1. On average, meat, dairy, egg and fish (MDEF) calories require over ten times as much land, water and energy as do plant-based calories.
2. The two billion most affluent people in the world eat over 70% of the MDEF in the world. And well over half of them live in five regions: China, Europe, USA, Russia and Brazil. But the other five billion are moving in that direction.
3. After doing a bit of extrapolation, I computed that for every American or European moving in the direction of more plant-based eating, there are ten people in the developing world moving in the other direction.
4. During the past 8 months, I met with two authors who have written alarming books about the gross unsustainability of our current way of life. Stephen Emmott (Ten Billion) and Lester Brown (Full Planet, Empty Plates).
5. Neither author advocated trying to drive the human feeding model away from animals, but when they heard my premise—(from me in person), both agreed that it would result in a HUGE benefit to the Earth’s ecosystem.
6. My premise: We must encourage, educate, motivate and empower those two billion wealthiest people out there to begin replacing as many of their MDEF calories with plant-based as possible. (I explain how we get that done later.)
7. When I saw your Happier Meals piece, I was reminded of the last piece ever written by Dr. Robert Goodland of the World Bank, it was also entitled Happier Meals.
8. A few months ago (in February), I attended Robert’s funeral in Washington, DC, where I heard the U.N.’s Achim Steiner deliver a eulogy and where I met Lester Brown.
9. I also met Jeff Anhang that night (World Bank climate specialist), who was Robert’s co-writer on most of his recent work. I now consider Jeff a good friend and ally when it comes to promoting the ecosystem-saving benefits of eating much more plant-based foods.
10. Together, Goodland and Anhang published this 2009 article in Worldwatch. Livestock and Climate Change. What if the key actors in climate change are cows, pigs and chickens?
11. In the above piece, they concluded that the raising of livestock accounts for AT LEAST 51% of human-induced GHG. That means that all those animals we choose to eat are by far the leading cause of global warming—LARGER than ALL other causes combined.
12. A few months ago, I dedicated a blog to Dr. Goodland. Food Choices. The primary cause of global warming?
13. In February, I saw an advance version of Cowspiracy, a powerful documentary that will be released next month. The trailer can be seen at conspiracy.com
14. The two young producers in that film focus on the not-so-well-known fact that the largest environmental groups in the world are not telling us the truth about the #1 cause of global warming. Because, as Michael Pollan explains in the movie, “it’s a political loser to be identified as anti-meat, and it would hurt their fundraising.”
15. So, rather than tell the world how ALL of us can easily fight the #1 cause of global warming, they quietly take our donations, pay their own salaries and work on a host of projects that pale in comparison to the elephant in the room—what humans are eating.
16. What we choose to eat determines how the Earth is used. And the way we’re eating is a HUGE waste of Mother Nature’s finite resources. Emmott and Brown predict the collapse of our civilization before the end of this century. And I agree with them unless we take URGENT action soon.
17. Climate change has upped the stakes in this deadly game of sustainability and has shortened the time we have remaining to get back on the right track to living in harmony with nature. My website tagline reads: Promoting health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.
18. To my knowledge, there is only ONE prominent researcher/writer/environmentalist who is completely focusing on the grossly unsustainable global depletion of choosing to eat trillions of animals (if you count the fish). Richard Oppenlander writes about it extensively in his two books; the first of which is “Comfortably Unaware: What we choose to eat is killing us and our planet.” This book is featured in a blog that I posted about him last summer. The TERRIFYING repercussions of our DEMAND for meat
19. From a sustainability standpoint, we have four big problems. Three of them will take many decades, if not centuries to fix and we simply don’t have that much time. (1) Overpopulation (2) Over-consumption and (3) Our fossil fuel energy model.
20. The Good News. The fourth HUGE problem, in fact, the one causing more damage than the other three combined is our collective choice to eat MDEF three meals a day, a diet-style that is becoming more and more popular around the world.
21. Why is that good news? Because what we choose to eat can be changed quickly. Any meat-eater can choose to change what they eat overnight. And the markets will respond—and our ecosystem will begin getting healthier everyday.
22. Sure, millions of jobs are lost, but there will be millions of new jobs replacing them. And by attacking this single biggest problem first, we can buy enough time to work on the other three for the next 100 years.
23. Incredibly simple solution. All we have to do is work on the “demand” side of the food business and do our best to begin taking the animals of the equation when it comes to the human feeding model. How do we do that?
24. Massive Global Awareness Campaign. We have to educate the world’s people in a big way and this is exactly what I want to talk about with you when we meet.
25. For an event that I initiated with a well-known billionaire, a group of 21 of us met in Santa Barbara this past November. The group included many names that you may know (a photo of that group is provided below): T. Colin Campbell, John Robbins, Eric Pooley, Craig McCaw, Caldwell Esselstyn & son Rip, Dean Ornish, John McDougall, Richard Oppenlander and others, including the billionaire and his wife.
26. I was hoping that the 11-24-13 meeting would result in the URGENT launch of that MASSIVE campaign. So far, it hasn’t.
27. In February, I met with the daughter of a VERY well-known billionaire. My blog about him now appears on his own website at tedturner.com. (Check the Newsroom tab). There was interest there, but still not much action.
28. The ONLY solution in my opinion. And until someone else comes up with a better workable plan, I am going with mine.
29. Recruit one globally recognized powerful leader who “catches the vision.” With his/her help, bring in a few “caring billionaires” and begin to plan the biggest awareness campaign in history. And with the unprecedented way that the world’s most affluent two billion are connected electronically, there’s never been a better time in history to get this done.
30. This campaign would be never ending and would probably cost hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe a trillion or more. It would almost certainly take tens of billions just to cover the legal fees required to defend ourselves from the large number of special interest groups that would not like what we’re doing.
31. Whatever it costs is a bargain. Even if we spent two or three trillion on this campaign for the next five years, it would be a bargain. For if our civilization collapses, there is ZERO money anywhere and our planet becomes a pure hell for all remaining humans as they fight with each other for food and water. A thriving civilization collapsed on Easter Island one thousand years ago; it can happen again.

Be well, Jim

PS: I heard back from Danielle two days later and we may be able to meet in June.