Whereas the many recent reports of severe heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and wildfires and of the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps indicate that global warming is already doing significant harm; and

Whereas the above changes have occurred due to an average temperature increase of about 1.5 degrees F in the past 100 years, and climate scientists are projecting an increase of 3 – 11 degrees F in the next 100 years; and

Whereas some climate scientists, including James Hansen of NASA, are warning that global warming could reach a tipping point and spiral out of control, with catastrophic consequences unless major changes are soon made; and

Whereas the November 2006 390-page report of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), entitled “Livestock’s Long Shadow” states that animal-based agriculture causes more greenhouse gas emissions (in CO2 equivalents) than all of the cars, trucks, planes, ships and other means of transportation combined (18%, and some think it is significantly higher, vs. 13.5%); and

Whereas that UN report projects that the number of farmed animals will double in the next 50 years, an increase that would result in increased greenhouse gas emissions that will negate the effects of many positive changes, making it impossible to reach the reductions in overall greenhouse gas emissions that experts feel is necessary to avoid the worse effects of global climate change; and

Whereas animal based-diets also contribute to an epidemic of diseases, food and water shortages, many environmental threats, including soil erosion, deforestation and rapid species extinction, and other negative effects; and

Whereas billions of animals are mistreated and killed each year for food (although it is unnecessary for humans to consume them), in ways that are immoral and cruel and foster human to human violence; and Whereas we have an obligation to future generations to help them inherit a peaceful and prosperous world in which they can thrive,

Hence: The Veg Climate Alliance resolves:

• to mount an unprecedented campaign, along with our partner societies and patrons, to educate the world’s people about the extreme urgency of shifting to organic, plant-based diets in order to help avoid the unprecedented catastrophe that many climate experts are warning may soon occur; and

• to strive, with the same sense of urgency, to bring about a major worldwide shift in awareness about meat eating and dietary habits, so that vegetarian/vegan diets be considered as desirable and as ethically and environmentally more acceptable than animal-based diets; and
• to make a major effort to convince the United Nations, governments around the world and other influential organizations and individuals who are concerned about the future of our planet and all its inhabitants to join us, because the sustainability of the global environment depends on it.

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