European Parliament Vice President calls for less meat to ease global warming

In an editorial published in the UK’s Yorkshire Post, European Parliament Vice President Edward McMillan-Scott explained why he, along with leaders like Sir Paul McCartney and UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, has chosen not to eat meat. Citing the 2006 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistic that 18% of all greenhouse gases come from livestock, Vice President McMillan-Scott stated that meat takes 16 times more energy and resources than its vegetable equivalent.

Meat also uses vastly higher amounts of water, even as 62% of the world’s population faces scarcity and drought. In addition, farmed animal raising occupies a full 70% of agricultural land and is a major cause of destructive deforestation. Other environmental and health detriments include meat consumption’s effect on the more than one billion who are now suffering from hunger.

His Excellency went on to call on governments, organizations and individuals to opt for a healthier and environmentally-friendly alternative diet. Today, Thursday, December 3, His Excellency joins Sir Paul McCartney and UN IPCC Chair Dr. Rajendra Pachauri at a hearing before the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, on “Global Warming and Food Policy: Less Meat = Less Heat” to urge policy makers’ focus on this vital action.

Our heartfelt thanks, Vice President McMillan-Scott, Sir Paul McCartney, Dr. Pachauri, and all distinguished leaders and citizens supporting avoidance of the climate-harming meat fare. We pray that many others will heed your call to action and wisely choose a plant-based diet to save our planet. Supreme Master Ching Hai has time and again called upon courageous government leaders to lead their co-citizens to safety by informing them of the truth about the extremely adverse impacts of meat on the environment, as in this July 2008 videoconference with Supreme Master Television staff in California, USA.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: The governments have to explain to people that it’s truly harmful now and this is an emergency that people should stop eating meat. If meat eating will not be banned or not be limited, then the whole planet will be gone. This is a life and death matter for everybody; it’s not a personal choice.
And we are eating meat, eating up the whole planet It’s not necessary, choice, at all. Even if before the planetary urgency, meat eating people eat up the whole planet, eat up so much food and result in hunger and war, and it has never been a right choice in the first place.

Everything is good for people if they don’t eat meat anymore. So they should also quit it for their better life, better health, better environment, and saving this Earth home for all to enjoy, especially for their future generation. If we don’t do it now, the Earth will be gone! Who is there to eat meat?

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/opinion/Edward-McMillanScott-Losing-our-appetite.5864065.jp
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/31516

Top climate scientist Dr. James Hansen speaks of our planetary emergency

Presenting the 2009 Walter Orr Roberts Distinguished Lecture during the Conference on World Affairs held at the University of Colorado, USA, Dr. James Hansen, respected climatologist and Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, spoke of the urgency of addressing climate change. Regarding the current state of atmospheric greenhouse gases, he noted, “We have already passed into the dangerous zone.” Dr. Hansen went on to say that if such gas emissions are not reduced immediately, “We would be sending the planet toward an ice free state. We would … be creating a very different planet, and chaos for our children.”

In an interview with Supreme Master Television on March 19, Dr. Hansen offered two key preventative actions.

Dr. James Hansen – World leading climatologist, Chief of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, USA (M): On a personal basis, perhaps the most important thing you can do is change your diet to a more vegetarian diet, because that is a major contributor to carbon, to not only carbon dioxide, but also methane and other greenhouse gases. You also have to put pressure on the politicians to address the coal issue. If we could do those two things, then the planet would be on much safer grounds.

VOICE: Our grateful thanks, Dr. Hansen and all brave scientists who are sounding the alarm about our need to act now in caring for the fragile environment. Let us heed your call toward swift actions to protect our only Earthly home.

In July 2008, the videoconference entitled “Climate Change International Conference” was held in West Hollywood, California, USA with experts on health, science and the media. Highlighting the endangered situation of our planet, Supreme Master Ching Hai called on all people to turn to most urgently needed solution of the animal-free diet.


Videoconference with Supreme Master Ching Hai
“Climate Change International Conference” July 26, 2008 – West Hollywood, California, USA

Supreme Master Ching Hai: So, I have only one solution, that is being vegetarian, and the sooner the better, and then everything else we will have time to take care. We will have time to develop different technology, we will have time to invent new cars, we will have time to tackle many other things that right now are not that urgent as the planetary warming. Because truly it might destroy the whole planet and we will all go. And this is still a very beautiful planet, it’s still repairable. So just one request: vegetarian diet.