Global Warming. Water Shortage. ONE Common Cause.

ONE Common Solution—Our Food Choices

James Cameron as he appears in the upcoming documentary, “Years of Living Dangerously.”

In the news this week. Global warming documentary (April 2014) by James Cameron and latest remarks by Lester Brown about our water shortages. Scroll down for 2-minute video narrated by Cameron.

By far, the number one driver of water shortages and global warming is one and the same. It is our demand for the toxic western diet of meat and dairy three meals a day by the top two billion people in the world. Our food choices are also the number one driver of the cost of health care, world hunger, soil erosion and deforestation.

Ultimately, we’re talking about the future of our civilization and even our future as a species. We’re hearing about water issues and global warming almost everyday, yet these issues have never become a top priority for our global leaders. But they have become a top priority for people like James Cameron and Lester Brown.

Like ours, Mr. Brown’s book features a single apple on the cover. And like our apple, his tells a story.

The most powerful common solution to all these problems is the rapid shift to eating more whole plants by the people who are causing most of the damage—the top two billion people in the world.

As for water shortages, this was posted yesterday on the Peak Oil website. (See link below).

Forget peak oil. It’s peak water we should worry about, says Lester R. Brown. “Water is far more important than oil,” according to the prolific author, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and now president of the nonprofit Earth Policy Institute.

His point: It’s not that we will run out of water to drink; it’s that we won’t have enough to grow the food to feed the world.

Then there’s global warming. Also released yesterday was news about the 8-part climate change documentary that Showtime will be airing in April 2014 and has just released the trailer (see 2-minute video below) this week. From the documentary website:

“This multi-part television event tells the biggest story of our time: climate change and the impact it’s having on people right now in the U.S. and all over the world. Over the course of eight episodes, we’ll report on the crippling effects of climate change-related weather events and the ways individuals, communities, companies and governments are struggling to find solutions to the biggest threat our world has ever faced,”

Take two minutes to watch this trailer narrated by James Cameron, who put together a star-studded line-up of actors, experts and journalists for this exceptional documentary.

The 8-part series is produced in part by James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Everyone remembers the first big documentary on climate change—An Inconvenient Truth featuring Al Gore and released in 2006. He then went on to win the Nobel Prize for his movie about global warming, although he failed to mention the #1 cause.

But now things are different. We now have James Cameron—who I have concluded is the most influential person in the world who “totally gets it” about the food connection with our health, our environment and our future as a species. And with the top two highest grossing films of all time on his resume (Titanic and Avatar), one could argue that he is the world’s best story teller.

Suzy and James Cameron are truly “walking the walk” when it comes to teaching the world about sustainability.

It has been my privilege to get to know Suzy and Jim Cameron in recent months and I now have first-hand knowledge of their passion, conviction and sense of urgency for addressing the most critical issues in the history of humankind.

The Bottom Line. Many authors, experts and producers of documentaries have their heart in the right place. They’re trying to make the world a better place.

But most of them haven’t connected the dots relative to the number one cause of the world’s most urgent problems. That is probably because of the “protein myth” that is believed by over 90% of the population in the western world—the myth that we actually “need” to eat some animal protein to be healthy.

But James Cameron is different. He and his wife Suzy totally “get it” about the food connection and are busy doing all that they can to tell the world about that connection—before it’s too late. And with great leaders like James Cameron “walking the walk” and telling people everywhere the truth about our food choices; our civilization and our human species may have a fighting chance after all.

See my July blog post: James Cameron—on “Walking the Walk”

• Source article. We’re running out of water to grow food, Lester Brown warns  |  Peak Oil News and Message Boards.
• Source article. Featured video: trailer for James Cameron’s new global warming
• Link to the Documentary Page. Years of Living Dangerously
• Link to my web page on Dispelling the “protein myth”
• Yesterday’s blog. DIRE news re climate change CAN be a good thing…
• Another environmental expert who “gets it.” The TERRIFYING repercussions of our DEMAND for meat
• Recent blog. Finally, some CLARITY! But no plausible solution
• Recent blog. S.O.S. (Saving Our Species) — An urgently needed PLAN

Handy 5-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

• The movie that’s changing the lives of millions: Forks Over Knives DVD 
• Healthy Eating, Healthy World, The “big picture” about food (our book)
• An essential scientific resource: The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell
• Dr. McDougall’s new book, The Starch Solution, with lots of great recipes.
• Dr. Campbell’s new book: WHOLE, Rethinking the Science of Nutrition

Why should we be eating mostly plants? The “big picture” in 4 minutes.

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

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J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, visit our 4Leaf page and also enjoy some great recipes from Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

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—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation