“Harmony” for the ages—from E. O. Wilson and Wendell Berry

Posted on 08/30/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

From aging philosophers to the first day of school…

My youngest granddaughter, Violet (age 3) leaving her mommy this week on her first day of pre-school. A tender moment for both mother and child. One more photo below.

Since publishing my book in 2011, my tagline has been “promoting health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.” The word harmony appears in the book’s first paragraph and in it’s last. There’s a reason for that.

Most of our problems as humans stem from the simple fact that we have not lived in harmony with the rest of the planet. Maybe my granddaughter Violet’s generation will get it right.

Among millions of species that have lived on this Earth, we are the only one that has not lived in harmony with Nature. But now, there are other species not living in harmony—those species that are used by humans for food, pets, work and entertainment.

After blogging for almost 600 consecutive days, I have now concluded that no matter what we do, the environment is going to be just fine. The question is whether or not that environment will be able to sustain the longterm sustainability of the human race. Like me, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Berry seem to have their doubts.

E. O. Wilson

Edward Osborne Wilson (born June 10, 1929) From Wikipedia. “He is an American biologist, researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity), theorist (consilience, biophilia), naturalist (conservationist) and author. Wilson is known for his scientific career, his role as “the father of sociobiology”, his environmental advocacy, and his secular-humanist and deist ideas pertaining to religious and ethical matters. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.”

On the importance of humans. If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

On our fellow Earthlings. When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.

Appreciating biodiversity. We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

Finally on the topic of rain forests; although they preceded humans, we now burn them in the Amazon region to grow soybeans that are then shipped to China to feed pigs. Here’s what Mr. Wilson had to say about that:

The historical circumstance of interest is that the tropical rain forests have persisted over broad parts of the continents since their origins as stronghold of the flowering plants 150 million years ago.

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.

Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934 Henry County, Kentucky) From Wikipedia, “He is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays. He is also an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of The National Humanities Medal, and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012.”

Leading off with my favorite topic: Our collective failure as humans to live in harmony with the planet. Either we will return to living in harmony with Nature or we will eventually leave Mother Nature no other choice but to take care of business herself. And that will not be pretty. Mr. Berry agrees:

“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”

“The promoters of the global economy…see nothing odd or difficult about unlimited economic growth or unlimited consumption in a limited world.”

“Eating with the fullest pleasure – pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance – is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living in a mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.”

“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”

Finally, on the general topic of how we eat and how we handle health care in the western world, Mr. Berry has summed up the essence of our book in this brief statement:

“People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry, which pays no attention to food.”

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

This is where Mommy lost it….as she watched her only child take her first steps toward independence.

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic 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

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

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

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

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at 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.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

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

Posted in Activism & Leadership, Harmony Project | 2 Comments

“Food shortages could force world into vegetarianism”

Posted on 08/29/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

That was the headline in The Guardian this past Sunday

Stockholm International Water Institute

Once again, the open-minded scientists of the world are trying to help show us the way. Like me—the U.N., the WorldWatch Institute, SIWI, and anyone else who is paying attention, has come to the same conclusion that I did in 2003, “We’re eating the wrong food.” And it’s totally unsustainable for very much longer.

In a story that broke in the UK this past Sunday, (8-26-12 See link below) the scientists agree that we simply cannot continue to keep doing what we’re doing. Their particular area of focus for this article was water—there’s not enough to feed the world unless we change our diet-style in a big way. From the article:

Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world’s population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages.

Adopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in an increasingly climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to 10 times more water than a vegetarian diet. One third of the world’s arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals.

The article mentioned nothing about the fact that our health would improve dramatically if we were “forced into vegetarianism.” They made it sound more like we were being forced into some kind of horrible exile, not a vibrantly healthy lifestyle with far less chronic disease, pain, suffering and nursing homes.

This kind of news is nothing new from the scientists of the world. In 2006, the U.N. Report (Livestock’s Long Shadow) identified livestock as the single biggest cause of global warming—almost 40% more than ALL of transportation combined. A few years later the scientists at the WorldWatch Institute estimated that the U.N. numbers were low—saying that livestock accounts for almost three times as much greenhouse gases as does transportation.

Now 78, Ralph Nader is a six-time candidate for President of the United States, having run as a write-in candidate in the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic primary, as the Green Party nominee in 1996 and 2000, and as an independent candidate in 2004 and 2008.

Of course, Al Gore, never mentioned livestock during his movie about global warming. How do you produce a Nobel Prize-winning movie about a world problem and never even mention the #1 cause of the problem? That’s called politics. Politicians get elected by promising to meet the short-term wants and needs of their constituents.

And it’s no different this election cycle in the USA. Neither of the two candidates are talking about the most serious problems facing the human race. Is Ralph Nader still running for office?

The Bottom Line. When are the world leaders going to start helping the scientists promote the truth about the unsustainability of our western diet—and what must be done to promote the longterm sustainability of the human race? 

When are we going to be “led” to a healthier diet instead of being “forced” there by dwindling water supplies, degraded land and other disappearing natural resources?

Don’t want to be forced to eating healthier? Well, read about twenty of my blog posts, buy a few of these items and make your own decision as to what you’d like to do for yourself and your family.

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic 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

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

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

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

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at 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.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

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

Posted in Climate Change, Sustainability, Water Pollution & Usage, World Hunger | Leave a comment

Are “sustainability schools” ignoring the plant-based solution?

Posted on 08/28/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

I have my suspicions and have begun an investigation to find out.

Did you know that there are now 123 colleges (See link below) in the USA that offer “sustainability programs” with green degrees? I have written letters to four of them and included a copy of our book. Why? Because I am concerned that the incredibly powerful and Earth-friendly whole foods, plant-based diet-style may not be getting the attention that it deserves. (This article was originally published on 8-28-12 and updated on 9-3-13).

