to warn us about the vital importance of governments addressing global climate change, you might be wondering how best to approach environmental conservation as an individual. This Earth Day, we invite you to learn more about the benefits of plant-based diets.
Raising livestock = bad news for the environment
Did you know that animal agriculture is a leading driver of deforestation, habitat loss, ocean acidification, species extinction, water pollution, water use, topsoil erosion, and desertification? Industrialized agriculture, which is central to the world economy, has resulted in such large-scale environmental degradation and unsustainable resource use that former Energy Secretary and Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Chu has deemed it “worse for the climate than dirty energy.” In a recent talk at the University of Chicago, Chu argued, “If cattle and dairy cows were a country, they would have more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire EU 28.” Indeed, estimates have shown that 51% of the world’s carbon emissions are attributed to livestock.
If you aren’t familiar with this information already, it might seem somewhat difficult to believe. How can animal agriculture be worse for the environment than everything else? The answer is that the processes required to sustain agricultural production on an industrial scale are extensive and extremely resource-intensive. For example, 80-90% of the water consumed in the United States is used for animal agriculture, and researchers at Cornell University have shown that producing one pound of animal protein is actually 100 times more water intensive than producing one pound of vegetable protein. For reference, one pound of beef requires 1,800 gallons of water!
Animal agriculture has also resulted in large-scale land conversion, including the clearing of forests to grow feed crops and to provide grazing land for livestock. The widespread use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers used mainly to grow feed for animals only adds to the damage. These processes disrupt natural ecosystems and contribute to habitat destruction, species extinction, and waste production on a massive scale. According to one of the authors of a recent UN report, “animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels.”
Plant-based diets can help save the planet
The push amongst the scientific community for a global shift towards a vegan diet is also reflective of the world’s rapidly growing population, which is set to reach over 9 billion people by 2050. Scientists warn that ‘western’ diets rich in meat and dairy are inherently unsustainable—so much so that a “global shift towards a vegan diet” is necessary to prevent imminent threats such as world hunger, poverty, and some of the major impacts of climate change.
Keegan Kuhn, filmmaker and co-director of “Cowspiracy,” says, “Nothing short of a global shift to a vegan diet will work. The idea that we as a human population can continue to eat animals in any real capacity simply isn’t looking at the whole picture of global depletion.” So this Earth Day, use your power as a consumer to affect real, positive environmental change.
Interested in learning more about environmental conservation, veganism, and population dynamics? Join Population Connection at Berkeley’s Vegan Earth Day celebration on April 21! We will be hosting an informational table from 10AM-5PM, and PHE Specialist Hannah Evans will be presenting on the connections between population growth, access to health care, and environmental sustainability. More details can be found here. We hope you can make it!
Not local to the Bay Area? Click here for a list of Population Connection Earth Day events in your area.
Population Education
2120 L Street, NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20037
1-800-767-1956
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·         About Us
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From March 29th-April 1st, 350 activists stormed D.C. to speak out against Trump’s Global Gag Rule, and to urge their elected officials to support the Global HER Act.  . . .   Student activists and Population Connection members and supporters from across the country gathered for this weekend of learning about the impact of U.S. policy on real lives abroad and the international effort to halt the damage of Trump's Global Gag Rule.  [Gag Rule = censorship of information and education about contraception = population increase = CO2 increase.  –D]   Crowds gathered at the #Fight4HER rally in Layfayette Square
CAPITOL HILL DAYS 2019
One of the many highlights of the weekend was hearing from historian and writer Cynthia Greenlee, who presented a fascinating keynote address about the activists who have gone before us. She stressed that "we should take hope there will be a different future." Armed with resources about how best to #Fight4HER, we’re looking forward to this tremendous group of activists leading the #Fight4HER through the remainder of 2019 and beyond. . . .   At the lobby day following the weekend, student and veteran advocates swarmed the Capitol, meeting with
more than 150 Senate and House offices. Senators and Representatives were asked to support the Global HER Act to repeal the Global Gag Rule, to increase funding for international family planning programs, and to restore U.S. support for the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA).

SCIENTISTS REVEAL URGENCY
Bill McKibben.    FALTER:  Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?  Henry Holt, 2019.  304.   Publisher’s comment:
Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out.
Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience.
Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on McKibben’s experience in building 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change, it offers some possible ways out of the trap. We’re at a bleak moment in human history -- and we’ll either confront that bleakness or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away.

