Hi/I have been working with leaders of the Plant Based treaty in drafting my message be=low to be signed by many religious leaders/Suggestions VERY welcome/many thanks/Richard
Richard Schwartz
Interfaith leaders call for a Plant Based Treaty in efforts to avert a climate catastrophe
We, the undersigned religious leaders from many faiths, urge world leaders and delegates to the Glasgow Climate Change Conference to endorse the Plant Based Treaty as an essential component of efforts to avert a climate catastrophe.
We are proposing this because our world, the world that God initially was able to call “very good”(Genesis 1:31), is now threatened as never before, with human extinction a very real possibility. Please consider:
- Recent severe climate events have occurred at a time when the global temperature has risen about 1.1 degrees Celsius (about two degrees Fahrenheit) since the start of the industrial revolution. Climate experts project that this increase will be at least three degrees Celsius by the end of this century, triggering far worse climate events.
- Climate experts fear that self-reinforcing positive feedback loops (vicious cycles) could result in an irreversible tipping point when climate spins out of control, with catastrophic results;
- Military experts are warning that there will likely be tens of millions of desperate refugees fleeing from severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, floods, and other climate events. These disasters will make instability, terrorism, and war far more likely.
Because of the above, everything possible must be done to reduce climate change, starting as soon as possible. Shifting to renewable energy sources, producing more efficient cars, lightbulbs, and other items, recycling, andcomposting are all positive steps.
But the best approach to try to avert a climate catastrophe is through a societal shift toward plant-based diets. Such a shift has a major advantage that the other positive changes lack. It not only significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions, because there would be far less cows and other farmed animals emitting methane, a very potent greenhouse gas with a far greater ability to heat up the planet than CO2 per unit weight. It also has the potential of dramatically reducing CO2 presently in the atmosphere by permitting reforestation of the over a third of the world’s ice-free land that is currently being used for grazing and raising feed crops for animals. This could reduce the current 420 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere to a much safer level below 350 ppm, which is a threshold value according to climate experts.
Fortunately, it is much easier to adopt a plant-based diet today because of the abundance of plant-based substitutes for meat and other animal products. Many have the appearance, texture and taste so similar to those of the animal products that even long-time meat-eaters can’t tell the difference.
Shifting to plant-based diets and reforestation would have many additional advantages, including reducing the current loss of biodiversity, the epidemic of diet-related diseases, the very inefficient use of land, energy, water and other resources, the massive mistreatment of animals, and prospects for future pandemics, thereby being much more consistent with basic religious values.
Most important, it would help leave an inhabitable world for future generations.
So, please join us in endorsing the Plant Based Treaty and please help make averting a climate catastrophe a societal priority.
Many thanks for your consideration.
Very truly yours,
Author of Vegan Revolution: Saving Our World, Revitalising Judaism; Judaism and Vegetarianism; Judaism and Global Survival; Mathematics and Global Survival; and Who Stole My Religion? Revitalizing Judaism and Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal Our Imperiled Planet; and over 250 articles at JewishVeg.org/schwartz
President Emeritus, Jewish Vegetarians of North America (www.JewishVeg.org); President, Society Of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV):
Associate producer of A SACRED DUTY (www.aSacredDuty.com);
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