August 2024 Vegan presentation to Climate Karanga Marlborough.

​Over the past months, my determination to heighten the profile of veganism has been encouraged in multiple ways. Most positive climate commentators seem to be engineers who often project a more balanced and pragmatic approach to the world’s problems compared to the soft approach most greenies use.
Tony Seba, founder of the research company Rethinkx, comes to mind as the first person to quote.
4 years ago I was aghast to read Tony’s prediction that world dairying will start to die by 2030 to be followed a year or two later by beef.  So I waited to see if his prediction would look likely.
His recent newsletter reiterated the same prediction. 
We must face reality; Precision Fermentation (PF) and plant-based whole food (PBWF) will, by 2030, overwhelm traditional meat, milk and fish production with greatly reduced costs and environmental damage.  
We have less than six years to prepare for the upcoming Great Transformation.  
It is too late to debate the relative values of “real” meat, milk or fish; producing them is too damaging to the environment and our health and they will become too expensive.
Tony declares that the speed and scale of technology-driven disruption is as predictable as gravity’s trajectory. His predictions regarding food, electricity and transport are well worth reading.
Given that Tony's predictions are reliably occurring, our role must be to spend time thinking about the positive and negative ramifications of this earth-shattering disruption within New Zealand.

There is no point in hiding from its reality.

A visit to The Vegoconomist and its sister magazine Cultivated-X will provide a good insight into the rapid and extensive growth of Precision Fermentation and other new food developments.
Another writer I have been influenced by is Ed Winters, who has published "How to Argue With a Meat Eater (And Win Every Time)". 
If you wish to argue against becoming vegan, this book will set you right!
I could quote many meaningful passages from this book, but will leave you with this comment -  "One of the empowering aspects of veganism is that it is one of the few opportunities we have of making a genuinely impactful choice."  and I would add, that this can happen without any coercion.

The next writer who has recently influenced me is William Ophuls with "Apologies to the Grandchildren: Reflections on Our Ecological Predicament, Its Deeper Causes, and Its Political Consequences".
The opening paragraph is copied below.
"Civilization is, by its very nature, a long-running Ponzi scheme. It lives by robbing nature and borrowing from the future, exploiting its hinterland until there is nothing left to exploit, after which it implodes. 
While it still lives, it generates a temporary and fictitious surplus that it uses to enrich and empower the few and to dispossess and dominate the many. Industrial civilization is taking us along this fatal course. A fortunate minority gains luxuries and freedoms galore, but only by slaughtering, poisoning, and exhausting creation. 
So, to our grandchildren - we bequeath you a ruined planet that dooms you to a hardscrabble existence, or perhaps none at all." 
Having personally been caught up in a Ponzi scheme, I am well aware of the ignorant nirvana that exists whilst the scheme is working and the extreme damage caused when it implodes.  
We are very close to watching the implosion of the world's biggest-ever Ponzi scheme.
"The initial response to an existential threat to the established order will usually be what anthropologists call “revitalization”: a fanatical reaffirmation of tradition rather than a reasonable accommodation to the new reality." 
Once again I can recognise this reaffirmation of tradition. And the following quote - “Inertia in the scales of history weighs more heavily than change,” explains the strident opposition to veganism.

 In the book I published in 2019 “Plant Paradigm”, I show how the eating of an abundance of meat, milk and fish and the raising of vast numbers of captive animals has only become “normal, natural and necessary” in very recent human history.  This false premise is the cause of most of the world’s environmental degradation - far more than the burning of all the fossil fuels we have extracted.

An author I recently encountered was Sailesh Rao, a highly successful systems engineer, and now Director of Climate Healers who has published three compelling books. “Carbon Dahma - The Occupation of Butterflies”,  “Carbon Yoga - The Vegan Metamorphosis” and “The Pinkey Promise”.
There is too much excellent content in these beautifully written books to quote here.  I advise all three to be read. I can supply PDF copies of them.
The author cleverly uses the analogy of a caterpillar, with a rapacious appetite, metamorphosising into a butterfly, beautifully and gently gracing the environment.  He claims that it is time for our metamorphosis to occur.
Sailesh has recently asserted that by ceasing to consume and produce animal products, the world will in short order, once the forests are given a chance to recover, naturally return to a more normal level of CO2.
This startling assertion is the most compelling reason for us all to go vegan immediately and to do so with the same pride that we display with our other, but often puny, efforts to reduce global warming.
I recommend that everyone subscribes to Climate Healers and take in the many excellent articles.
Another of Sailesh’s accomplishments is being part of the winning team at an Oxford Debate “This House Would Go Vegan” 

 Another vegan advocate I recently came across is Peter Goldstein who produced a webinar, which is rather long but worth persisting with, entitled "Earth on Edge - Two Years to save our Planet", where a group of intelligent and persuasive presenters, including Sailesh Rao put forward their views. 
Dr Will Tuttle should be quoted “Veganism is caring; caring for the health of the individual, of society, our psychological health, our spiritual health and the health of the environment.  Livestock farming erodes all five health issues, which are intricately connected and require the resurrection of healing ”.

Enough:-  This document and presentation have been assembled to alert as many as possible to the need to become vegan - now.
There is no planet B
There is no alternative available to us to reverse global warming immediately 
Going vegan requires no special diets only the acceptance that all proteins come from plants
Wholesale caring veganism will satisfy the needs of 
saving the environment and allowing native plants to thrive
eliminating animal cruelty and containment
Improving animal and human health
We must keep in mind Tony Seba's prediction that animal farming will collapse in the next few years; we must help the nation cope with the change.  We can be inspired by the naturally reverted bush in the Sounds, achieved with no human input other than eliminating livestock. 
The positive and negative ramifications of a nationwide transition to veganism are a huge subject that must be addressed immediately.  
I hope to be part of any relevant discussion group to discuss the future status of veganism.

Should you feel brave enough to take the plunge - I am here to help.
James Wilson
[email protected]
021945589