Falter is a powerful and sobering call to arms, to save not only our planet but also our humanity.
·         Reviews   About the Author 
 “[An] unsettling look at the prospects for human survival. . . . Readers open to inconvenient and sobering truths will find much to digest in McKibben’s eloquently unsparing treatise.” —Publishers Weekly(starred review)
“A compelling call for change.” —Kirkus Reviews

Nathaniel Rich.  LOSING EARTH:  A Recent History.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018.  224pp.
By 1979, we knew nearly everything we understand today about climate change—including how to stop it. Over the next decade, a handful of scientists, politicians, and strategists, led by two unlikely heroes, risked their careers in a desperate, escalating campaign to convince the world to act before it was too late. Losing Earth is their story, and ours.
The New York Times Magazine devoted an entire issue to Nathaniel Rich’s groundbreaking chronicle of that decade, which became an instant journalistic phenomenon—the subject of news coverage, editorials, and conversations all over the world. In its emphasis on the lives of the people who grappled with the great existential threat of our age, it made vivid the moral dimensions of our shared plight.
Now expanded into book form, Losing Earth tells the human story of climate change in even richer, more intimate terms. It reveals, in previously unreported detail, the birth of climate denialism and the genesis of the fossil fuel industry’s coordinated effort to thwart climate policy through misinformation propaganda and political influence. The book carries the story into the present day, wrestling with the long shadow of our past failures and asking crucial questions about how we make sense of our past, our future, and ourselves.
Bridle, James.  New Dark Age: Technology, Knowledge, and the End of the Future.  Verso, 2018.  The warming and changing climate “shakes not merely our expectations for our digital culture, but our ability to predict any future at all.”
Peter Carter & Elizabeth Woodworth.   Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Deniers and Game Changers for Survival.  2018.  Leaders of fossil fuel industry and their political enablers should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
A Few older books.
O’Neill, Brian, et al.  Population and Climate Change.  Cambridge UP, 2001.   An “exhaustive examination of the technical interactions of climate change and population growth” (Firor and Jacobsen 227). 
John Firor and Judith Jacobsen.  The Crowded Greenhouse: Population, Climate Change, and Creating a Sustainable World.  Yale UP, 2002.
Although they anticipate little possibility of stopping climate change,  they are charged with “great joy” because they “will not give up,” for although the world’s population, temperature, and climate changes are increasing, humans have made progress since their origin, and we should celebrate that.     They invite us all to dance “in the crowded greenhouse that we wish to change” (204).
Alan Weisman, Countdown: Can We Finally Have a Serious Talk About Population?  2013.





GOOGLE SEARCHES, ARKANSAS’ ACTIVITIES EARTH DAY 2019 Including UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSASv
April 22
·         Earth Day Celebration
Saturday, April 20, 2019 - Sunday, April 21, 2019Earth Day Celebration Weekend. West Summit Area ... 11901 Pinnacle Valley Road. Little Rock, AR 72223.
... Events; Earth Day Celebration. Monday, April 22, 2019 ... Join Bull Shoals-White River State Park as we celebrate Earth Day. Learn what you can do to help ...
... by Moon Joggers presents 2019 Earth Day 5K & 10K Little Rock - Monday, April 22, 2019 | Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas.
Apr 22 - Apr 30
Jan 23, 2019 - Earth Day Network, the organization that leads Earth Day worldwide, has ... Earth Day(April 22) 2019′s Protect Our Species campaign will:.
FAYETTEVILLE
Monday 22 April 2019 5:30 PM Monday 22 April 2019 7:30 PM. in 9 days ... Please register: https://www.nwalandtrust.org/events-1/earth-day-litter-pick-up ... West Martin Luther King Boulevard, Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States of America ...
The City of Fayetteville will host their Earth Day event on Saturday, April 20, 2019. This event will start out with a proclamation from the Mayor of Fayetteville, and ...
4 days ago - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 18, 2019. Contact: Kristina Jones Volunteer Coordinator Parks and Recreation Department 479.575.3467

COLLEGES
5 days ago - April 11, 2019 | UAMS will celebrate Earth Day on Thursday, April 18 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the entrance to the Shorey Building/Ward Tower, ...
April 22, 2019. Russell Cothren. The University of Arkansas will celebrate Earth Week April 22-26 with a week of events and activities presented by the ... "Earth Day is the perfect opportunity to celebrate the progress we've made while raising ...
10 hours ago - – In celebration of Earth Day 2019, capstone projects conducted by University of Arkansas students enrolled in the sustainability minor will be showcased from noon to 1 p.m. Monday, April 22, in the Paul Young Jr.
4 days ago - Join the University of Arkansas Office for Sustainability and University Programs as we celebrate Earth-centered events, kicking off with the ...
Apr 15, 2019 - The University of Arkansas Little Rock Sustainability Committee invites faculty, staff, students, and members of the community to celebrate Earth ...
5 days ago - Earth Day Celebration. 04/17/2019, 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM. Location: Room: East plaza of Student Union. Earth Day will be celebrated with area ...
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OMNI
EARTH DAY 2017

END OMNI EARTH DAY NEWSLETTER 2019

Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)

Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)