DIETARY CHANGE IS ESSENTIAL TO MEET CLIMATE TARGETS BY 2050
A new study analyzing food systems in a zero-deforestation world found that dietary change — reducing meat and dairy consumption — is the most important variable studied to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2050.
It concludes, “Our results show that diets are the main determinant of GHG emissions, with highest GHG emissions found for scenarios including high meat demand, especially if focused on ruminant meat and milk, and lowest emissions for scenarios with vegan diets. Contrary to frequent claims, our results indicate that diets and the composition and quantity of livestock feed, not crop yields, are the strongest determinants of GHG emissions from food-systems when existing forests are to be protected.”
Reducing your meat and dairy consumption is one of the most important ways to protect your health as well.
Read the study here.
Photo credit: Matthias Böckel / Pixabay
BY A VOTE OF 558 TO 37, THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT MAKES CAGES FOR FARMED ANIMALS ILLEGAL ACROSS THE EU AS OF 2027!
Compassion in World Farming reports, “Parliamentarians agreed on the need to end these practices. They also highlighted the need to ensure that all products placed on the EU market – including imported ones – comply with future cage-free standards. They stressed the need to provide adequate incentives and financial programs to support farmers through the transition.”
Read more about this groundbreaking legislation here.
Photo credit: flickr
THE GLOBAL RENEWABLE ENERGY CAPACITY NOW MAKES A FOSSIL FUEL EXIT STRATEGY POSSIBLE
A new report reveals that global renewable energy capacity has increased to the point where a fossil fuel exit strategy is now possible.
Andrea Germanos at Common Dreams reports, “Ditching fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy in order to keep warming below the 1.5ºC threshold is both ‘necessary and technically feasible.’
“That's the conclusion of an analysis released Thursday entitled Fossil Fuel Exit Strategy. Produced by the University of Technology Sydney's Institute for Sustainable Futures in cooperation with the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, the report states clearly that ‘there is no need for more fossil fuels’ because the world is overflowing with renewable energy capacity.
“ Such a pathway, said Sanjay Vashist, director of Climate Action Network South Asia, would avert a ‘criminal waste of money’ that would ‘have devastating climate and humanitarian consequences.’”
Read more about the report here or click on the link above to see the report.
Photo credit: Oregon DOT / flickr
SUMMER SAVINGS!
The Great Healing is now just $13.99 on Amazon! ($10.99 Kindle version.)
An additional $2.00 Prime discount (PRIME21) is also available.
To celebrate upcoming announcements regarding my new book, I will gift a personalized signed book to a new newsletter subscriber selected randomly from new subscribers over the next two weeks before our next newsletter issue. Just subscribe on any page on our website, thegreathealing.org
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WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF YOUR OUTLOOK THAT AFFECTS LONGEVITY?
A research team led by Andrew Steptoe at University College of London has published a long-term study of 10,000 men and women tracking how people’s outlook over time affected their longevity.
“How did the people who reported more satisfaction and enjoyment achieve that state of well-being?" asks Alice Park in Time Magazine.
Andrew Steptoe found that "keeping up friendships and maintaining social interactions can be an important part of a satisfying life, particularly for older people.
“‘Once you enter middle and older ages, investment is social relationships is crucial,’ he says. ‘It’s something that is quite easy to forget about. When things are going well, you don’t make so much of an effort to maintain friendships. But in many ways it’s an investment in the future as well as the present.’”
Find out more here.
Photo Credit: pxhere.com CC
BELIZE’S MAYA FOREST, THE “JEWEL” OF CENTRAL AMERICA, IS NOW PROTECTED
236,000 acres of the Selva Maya tropical forest in northwestern Belize have now been permanently protected.
“In withstanding hundreds of years of threats, this Mesoamerican ecosystem is now the largest contiguous block of rainforest north of the Amazon, safeguarding treasures of incalculable value," writes The Nature Conservancy.
“Aerial images from recent decades show this forest receding at the edges, where it is increasingly logged for timber or slashed and burned for agriculture. Yet the true, under-recognized value of places like these, so globally rare they are known as 'last-chance ecosystems,' is in the collective power of the intact system.
