Every time I look up into the evening sky, I am in awe of the immensity of it all, just how open and seemingly infinite our universe seems to be. Then I think about our planet and what us humans are doing to it, either to benefit Mother Earth or to help destroy it.
Our planet, however, is like an enclosed eco-system, and not so infinite.
Finally, I met Dr. Neal Barnard in person. Dr. Neal Barnard is one of the vegan doctors who advocates for a 100% whole-foods plant-based diet. I first saw him on the documentary Forks Over Knives. I also saw him on Plant Based News. In addition, I would watch a lot of his videos on Youtube. If it weren’t for Dr. Barnard, I probably would not be vegan and I would not be informed about the health benefits of a vegan diet. When I heard he was coming down to San Diego and that his seminar is free, I was more than excited to go see him. Not only did I learned a lot from his lecture, but I was able to meet him and take a picture with him. I want to thank him for his advocacy and knowledge of a healthy, whole-foods vegan diet. He also had a book signing for his new book Your Body In Balance, which anyone could get on Amazon, the UCSD Bookstore, and Barnes And Noble’s
Scientists Declare Climate Emergency
William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, and more than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries have declared a climate emergency. They have presented graphics that show trends and listed actions that will counter those trends. These graphs showed many climate change indicators and factors over the last 40 years since scientists from 50 nations met at the First World Climate Conference in Geneva in 1979. Although they did mention encouraging signs such as decreases in birth rate, less forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, and increase in renewable energies, they still think that we need to act as soon as possible to slow down climate change. One of the lead scientist William J. Ripple stated,
“Despite 40 years of major global negotiations, we have continued to conduct business as usual and have failed to address this crisis. Climate change has arrived and is accelerating faster than many scientists expected.”
Vegan Filipino Restaurant Opens In San Francisco
I have never tried Nick’s Kitchen yet, but I have heard that the restaurant serves vegan Filipino dishes. You can expect to eat vegan versions of lumpia, pancit, sisig, and leche flan. The restaurant originally opened in Daly City and it used to be a Filipino restaurant owned by a Filipino family that served a meat-heavy menu. Founders Reina Montenegro and Kenny Annis transformed it into a vegan Filipino restaurant. After experiencing success, they opened another Nick’s in South San Francisco in 2018. Finally, they opened their most recent restaurant in the center of SoMa Pilipinas, San Francisco’s Filipino cultural heritage district.
Targeting Deeply Held Values Crucial For Inspiring Pro-Environmental Behavior
According to this study, our deeply-held values can predict whether we take action to protect the environment or not. These values align with our political leanings, whether we are liberal or conservative. It said that because we have different values, we must tailor the message inspiring the need to protect our planet in different ways. Our cultural values are how we process information and how we view the world.
According to this study, researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology stated that we need to reduce meat to save and bring back our forests. They said that because forests protect our climate, reforestation can help combat climate change. The researchers quoted the Paris Agreement that global temperature increase must be limited to 2 degrees C and, if possible 1.5 degrees C. They also said that reforestation would reduce climate change as trees absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to produce biomass, thus reducing emissions.
Although health is one of the reasons to be vegan, this article states that the environment is the number 1 reason to be a vegan. The article cited a 2018 study of 40,000 farms in 119 countries published in the journal Science, saying that cutting out meat and dairy is the single effective way to reduce our impact on our planet. The article further said that livestock comprises 83% of our farmland and uses 60% of greenhouse gases. Lead researcher Joseph Poore of the University of Oxford said,
