An Environmental Article from All-Creatures.org

Celebrating Earth Day: Examining Sacred Cows

From Sailesh Rao, ClimateHealers.org
April 2024

There is no need to wait for human population to dwindle to 1 billion from “natural causes” before changing our lifestyles. In fact, such foot-dragging on the necessary lifestyle changes would be perverse and most likely, even suicidal for all life on Earth.

"If earth improves as a result of human presence, then we will flourish. If not, then we will perish."
~ James Lovelock

As we celebrate every day as Earth Day, we are happy to note that Unitarian Universalist congregations have become more open to Veganism this year than ever before. After two online presentations in the past week to different UU congregations, I gave an Earth Day sermon at the Phoenix Valley Unitarian Universalist church yesterday about the sacred cows that we ignore, specifically focusing on the Killing machine of animal agriculture and how the widespread adoption of a Vegan lifestyle alleviates all six planetary boundary transgressions.

The service was followed by Vegan snacks provided by the Food for Life and the Planet group within the Valley UU congregation and enjoyed by everyone. Several members of the congregation asked me afterwards about the sacred cow of human overpopulation, which I did not speak about during the 30 minute sermon.

Of course, the weight of humans today is more than double the weight of ALL the wild animals that lived 10,000 years ago and that is not sustainable in the long run. However, the physical weight of our farmed animals is four times the weight of ALL the wild animals that lived 10,000 years ago. Since our farmed animals are an unnatural mix of very young animals who mostly get slaughtered when they are still infants, they are consuming as if they weigh NINE times as much as all the wild animals that lived 10,000 years ago.

When the world goes Vegan and we don’t need to raise all these farmed animals for our consumption, that would substantially relieve the burden on the planet. We then have to clean up the global mess that we have made, which would require all of our enormous human numbers. Over the course of the next couple of centuries or so, we will have to reduce our numbers to more sustainable levels, perhaps around a billion, while the weight of wild animals recovers to healthier levels.

Therefore, there is no need to wait for human population to dwindle to 1 billion from “natural causes” before changing our lifestyles. In fact, such foot-dragging on the necessary lifestyle changes would be perverse and most likely, even suicidal for all life on Earth.

Along with our co-convenors, Switch4Good, Plant Based Treaty, UnchainedTV, The Interfaith Vegan Coalition, GoDharmic and The Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute, we will be hosting V-COP17, the Vegan Convergence Of the Peoples #17, on Saturday, Apr 27 and Sunday, Apr 28, this coming weekend. The theme for V-COP17 is “The Stories We Tell, The Games We Play” and it will feature a number of renowned speakers, Dr. Alan Goldhamer, Dr. Ted Barnett, Keith Akers, Patrik Baboumian, Dr. Anita Krajnc, Dr. Richard Schwartz, Jordi Casamitjana, Jane Velez-Mitchell and Cory Davis.

We will be screening the new documentary, Christspiracy, followed by Q&A with producer Kameron Waters and we will also be featuring a number of panels and cooking shows as well as hosting the ceremony for the 2024 Homo Ahimsa Award sponsored by the Interfaith Vegan Coalition.

Please join us this weekend and help us accelerate this sacred global movement towards a Vegan World by 2026.

---

Return to Environment Articles
Read more at Meat and Dairy Articles