“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” – Mark Fisher.

Dear Climate Healers Family,

A system is an organized framework to accomplish an objective.

Planetary Boundary transgressions occur as the result of a conflict between human engineered systems and the natural life-support systems on Earth.

Human engineered systems facilitate the collaboration of billions of human beings and they make us the most powerful species on earth. At the Berkana Institute, systems scientists Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze, proposed that such big human engineered systems can never be changed from within. We can only abandon them and start over.

In order to verify whether they are right, we can check that big systems like human slavery and colonialism have continued flourishing despite constitutional amendments and declarations of their abolishment.

Modern Slavery

Although human slavery was outlawed in 1865 in the US, it has continued until today through a loophole in the 13th amendment to the US Constitution. Writes Erica Bryant,

“Although the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery in 1865, its authors carved out an exception for people convicted of a crime. Racist lawmakers quickly exploited this loophole, expanding the definition of crime to include things like “walking on the grass” and being unemployed. Such laws, known as Black Codes, allowed the state to easily imprison Black people, who were then forced to work under “convict leasing,” a sinister rebranding of plantation slavery. Later, the War on Drugs was designed to further criminalize Black people and “hippies,” drastically increasing the number of incarcerated people whose labor could be exploited. In recent years, harsh sentences for minor infractions, along with the criminalization of behaviors rooted in poverty and illness, continue to fill United States jails and prisons with people who have no protection from forced labor.

Every day, incarcerated people fight fires, clean toilets, sew uniforms, serve food, and clear asbestos for pennies an hour or no pay at all. During the early days of the pandemic, incarcerated people in New York State produced hand sanitizer, yet were not allowed to use it to protect their own health. End the Exception estimates that more than $18 billion a year in wages is stolen from incarcerated people across the United States.”

In addition to prison labor, an estimated 50 million people are ensnared in modern slavery, 28 million people in forced labor and 22 million people in forced marriages.

Colonialism 2.0

In the middle of the 20th century, the world witnessed scores of nations declaring independence from their colonial masters.

India, the jewel in the crown of the British empire, was partitioned and granted independence in 1947. Between 1857 and 1947, during the British Raj, India experienced 25 famines causing over 60 million people to die of hunger. That is an average of 700 thousand Indians dying of hunger per year. The famines persuaded Indians to migrate to distant lands as indentured laborers, to work on plantations producing addictive substances like coffee and sugar for the rich to consume.

Today, 9 million people die of hunger, while 20-25 million people die of avoidable chronic diseases due to their consumption of addictive substances, especially animal foods, each and every year.

Nothing much has changed.

The same exploitative colonial system has continued, but the famines are now endemic for the people at the bottom of the economic ladder and engineered through deceiving children in schools.

The education system deceives children into believing that protein is only found in animal foods and calcium is only found in dairy foods. When science textbooks constantly associate protein with meat and calcium with milk, young impressionable minds begin to think that these are the only sources of the nutrients. Surveys show that 90% of Americans believe that protein is only found in animal foods.

The dairy deception is especially important for the Colonialism 2.0 system to continue functioning on Planet A. When we consume dairy, we are paying for the upkeep of the mother cow on a daily basis so that when she is labeled as “spent,” she is all paid for and can be ground up into cheap beef.

The dairy deception is also the most egregious one being perpetrated on Planet A.

We are the only species that consumes the lactation secretions of another mammal, purportedly to fulfill our body’s necessity for calcium. Then, how do all the other species meet their calcium needs?

Besides, we consume the lactation secretions of a mammal who is five times our size and whose baby needs to grow from calf to cow in 18 months, whereas we need to grow from baby to adult in 18 years. Then, how could that fluid designed to make a body grow 50-60 times faster than our body ever needs to grow, be truly good food for humans?

Without a substantial majority of humans falling for this dairy deception, there would be no McDonalds or Burger King, not to mention the multi-trillion dollar disease management industrial complex reliant on these fast food giants.

This is how both rich and poor are being exploited in human engineered systems on Planet A.

Vegans are on Planet B already

Vegans are calling for the non-exploitation of our animal cousins, which automatically implies the non-exploitation of our fellow humans. As such, vegans don’t truly belong in the exploitative human-engineered systems on Planet A.

Vegans are on Planet B already, whether we like it or not.

Join us at V-COP23

Please join us in Toronto for the Vegan Convergence Of the Peoples #23 (V-COP23) on Nov 1-2 to help shape and implement our system design plan for Planet B. The theme for V-COP23 is offered by our co-host, Plant Based Treaty: Redirect, Relinquish, Restore::

Redirect our focus from fixing Planet A to building Planet B.
Relinquish the excess resources we have taken from the planet.
Restore the life-support systems of the planet with the relinquished resources.

Please be there and let us make some history.

With much love,