In the 2004 historical war drama film, Downfall (Der Untergang), regarding the final days of the Nazi regime in the underground bunker of Adolf Hitler (Fuhrerbunker), there was a stark disconnect between the elites in the bunker and the soldiers and civilians outside. As Hitler exhorted his generals to fight to the bitter end and never ever surrender, he kept moving imaginary armies around on a map while the soldiers and civilians were being blown up in the streets of Berlin right outside the Fuhrerbunker.

In the 2024 downfall of Western civilization that we are witnessing in real life today, the relentless pursuit of infinite economic growth by global policymakers conjuring giant carbon capture machines to cool the planet while continuing to deforest the Amazon for more dairy and beef, stands in sharp contrast to the plight of climate migrants escaping the meltwater floods that washed away their homes or the wildfires that burnt their homes down as a direct consequence of that relentless pursuit. As they pour over the borders of Western nations and get bused to sanctuary cities by the millions, the migrants and our houseless neighbors are straining social safety nets throughout the Western world.

Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister for Armaments, who was tasked by Hitler to oversee his scorched earth policy of destroying civilian infrastructure as the German military retreated, deliberately failed to carry out these policies sparing the German people intense suffering. However, the other Nazi elites in the bunker resorted to escapism with alcohol infused parties even as the horror of the war crept inexorably towards them.

As Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the bunker, the soldiers who were tasked with cremating their bodies were scrounging for fuel, dodging exploding bombs, even as Traudl Junge, Hitler’s secretary, was pouring herself a stiff drink of alcohol, which could have been used as fuel for the cremation. The elites clung to their way of life to the bitter end even as life outside their bunker disintegrated beyond recognition. They did not know what else to do.

Today, some global policymakers, such as Mayor Eric Adams of New York city, are defying Big Ag and Big Pharma by promoting healthy Vegan lifestyles. However, the global elites hunker down in their tropical retreats growing nut trees and home brews to feed their cows macadamia nuts and beer so that they produce “high quality steaks”. Some elites plan improbable permanent exits to Mars while others stock their underground bunkers with canned food supplies, awaiting the imminent downfall of Western civilization. They do not know what else to do.

As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Hitler moved imaginary armies around in the bunker because his math was wrong on military casualties. Likewise, our global policymakers are implementing perversely destructive climate policies (see, e.g., “The Great Inadvertent Aerosol Experiment” section in this paper) because their math is wrong on greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, how they measure land use change CO2 emissions is profoundly different from how they measure fossil fuel CO2 emissions, and even minimally competent engineers would not have signed off on such apples to oranges accounting conventions, but someone did at the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Cue, Hitler rant, immortalized by the late Bruno Ganz.

While the global adoption of a healthy Vegan lifestyle is tremendously beneficial on 8 of the 9 planetary boundaries and would help resolve ALL SIX planetary boundary transgressions at the moment, it requires making peace with Nature, which is antithetical to the infinite economic growth agenda of global policymakers and the elites who control them.

The situation is ripe for a system transformation. David Attenborough said in a recent speech,

“96% of the mass of mammals on our planet today are us and the livestock we have domesticated. Only 4% is everything else from elephants to badgers, tigers to bats. 70% of all birds are now domesticated poultry, mostly chickens.

Nature once determined how we survive. Now, we determine how Nature survives.”

Actually no, Mr. Attenborough, we don’t determine how Nature survives. Nature still determines how we survive. And we are surviving despite our depredations because of the incredibly resilient system design that is Nature, coupled with a Kilimanjaro-sized helping of grace.

Also, the mass statistics that Attenborough quotes are about a decade old and the situation for wild mammals has gotten progressively worse year by year. Besides, as we pointed out in the Climate Healers Animal Agriculture position paper, our domestic animals are an unnatural mix of very young animals who eat twice as much as their weight alone would indicate. Taking this into account, the true ratio is 98% for us and our domesticated animals, and just 2% for all wild mammals.

Therefore, Western civilization is beyond due for a system transformation.

This is why we began boycotting all UN COPs when global policymakers agreed to continue burning down more forests for meat and dairy production until 2030 at the UN COP26 in Glasgow, 2021. We at Climate Healers, will not set foot in a single future UN COP meeting until it is 100% Vegan, which would signify that it is a serious undertaking. Instead of attending UN COPs, we rebranded our quarterly Zoom convergence meetings as V-COPs, the Vegan Convergence Of the Peoples.

V-COP16, which we organized over the weekend, was truly inspirational. Personally, I have never felt so energized after 20 hours of Zoom sessions over a weekend. The documentaries that we screened, McLibel and The Smell of Money, showed how ordinary people, full of courage, can take on mega corporations and win.

Please help the documentary producers spread their message by screening these documentaries for your friends and family.

James Pickering spoke about their intriguing new documentary, I Could Never Go Vegan, which examines and debunks almost every possible common excuse for not going Vegan. Please spread the word that this documentary will be premiering in March and we will likely screen it at V-COP17.

Please install the UnchainedTV app and the Food Healers app on all your devices. UnchainedTV is the world’s only Vegan streaming network!

Please support Switch4Good and the incredible work that they are doing, taking on Big Dairy and winning.

If you haven’t signed the Plant Based Treaty, you can do so here. Please join their campaign to get your local cities and community kitchens to promote a healthy vegan lifestyle.

Please support and follow the social media channels of our other contributors at V-COP16: Made in Hackney, GenV, Eat for the Earth, Million Vegan Grandmothers and the Interfaith Vegan Coalition.

We received a number of kudos for V-COP16:

“I thoroughly enjoyed learning from these sessions.”

“Thank you for another excellent event.”

“Congratulations on the weekend convergence. It was lovely and informative.”

“Thank you for the amazing convergence. So inspired.”

“The feeling I had after this convergence was what I want to feel when I go to church, a feeling of connection, compassion and love for all the people attending. I am high on hope and a vision for the future.”

We also received one request for the future:

“Can we please stop using derogatory terms like, “junk-food Vegans,” “Vegan junk food,” “pleasure-trapped Vegans,” etc.?”

I concur. We must be welcoming of everyone who has consciously adopted a Vegan lifestyle and honor their unique, individual path to personal well being.

Finally, all the videos for the individual events will be posted on our social media channels and our Trello board within the next few days. If you did not attend V-COP16, you can still catch up and join us for the next one, V-COP17 on April 27-28.

Please save the dates, April 27-28, 2024. The theme for V-COP17 is “Stories we Tell, Games we Play.”

Speaking of games, if you are looking for healthy Vegan Super Bowl snacks, then you can’t go wrong here.

There is much to do, and we can do it. We, the people of this planet, can adopt a healthy Vegan lifestyle and solve all our environmental and social justice challenges without the permission of global policymakers and the frightened elites who control them.

How awesome is that?

As an aside, please vote for me as a speaker at the upcoming Vegan Women’s Summit in Hollywood. Of the 100 plus speakers being considered for the Summit, I am humbled to be just one of three men selected by the committee. With your support, I can realize my maternal grandfather’s prediction that in my waning years, I would be surrounded by a sea of women!

He was a renowned astrologer and most of what he predicted has come true.

With much love,
Sailesh on behalf of the Climate Healers Core team.
(Akhil, Alison, Anne, BJ, Carl, Dakota, Dani, Deborah, Debra, Gabriele, Giva, Jamen, Kelly, Ken, Kimaya, Krish, Lisa, Liz, Maggie, Marco, Paige, Pareen, Paul, Ray, Sailesh, Sarah, Shankar, Stacey, Suzanne, Tami and Vega, the Cow and Climate Healer and her Veguitas)