“Wildlife habitat. Water security. Clean air. Climate mitigation and adaptation. In other words, $125 trillion in ecosystem services, every year without which, we simply cannot survive.”
To experience an encounter with a jaguar in this tropical forest, glimpse an underwater forest and other marvels of this tropical paradise — which may turn out to be your next ecotourism adventure — click here.
Photo credit: Elelicht /Wikimedia CC
DRILLING LEASES SUSPENDED IN 128 MILLION ACRES OF THE ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE & ATLANTIC OCEAN!
In the face of our accelerating climate emergency, a huge win for the environment and the planet occurred this past Tuesday.
The Biden administration suspended oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
As reported in the New York Times, this unravels "a signature achievement of the Trump presidency" and delivers "on a promise by President Biden to protect the fragile Alaskan tundra from fossil fuel extraction.”
This follows an April 15th ruling by the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissing the Trump Administration’s appeal to reinstate his 2017 executive order which attempted to undo President Obama’s oil drilling ban.
A small number of oil leases were sold following Trump’s executive order. The Biden action suspends them for two years pending a thorough environmental assessment — which should result in the leases being cancelled.
Earthjustice, representing a coalition of advocacy groups that challenged Trump's order, said "We welcome today's decision and its confirmation of President Obama's legacy of ocean and climate protection."
Read the Biden decision in the New York Times here.
Read more about the Federal Appeals Court ruling here.
Earthjustice's slogan is "Because the Earth needs a good lawyer." She does. And thankfully, she has just that. Earthjustice has helped with both of my books. They are an invaluable nonprofit. Please support their essential work by donating here. I do.
Photo credit: Danielle Brigida/flickr CC
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WIN A PERSONALIZED SIGNED COPY OF 'THE GREAT HEALING'
I will gift a personalized signed book to a new subscriber selected randomly from new subscribers over the next two weeks before our next issue.
Share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues. If they visit our website and subscribe, it's free, bi-weekly, and they can win!
This book right here. This very one.
MEAT PRODUCTION IN GERMANY DROPS 4% AS PLANT-BASED ALTERNATIVES “SKYROCKET”
7.6% of Germans are now either vegetarian or vegan. The number of vegans has doubled to 2.6 million over the past four years.
The wave begins...
Eating less meat and dairy is one of the most important actions each of us can take to reign in our accelerating climate emergency.
How big a wave and how soon? In time to help prevent existential climate change and protect human survival on Earth? Or not...
To read the report click here.
ANIMALS TO BE RECOGNIZED AS SENTIENT BEINGS UNDER U.K. LAW
Following years of tireless work by UK animal activists, animals will soon be formally recognized as sentient beings under UK law. This announcement will accompany a broad new set of government measures protecting animal welfare.
The word sentient means able to perceive or feel things. Acknowledging that animals are sentient beings has vast ramifications for animal rights. This announcement will be accompanied with a broad set of government measures protecting animal welfare.
Fiona Harvey writes in The Guardian, “The government set out a suite of animal welfare measures including halting most live animal exports and banning the import of hunting trophies." The new laws will "cover farm animals and pets in the UK, and include protections for animals abroad, through bans on ivory and shark fins."
George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, said: “We are a nation of animal lovers and were the first country in the world to pass animal welfare laws. Our action plan for animal welfare will deliver on our manifesto commitment to ban the export of live animal exports for slaughter and fattening, prohibit keeping primates as pets, and bring in new laws to tackle puppy smuggling. As an independent nation, we are now able to go further than ever to build on our excellent track record.”
Find out about the other new animal protection laws going into effect in the UK here.
You can check out the entire action plan here.
Meanwhile, across the channel, the French Senate is discussing animal welfare-friendly farming. Magdalena Pistorius reports, “The bill proposed by the Greens plans to make it compulsory, as of 2025, to ‘progressively’ set up outdoor access systems for farm animals as well as maximum density thresholds... Another measure aimed at ‘putting an end to practices that cause animal suffering’ is a ban, from 2022, on (the killing) of live male chicks and female ducklings.”
Read about the French Senate debate here.
“OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE IS BROKEN.”
Greta Thunberg’s new video begins, “Our relationship with nature is broken. The climate crisis, ecological crisis, and health crisis. They are all interlinked...”
