This is a guest post by Jen Row ’11 of Williams College.
I am- as are a growing movement of over 80 people from around the world are beginning a hunger strike as a moral reaction to climate change. The international Climate Justice Fast begins this Friday, November 6th and will continue throughout the December climate conference in Copenhagen.
The movement is inspired by leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King who took personal non-violent actions to address gross injustice present in their societies.
The US government’s inaction on climate could well go down as the greatest injustice against humanity in history, allowing the world’s most vulnerable people, and even our very own children, to suffer at the hands of an irreversible catastrophe they played no part in causing.
In fasting, we are sending not only an alarm, but expressing hope and belief in the innate sense of right and wrong within every person. But we need your help.
Will you join us? Students in colleges from California to Massachusetts are conducting individual fasts, others are fasting in groups on key days such as the beginning of the Copenhagen negotiations, and here at Williams College we are running a rolling or “relay” fast with students undertaking a day-long fast for each of the 42+ days of the fast. Those of us on the east coast are gathering in NYC across from UN building on Friday , November 6th to publicly launch the fast.
You can check out the Climate Justice Fast website at www.climatejusticefast.com and contact me at Jennifer.M.Rowe @ williams . edu for information on climate justice, fasting, running a rolling fast, getting publicity, and for a t-shirt design.
As youth, we have huge responsibilities to ourselves and to future generations. Let’s act together with strength, before it is too late. We have a dream of a future with a safe planet, so let’s make that dream known and act from our hearts to make it happen!
In the run up to the Copenhagen climate change conference, it is vital the following information be disseminated to the public as well as to our political leaders.
A widely cited 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestock’s Long Shadow, estimates that 18 percent of annual worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributable to livestock….however recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang co-authors of “Livestock and Climate Change” in the latest issue of World Watch magazine found that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions!
http://www.51percent.org
The main sources of GHGs from animal agriculture are: (1) Deforestation of the rainforests to grow feed for livestock. (2) Methane from manure waste. – Methane is 72 times more potent as a global warming gas than CO2 (3) Refrigeration and transport of meat around the world. (4) Raising, processing and slaughtering of the animal.
Meat production also uses a massive amount of water and other resources which would be better used to feed the world’s hungry and provide water to those in need.
Based on their research, Goodland and Anhang conclude that replacing livestock products with soy-based and other alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change. They say “This approach would have far more rapid effects on GHG emissions and their atmospheric concentrations-and thus on the rate the climate is warming-than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.”
The fact is that we are being informed of the dangerous path we are on by depending greatly on animal flesh for human consumption. We still have the opportunity to make the most effective steps in saving ourselves and this planet. By simply choosing a plant based diet we can reduce our carbon foot print by a huge amount.
We are gambling with our lives and with those of our future generations to come. It’s madness to know we are fully aware of the possible consequences but yet are failing to act.
Promoting a plant based diet to the public is would be the most effective way to curb deforestation, we hope this will be adopted as a significant measure to save the rainforests and protect the delicate ecology.
Thank you for your consideration.