I was one of the tiny dots of humanity in the video above. My reasons for being there were many but mainly if it was at all possible I couldn't help myself.
Since I was a kid I believed that what I did mattered. How did I get this way? I don't know, but a ten year old who reads Dickens and Edna St Vincent Millay is bound to grow up with a feeling of connection to the rest of humanity and its only home. It helped to spend lots of unstructured time outdoors to make me realize that I was a part of it all; just a contributing part mind you, not the big lord enchilada. So my connection to nature and our environment has been strong my entire life. Some people call it 'common consciousness' and give it a spiritual connotation. I don't know about that. I just know that I feel no special elevated status or ego about my human condition. As I've gotten older my feelings have been confirmed; really what other species is actively involved in destroying its own nest?
So it is that as my particular species has begun acting like hellbent piranhas and gobbled up everything in its sight including most other species; I have resisted. And as we approach a fork in the road where we must chose to either continue on our maniacal route or try to subdue our worse instincts; I am working as hard as I can to stop the lunacy. That is why I couldn't keep myself from heading to the Peoples Climate March.
Once there, the decision of which of the five contingents to march with was foremost. I have a connection to all of them. Those most impacted? I live in coastal Florida, for god's sakes, and I saw all the people with the 'Miami is Drowning' signs. But my heart is with solutions because that's what it's all about, right? There are many solutions but the one I have been working to promote is the fastest, most effective and easiest to implement (that is if we can stop the massive subsidies to big ag) and that is sustainable agriculture, primarily the immense contribution(pdf) of animal agriculture to climate change and resource degradation and depletion.
Recognition is growing regarding the connection between climate change and meat consumption and the Climate March made that apparent.
There was no better testament to the health benefits of a vegan diet than to see Al Gore marching showing off his new bod; a major benefit of
his vegan diet.
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