Watch this powerful new two minute video to see where it goes from there.
THE GREAT HEALING RECEIVES A NEW ACCOLADE!
The Great Healing receives a Finalist accolade in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the Nature/Environment category!
Thank you Next Generation Indie Book Awards!
HENRY DAVID THOREAU’S WISDOM ON THE LONG CYCLES OF SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT MISTAKING POLITICS FOR PROGRESS
As Maria Popova writes so eloquently on her outstanding website, Brain Pickings:
“One of Thoreau’s most countercultural yet incisive points is that true social reform has little to do with politics, for genuine cultural change operates on cycles far longer and more invisible than the perpetual churning of immediacies with which the political state and the political conscience are occupied. Rather than dueling with petty surface facts, as politics is apt to, the true revolutionary and reformer dwells in humanity’s largest truths, aiming to transfigure the deepest strata of reality.”
Click this link to visit her Thoreau article on Brain Pickings and experience how deftly Maria guides you through profound insights from some of our greatest minds. Her newsletter is free; her site is well worth supporting.
Photo Credit: Benjamin-D.-Maxham---Henry-David-Thoreau---Restored commons.wikimedia.org
WHY ARE THE MAJORITY OF DUTCH CITIZENS DEMANDING MORE GOVERNMENT ACTION TO REDUCE THEIR MEAT CONSUMPTION?
One significant action each of us can take to help stop the acceleration of our climate emergency is to eat far less meat and dairy. But what happens when most people want to stick to their accustomed eating habits and pleasures?
A new survey of the Dutch found that a majority of them are in favor of a number of proposed government policies that would reduce the national production and consumption of meat and dairy products. There was strong majority support for interventions such as introducing a meat tax and banning factory farming.
“Many cited that slashing meat intake would bring health benefits, in particular to reduce the risk of zoonotic pandemics, a call that international experts and scientists have been making in recent months,” reports Sally Ho in Green Queen UK. “A significant reduction in meat and dairy consumption would also help the Netherlands and wider Europe achieve its climate goals, with the livestock sector in the E.U. contributing more emissions than all cars and vans in the continent combined, according to a Greenpeace report.”
Check out more of the Dutch survey responses here.
Photo credit: Greg Stuessel / Pixabay
A REVOLUTION IN U.S. OFFSHORE WIND ENERGY GENERATION
Today the U.S. has only two offshore wind farms with a total of five turbines. That’s going to change fast.
Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman reported in The New York Times Wednesday, “Construction on the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm is expected to begin this summer, after the Biden administration gave final approval Tuesday to a project it hopes will herald a new era of wind energy across the United States.
“The Vineyard Wind project calls for up to 84 turbines to be installed in the Atlantic Ocean about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. Together, they could generate about 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 400,000 homes.
“In addition to Vineyard Wind, a dozen other offshore wind projects along the East Coast are now under federal review. The Interior Department has estimated that by the end of the decade, some 2,000 turbines could be churning in the wind along the coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina.”
In March, the Biden Administration has announced a major initiative to boost offshore wind energy capture. “Taken together, the initiatives will create 77,000 jobs, generate enough electricity to power over 10 million homes for a year, and avoid 78 million metric tons of CO2 emissions,” writes Andrea Germanos in Common Dreams.
Nearly 800,000 acres in the shallow ocean triangle known as the New York Bight (see map above) along Long Island and the New Jersey coast is earmarked to become "Wind Energy Areas." $8 million has been allocated for 15 new offshore wind research and development projects.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said, "The potential to power our country using clean, renewable energy off our coasts is immense, and the Biden administration's commitment forges a path to take full advantage of offshore wind. This federal leadership should give states the confidence to continue making bold commitments to go big on offshore wind. Now that the executive branch is throwing its weight behind timely and ambitious development, it's full-steam ahead."
The Biden administration announcement marks a “sea change” in U.S. energy policy.
Read the New York Times 5/11/21 story here.
Find out more details in Common Dreams here.
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MY NEW BOOK IS COMING TOGETHER BEAUTIFULLY!
Three new chapters, new interviews, well over a dozen new voices added over the past two months.
I expect to have it completed and delivered to my editor Monday, May 3rd.