World Water Day observed across the globe

With experts increasingly aware of a looming shortage, this year’s theme of the United Nations’- sponsored event was “Clean Water for a Healthy World.”

Held on March 22, participants worldwide gathered to raise awareness and call for action in protecting both quality and quantities of the precious resource.

As acknowledged by many environmentalists, addressing the massive consumption and pollution of both the meat and dairy industries could effectively eliminate the Earth’s water crises, as this farmer in California, USA shares.

Grape farmer located near dairy factory farms, California, USA (M): The ones that have been doing all these nuts, grapes, vegetables, fruits; we’ve been doing that for the last hundred years. We had a lot of water. The central valley of California feeds America, and also other countries. Ever since the dairy moved in, the water level in my well went dry.

My neighbors’ well went dry. One, two, three, four of our wells are dry. Our water level was really high before. Now our water level is so low, the farmers that are doing all the vegetable and fruits are hurting for water, because we got the dairy here.

VOICE: The United Nations Environment Program also held a three-day event in Nairobi, Kenya, where policy makers and scientist participants released a report revealing that more lives are lost to contaminated water than to wars or other conflicts.

In fact, every 20 seconds, one child less than age 5 succumbs to water-related disease. Highlighting once again a livestock-based source of the majority of the world’s water problems was Mr. Rick Dove of Waterkeepers Alliance in North Carolina, USA.

Rick Dove – Southeastern representative for Waterkeeper Alliance (M): In eastern North Carolina there are about ten million hogs producing more fecal waste each and every day than all the people in the states of North Carolina, California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, North Dakota combined.

On some of our rivers like the Neuse, we’ve lost over a billion fish, dead fish since 1991, and just this year we’ve lost about 200 million on the Neuse River.

VOICE: We thank Mr. Rick Dove and all the concerned participants of World Water Day 2010 for helping raise awareness of our need to preserve this life-giving resource.

As more and more people awaken to the link between water scarcity and livestock, may we soon herald a meat-free world of lush abundance for all.

Supreme Master Ching Hai has often addressed the need for action to reverse these planet-wide tolls, as during an August 2009 videoconference in Thailand.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: Many tens of thousands of rivers and great lakes are dying, dead, gone or going. And I don’t know how many more we must wait for to die in order for us to wake up.

The leaders of the nations must do something. The people of all nations must do something.

We have to do something to avoid the tragedy that is already happening to billions of other people. There are one billion people hungry already because of climate change, and short of water and food.

And three billion people are short of water.

Just be veg. Stop the meat, dairy, fish industry. Be benevolent. Create a merciful energy that will envelop our world, that will emit mercy, love, protection for us and our children on this planet. Please take action now.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1593806/world-water-day
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-deane/reflecting-on-world-water_b_508036.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2010/0322/World-Water-Day-Dirty-water-kills...
http://yubanet.com/world/World-Water-Day-2010-Highlights-Solutions-and-Calls-for...

Widespread drought afflicts China

Southwestern Yunnan province has been experiencing the most severe drought in six decades with some regions not having received rainfall since August 2009. Neighboring Guangxi and Guizhou provinces have also lacked rain, which has been disastrous for farmers.

Some 2.55 million hectares constituting 85% of Yunnan's total growing area and containing such crops as wheat, sugarcane and vegetables have been affected.

Provincial authorities reported water shortages for nearly 5 million residents and over 3 million livestock animals.

With the drought also grounding boats on the Mekong River, the Marine Bureau has stopped issuing permits and is warnings vessels instead to stay away from the waterway. It saddens us deeply to know of the suffering of the Chinese people.

Our prayers for the blessing of rain and that humans everywhere quickly adopt sustainable lifestyles that restore balance to our Earth. During an October 2009 videoconference in Germany, Supreme Master Ching Hai voiced, as she has many other times, her concern for humanity’s plight at this dire time on our planet, while at the same time highlighting the actions necessary to alleviate such crises.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: With current droughts and water shortages already affecting millions and only expected to get worse, worse and worse. But even though our predicament is very grave, we do still have time if we act now. And the solution is still very simple.

