Dear All,

“Adapt or Die” sounds dramatic, but the criticality of our environmental situation cannot be over-emphasized. Many scientists already believe it is too late to make a difference, but as someone who has studied nonlinear phase transitions during the four decades of my systems engineering career, I assure you that it is never too late to make a difference.

We choose to adapt because we are still alive. As James Lovelock pointed out the obvious, “If the earth improves as a result of human presence, we will flourish. If it does not, we will perish.” It is never too late to help the earth improve as a result of human presence.

The singular lesson of COP26 is that our governments and institutions are too impotent, too stuck in the old game, to change the game. Just think. The world leaders at COP26 knew that we are on track to wipe out nearly 100% of wild vertebrates by 2026. Their scientific advisors had access to the same World Wildlife Fund Living Planet Reports as the general public. Yet they agreed to continue burning down original forests on the planet, Business-As-Usual, until 2030.

In other words, they signed a pact to deliberately kill all wild vertebrates, our children and grandchildren and the rest of us as well. We can’t let that happen just lying down and playing dead, now can we? That’s where YOU come in.

Once we broadly acknowledged that humans are changing the climate of the planet, we automatically assumed responsibility for stabilizing it and maintaining it ad infinitum on behalf of all life on earth. That is an engineering project of infinite duration and at the moment, we are mismanaging it badly. But the good news is that we have come together and executed on countless engineering projects successfully in the past.

I happen to know how to run successful engineering projects. It involves breaking down the project into smaller chunks and executing on these chunks with honesty and integrity. Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that the UN has agreed to meet by 2030, we need to pick one and actually meet it, well before 2030. That is, if we are serious people working on meeting the UN SDGs seriously, not just pretending to meet them while eyeing our next paycheck.

Take, for instance, UN SDG #2 (Zero Hunger) and UN SDG #3 (Good Health and Well Being). We can administratively meet both these goals by ensuring that every human being on the planet has free access to well balanced, whole-foods, plant-based Universal meals at all times. If we are truly serious about meeting these two goals by 2030, let’s begin by providing such a well balanced, whole-foods, plant-based Universal meal to every human being on one day in 2022, World Food Healers day, Nov 19, 2022.

This is the day after UN COP27, Nov 7-18, ends in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. And it happens to be our granddaughter, Kimaya’s 12th birthday. The very same Kimaya who shook her finger in my face six years ago and demanded that I do my job and create a Vegan world by 2026.

Therefore, are we serious? It is up to our institutions at the global, national and local levels to do some soul-searching and decide if they are serious institutions with serious people doing serious things or if they are shell institutions simply engaged in an elaborate con game to kick cans down the road permanently. In the former case, we would truly welcome their help in accomplishing our WFH day objectives with open arms. In the latter case, we invite them to stand by with folded hands and watch.

Not interfere, just watch, as we make it colorful, tasty and fun to eradicate world hunger, while addressing climate breakdown simultaneously.

As the Chinese saying goes, “The one who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the one who is doing it.”

Which brings me to the online Vegan Convergence Of the Peoples #9 (V-COP9). It is set to start in less than 24 hours time, headlined by inspiring presentations, documentary screenings, food demos and panel discussions, culminating on Sunday with the World Food Healers day public announcement and the ceremonial presentation of the 2022 Homo Ahimsa award to the amazing and richly deserving power Vegan couple, Trix and Philip Wollen.

V-COP9 is the ninth of an online quarterly Convergence Of the Peoples as opposed to the annual in-person Conference Of the Parties that the UN convenes in far-flung places. Just the security budget alone for UN COP26 in Glasgow, Nov 2021, exceeded $100M and the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) who participated in COP26 did not even get a booth to set up their educational materials unless they could fork over $70K each.

The UN COP has deteriorated to become a pay-to-play junket event for well heeled private jet setters, where attendees scarf down beef burgers and pretend to be working on climate change even as the planet burns. Indeed, if the purpose of the 26 annual UN COPs had been to increase greenhouse gas emissions and destroy the planet as quickly as possible, I’d be hard pressed to think of anything they could have done differently.

Therefore, if you are like me and think it is time to get serious, please register for V-COP9 here. And help us continue the planetary healing work that we began way back in 2018.