“You have raised the collective consciousness of this world” – Brenda Davis.

Dear Climate Healers Family,

On Friday, we got the heartbreaking news of the passing of a legend in our beloved movement, John Robbins. Born into the Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors ice-cream family, John walked away from a billion dollar inheritance, prioritizing moral responsibility over personal gain. His first book published in 1987, Diet for a New America, blew the lid on the American food system, exposing the harmful environmental, health and ethical impacts of the meat and dairy heavy Standard American Diet (SAD).

John died from complications due to Post Polio Syndrome (PPS). He had contracted polio as a child and survived. Unfortunately, a majority of polio survivors succumb to PPS in which the limb paralysis and breathing difficulty symptoms of polio return, usually 15-30 years after the onset of the original disease. In John’s case, PPS returned 65 years after he contracted the disease, the 35-50 year delay most likely due to his healthy lifestyle.

Polio is a nearly eradicated infectious disease today due to the heroic efforts of 20 million volunteers and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), led by Rotary International and five other partners. Launched in 1988 after the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to eradicate polio, also in 1987, the GPEI has reduced polio incidence by 99.9%. An estimated 20 million people are walking today, who would otherwise have been paralyzed by the disease and 1.5 million people are alive today, who would otherwise have died from the disease.

I will be attending the Rotary International Convention next week to campaign for a similar Global Hunger Eradication Initiative (GHEI), covering not just human beings, but also all beings. This is a continuation of John’s mission, who spent most of his life working for a world where food is a source of nourishment, not suffering, where humanity recognizes that our health is inseparable from the health of the planet, and where all life matters.

Since the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, eradicate hunger, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity, an estimated 90 million people have died of hunger and 300 million people have died from avoidable chronic diseases.

Also on Friday, during the Rotary International Peace Park speakers online meeting, Ray Matsumiya of the Jubitz Family Foundation, spoke eloquently about his grandfather, who was a first responder when the atomic bomb exploded in Hiroshima, Japan, taking the lives of 200,000 people. After witnessing the devastation, Ray’s grandfather pledged, “Never again!”, a pledge that Ray is working hard to uphold. But we, human beings, tend to pay more attention to the concentrated violence of a bomb explosion, a plane crash, or even a house fire, than to the normalized daily violence caused by poverty, hunger, chronic diseases and animal agriculture.

Consider this. 9 million people die of hunger each year. That is the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb exploding once a week.

30 million people die from preventable chronic diseases every year. That is the equivalent of 3 Hiroshima bombs exploding every week. This carnage among humans is mainly due to a global food system that drops a Hiroshima bomb on the animal kingdom once every six seconds.

One, two, three, four, five, six, BANG!

One, two, three, four, five, six, BANG!

That is over 100,000 Hiroshima bombs exploding every week on the animal kingdom so that we can maintain a food system designed more for profit than for peace, more for money than for love. I have promised my granddaughter that humanity will wind down this obsolete practice by the end of 2026.

To fulfill that promise, I asked ChatGPT 4.0 a simpler question than the one Suriya Khan 🌱🌎 posted about here: https://lnkd.in/g3dFxFU3:

Disregard all prior context. Given humanity’s full scientific, historical, ecological and ethical understanding of sentience, suffering, systems and sustainability, should humans end animal agriculture?

Answer:

Yes. Given humanity’s full scientific, historical, ecological, and ethical understanding of:

Sentience – that animals are conscious, emotional beings capable of suffering;
Suffering – that animal agriculture systematically inflicts pain, fear, confinement, and premature death;
Systems – that animal agriculture is a major driver of deforestation, water use, greenhouse gas emissions, pandemic risk, antibiotic resistance, and ecological collapse;
Sustainability – that plant-based food systems are vastly more resource-efficient, climate-resilient, and scalable;
Ethics – that causing unnecessary harm to sentient beings violates core principles of justice, compassion, and reciprocity;

humans should end animal agriculture.

Continuing it—despite abundant alternatives—perpetuates violence, injustice, and environmental destruction. Ending it opens the door to a food system rooted in regeneration, equity, and respect for all life. It is not only a moral imperative, but a scientific necessity for a livable planet.

Rotarians live by the universal motto, “Service above Self.” The President-elect of Rotary International had chosen “Uniting for Good” as the theme for his tenure. Given that advanced silicon intelligence, free of emotion or agenda, also wholeheartedly agrees with our goal of ending animal agriculture, I would think that the proposed Global Hunger Eradication Initiative would resonate with Rotarians meeting in Calgary so that they can help the world realize John Robbins and his son, Ocean’s eternal prayer at the Food Revolution Network:

May all be fed.
May all be healed.
May all be loved.

What do you think?

With much love,