It’s the vegan diet – no animal products.

Scientists have found that each person eating a meat and dairy based diet uses around 4,500 gallons of water per day, compared to 300 gallons per day for a vegan diet.

This also means that 1 pound of animal protein requires 100 times more water to produce than 1 pound of grain protein.

Over the course of a year, the vegan diet saves approximately 1.5 million gallons of water per person.

This is the key. If everyone switches to this beneficial lifestyle, our planet will be cooled in no time, scientifically speaking and my promise.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6900486.html
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-46421320100224
http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task...

Reducing meat consumption better than changing livestock feed and practices

In evaluating options such as emission abatement plans that would reduce livestock greenhouse gases by providing different food sources for the animals and using manure for fuel, scientists have found that these methods provide minimal benefit and in fact could create larger problems of both food quality and ethics.

Moreover, a decade-long study by New Zealand’s AgResearch concluded that such alternatives only reduce emissions by a few percent. Moreover, UK Food Ethics Council Executive Director Tom MacMillan has raised similar concerns, emphasizing the importance of reducing meat and dairy consumption to significantly minimize livestock emissions.

Mr. West, Mr. MacMillan, New Zealand AgResearch and UK Food Ethics Council, many thanks for your insightful findings. We look forward to people everywhere supporting the environment through the ultimately sustainable plant-based fare.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bdde1dec-0a00-11df-8b23-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

Swine flu reaches pandemic level

During an emergency meeting held on Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the escalation of the swine flu to the highest epidemic level 6, of global pandemic proportions. Speaking during a press briefing, WHO Assistant Director-General of Health, Security and Environment, Dr. Keiji Fukuda stated, “In terms of what we are seeing right now, we continue to see the spread of this virus evolve and we continue to see new countries report the virus, and we continue to see evolution of activity within countries.” Nations worldwide are now urged to gear themselves for widespread infection.

Currently, a total of more than 27,700 27,735 cases have been confirmed across 74 countries, with Colombia’s first declared fatality joining the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, and Dominican Republic in raising the deaths from this illness to 141. Along with the sometimes deadly consequences of consuming animal products, which occur from bacterial infections as well as viruses like the swine flu, is the emotional toll that can be seen in people who live near large livestock operations.

Dr. Kendall Thu, an associate professor of anthropology at Northern Illinois University in the US recently spoke with Supreme Master Television about some of these less obvious consequences of meat and dairy consumption, which can include an increased sense of hopelessness leading to stress, tension and even humiliation.

Professor Kendall Thu – Associate Professor of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University, USA (M): I know of cases where children who board school buses from standing on the rural street corner waiting for the school bus to come, absorb the smell, and they're taunted on the bus once they get there because they smell terribly.

VOICE: Factory farm odors are more than just unpleasant; they can disrupt an entire town’s activities. Not only that, as Dr. Thu points out, consumers anywhere in the world buying the farms’ products are also implicated in the problem.

Professor Kendall Thu (M): I remember interviewing a pastor in North Carolina who lives next to a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) and she was giving her sermon in church and then she suddenly realized she smelled something and it was herself. She absorbed the hog smell and she was so embarrassed within the church setting that she went home to change in order to continue with the sermon. So many of the social impacts are invisible to so many people who buy meat in the grocery store and don't realize that eating meat of this sort and being connected to this pathological system of meat production impacts directly the lives of people who work inside of them and who live near them.

VOICE: Professor Thu, we appreciate your research on the debilitating emotional toll of industrial farmed animal operations. We are thankful for the World Health Organization's careful monitoring and commitment to safeguarding public health. Our heartfelt sympathies for the minimizing of this illness and for those who have been afflicted by the swine flu, as we pray for the recovery of dignity and health to humans and animals alike through the life-sparing vegan diet.

Reference:
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_06_10a/en/index.html http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jTkkEKE5LtPih_5Jcc-3MpD0gOYQD98O1NF80