My letter to the department head at Yale. My letter to Yale was mailed on August 17, 2012. Three other letters went out to other prominent “sustainability” schools across the country. After over one year, I have not heard not so much as a courtesy note from a single one of them.

  • Dr. Edward A. Snyder, Dean
  • Yale School of Management
  • 135 Prospect Street
  • New Haven, CT 06511
  • Subject: Sustainability Schools

Dear Dr. Snyder,

While searching online for prominent universities with sustainability programs, I discovered that one of them was in my own neighborhood — the Yale School of Management. As the author of Healthy Eating, Healthy World, which is primarily about sustainability, I am very interested in doing what I can to promote the single most powerful decision that humans can make for their health AND for the health of the planet. It’s the decision about what to put on the end of our forks. 

Although I identified 123 schools that offer Green Degrees, I doubt that many of them give much more than lip service to the power of plant-based eating when it comes to sustainable living. But knowing that Yale is one of the premiere universities in the world, I was confident that would not be the case there. From the Sustainability website, I learned the following about Yale SOM:

Yale School of Management (SOM) has social and environmental sustainability woven throughout its core curriculum and more than 45 elective courses. The school has been recognized as a Gold Net Impact Chapter, signifying that many SOM students are highly active in learning about sustainability and tackling sustainability challenges.

After almost 600 consecutive days of blogging (at hpjmh.com) about the impact of our food choices, I find myself focusing more and more on our planet’s ability to support the long-term sustainability of the human race. I have concluded that the planet is going to be just fine; the question is how much longer she will be able to support life, particularly human life, as we know it?

The students of sustainability schools all over the world deserve to learn the absolute truth about how to get the most “bang for the buck” when it comes to lifestyle changes. They deserve to learn about the #1 cause of global warming, the #1 cause of our water crisis, and the #1 cause of decreasing species diversity. It’s the same thing in every case—our toxic western diet.

Take a few hours to review our book and then let’s talk about how we can work together to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth. Since I live less than an hour away, perhaps we could arrange for a visit in your office sometime soon. I look forward to hearing back from you. Sincerely, J. Morris Hicks

The U.N. says that the plant-based diet is not only “legitimate” but necessary.

After not receiving a single response from my four letters, I concluded that my original suspicion was correct. None of them are taking our food choices seriously when it comes to sustainability.

How could that possibly be? How could all of them be so unaware of the single leading cause of so many of our environmental problems? I can only conclude that it’s the ubiquitous “protein myth” that seems to be embraced by 95% of our population—including the brightest and best educated.

What is that myth? The misguided belief that we “need” to eat animal protein to be healthy. Until we dispel that myth in a big way, there’s simply not going to be much progress in promoting our own health or in promoting the planet’s ability to sustain us as a species. My conclusion:

Shifting to a whole foods, plant-based diet will do more to ensure the long-term survival of our species than ALL other possible initiatives combined.

Facts about food; not dietary guidelines. When it comes to those 123 “sustainability schools, I am not suggesting that they begin telling people what they should be eating, but rather that they present the environmental and sustainability facts about all legitimate diet styles. The students deserve to have this information so that they can make their own individual dietary choices.

Since the students in this curriculum are obviously interested in sustainability, many of them may very well choose a whole foods, plant-based diet once they realize what’s at stake. Not only will they be rewarded with vibrant health and a trim body, but they’ll also know that they’re taking the single most powerful step possible to promote a healthy planet.

Legitimate diet-style? Just in case you’re questioning the legitimacy of the plant-based diet; check out the following endorsements, often hidden in obscurity by the powerful lobbies of the meat and dairy industries.

United Nations. “A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change,” according to a UN report, June 2, 2010. “As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable,” says the report from United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.

ADA (American Dietetic Association) “Vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle….They are often associated with health advantages including lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure levels and lower risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Vegetarians also tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates.” From an ADA 2009 position paper.

Albert Einstein. “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

Albert Einstein

So what about the prominent nutrition schools? Even though there are few, if any, schools of nutrition that offer a “for-credit” course in plant-based nutrition, that speaks more to the integrity of the school than the legitimacy of the diet.

The diet works for human health and the health of the planet—and it could be the students’ collective interest in the latter that moves our next generation in the direction of an Earth-friendly plant-based diet.

Sustainability and Inevitability. Our typical western diet is simply unsustainable for three primary reasons—water, land and fossil fuel energy. Meanwhile, we’re losing a South Carolina sized chunk of arable land each year while the human population increases by almost 200,000 every day.

Since it is inevitable that we’ll be forced to relinquish the horribly wasteful and harmful western diet eventually, why not teach the young people how to begin that process now in a thoughtful and orderly manner? The lives of our future great-grandchildren are depending on it.

“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
― Wendell Berry

Want to learn the truth about nutrition? This is a good place to start.

The Bottom Line. These lifesaving and world-saving truths are not being taught in our schools of nutrition because of money, power, ego and control. As Dr. T. Colin Campbell explained in The China Study:

The entire system—government, science, medicine, industry and media—promotes profits over health, technology over food and confusion over clarity. Most, but not all, of the confusion about nutrition is created in legal, fully disclosed ways and is disseminated by unsuspecting, well-intentioned people, whether they are researchers, politicians or journalists.

The most damaging aspect of the system is not sensational, nor is it likely to create much of a stir upon its discovery. It is a silent enemy that few people see and understand.

President Bill Clinton sees it, understands it and made the choice to take charge of his health after reading The China Study. Why can’t we make this powerful information available to everyone? Why not teach everyone these simple truths—for the long-term sustainability of the human race?

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

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

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

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.

SHARE and rate this post below.

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

Posted in Activism & Leadership, Sustainability | Leave a comment