Saving the Planet, One Meal at a Time

By Chris Hedges

Numbered footnotes, with hyperlinks, appear at the end of this article.

My attitude toward becoming a vegan was similar to Augustine’s attitude toward becoming celibate—“God grant me abstinence, but not yet.” But with animal agriculture as the leading cause of species extinction, water pollution, ocean dead zones and habitat destruction², and with the death spiral of the ecosystem ever more pronounced, becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species. It is one that my wife—who was the engine behind our family’s shift—and I have made.

The Biodegradable Credit Card That Fights Climate Change

(Take Part) Would you feel less guilty about whipping out your credit card if you knew buying stuff could help save the planet from climate change? Especially if that piece of plastic was biodegradable?

Here’s your chance to find out.

Nuclear power keeps the corporates in charge. No wonder it's conservatives' preferred solution to climate change

(The Guardian) Nuclear power keeps the corporates in charge. No wonder it's conservatives' preferred solution to climate change

“I have no theological objection” to nuclear power, Tony Abbott said on 1 December, responding to Julie Bishop’s relaunch of the right’s preferred “solution” to global warming this week.

Abbott’s choice of words is fascinating. On the face of it he’s suggesting that opposing nuclear power is a faith-based, rather than rational, view. But it is the right’s consistent promotion of a technology that has been shown repeatedly to be too slow, too costly and too risky (see, for instance, here and here) that is underpinned by several right wing articles of faith.

An inconvenient truth about climate change - Grazing livestock may hold the secret to preventing environmental annihilation

Allan Savory is a controversial figure with a shocking message: Global warming and desertification can be radically reversed by grazing large herds of animals. The antithesis of accepted thought on climate change, Savory's solution has rubbed many in the scientific community the wrong way. But the question remains -- can his method save us from imminent environmental doom?

Standing ovation for a radical message

After Allan Savory's presentation, "How to Green the Desert and Reverse Climate Change," at the 2013 TED global conference, The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered., he received an enthusiastic standing ovation from the audience. This was not the typical parched scientific lecture on global warming. The TED talk explored the disturbing trend of desertification, described by Savory as "a fancy word for land that is turning into desert," and the implications this holds. The devastation of habitat, usable land and waterways are the stark realities of spreading deserts. Climate change is also accelerated. Due in part to the widespread practice of burning dry grasslands in an attempt to revitalize the soil, global warming is also aggravated by the carbon and moisture loss from exposed soil. Considering the burning of a single hectare of land "gives off more and more damaging pollutants than 6,000 cars," said Savory, better solutions are urgently needed. Keep in mind that Africa alone burns over one billion hectares a year.