My visit to Mumbai has been truly inspirational. Hosted by the incredibly connected and resourceful Ruchika Chitrabanu, I was able to meet with numerous activists and vegan influencers in Mumbai, who are working to make this city a compassionate haven. I also met Pramodaji Chitrabanu, Ruchika’s mother-in-law, for the first time, even though she has written a chapter for “Animal Agriculture is Immoral” and appeared in Thomas Wade Jackson’s beautiful documentary, “A Prayer for Compassion”.

On the first day in Mumbai, I met with Rashtrasant Param Gurudev Shree Namramuni Maharaj Saheb, who has a vision of taking Paramatma Mahavir’s message of Truth and Compassion to every heart globally using the medium of technology and media to reach millions. This digitally savvy Param Gurudev uses WhatsApp, Mobile App, Website, Social Media and Youtube to reach people with the motto, “No matter where you are, positivity is just a click away.” He listened patiently to my plea for Veganism to heal the climate and promised to host my online presentation to his followers, with details to be worked out with his team.

Later in the evening, I attended the SHARAN potluck, with its incredible array of whole foods plant-based dishes, hosted by Reyna, Rose, Captain Pinto and about 50 SHARAN fans. I spoke about Kimaya and how she influenced my Homo Ahimsa transformation, recounting excerpts from the chapters of the Pinky Promise book.

On the second day, I spoke to two groups of students at SVKM JV Parekh International School in Ville Parle, one from 8th grade and the other from 11th grade. I was impressed with the awareness of these students on environmental issues and with their willingness to contemplate the changes necessary to address them. At the end of my presentation to the 11th graders, they told me that they had no doubts about what needs to get done and their environmental teacher and University Liaison Officer, Dr. Anudnya Irani, also agreed to join the kickoff meeting for the Vegan University on Saturday, April 15.

On the third day, the day of the festival of colors, Holi, I was interviewed by Vignesh Manjeshwar of YV Cares, a Hindi Vegan social media influencer. He asked me questions in Hindi, which I answered in English and he will be editing the video to add his Hindi translations of what I said. As a parting gift, he gave me a bottle of Shankar Narayan’s famous Satvik Vegan Laddus to keep me nourished on my journey.

Following the YV Cares interview, I went to Malad West to be interviewed by Palak Mehta of Vegan First for their North Star series. This was a two hour interview entirely in English at the end of which, the Vegan First team sent me off with a yellow Holi tilak on my forehead. Along with Ruchika, I had dinner with Malti and H. K. Shah of World Vegan Vision at Cafe Knead, a restaurant by Moshe Shek from Israel, who has created a beautiful space with sumptuous food in the heart of Mumbai.

On my last day in Mumbai, I met with Maira, who’s aiming to get her Bombay International school to go Vegan for lunch on Wednesdays, for starters. She will be using the Cowspiracy infographic and the environmental impact of animal foods as the primary leverage point for the transformation. Bombay International school is also hosting Trishla Chitrabanu’s Take a Paws campaign to help injured animals and it is therefore, in my opinion, primed to become the first all-vegan school in Mumbai.

We also went to the Bombay Diamond Bourse to meet with Girish Shah, a member of the Animal Welfare Board of India, who has done so much for both humans and the animals in India. For instance, he persuaded the Government of India to allocate over a billion dollars to procure ambulances to transport injured and sick animals to sanctuaries. He has also worked with villages to restore watersheds and native forests to alleviate hunger.

Finally, after getting stuck in rush hour traffic for a good two hours, I rode pillion on a scooter with Captain Joseph Pinto through the crowded, narrow streets of Versova to the Jetty, where a boat ferried us across to Madh Island for a restful last night’s sleep in Mumbai at their 8th floor apartment.

The Million Vegan Grandmothers Corner

The students at Cambridge University and the Plant Based Universities initiative of Animal Rebellion deserve huge respect for their courageous stance asking for all cafes and canteens at Cambridge University to go Vegan. The Million Vegan Grandmothers stepped in to entreat the administration at Cambridge to take the next step and implement the students’ resolution:

“To:
Prof. Kamal Munir
Pro Vice Chancellor for University Community and Engagement
University of Cambridge
Old Schools
Trinity Lane
Cambridge CB2 1TN
United Kingdom
Email: kamal.munir@admin.cam.ac.uk
Ph: +44-1223-339655

Dear Prof. Munir,

It is with great joy that we write to you in support of the student resolution to remove all animal products from cafes and canteens at the University of Cambridge. We feel that this resolution is a necessary and rational response to the global biodiversity and climate crises, and we entreat the University of Cambridge to take the next step by enacting the proposed policy. As a leading educational institution, Cambridge would set an enormously influential precedent.

Your institution is already the laudable source of The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which was unanimously endorsed by prominent international neuroscientists over a decade ago, in 2012. That declaration confirms what we already intuited: that our fellow sentient beings suffer when we confine them under horrible conditions and, ultimately, slaughter them. We hope that the administration can finally take an important step towards aligning its policies with this groundbreaking declaration.

Our fierce love for the children of all species compels us to speak out. Thank you for your favorable consideration of the student resolution.

With much Vegan Love,

The Million Vegan Grandmothers
Climate Healers
3145 E Chandler Blvd #110-233
Phoenix, AZ 85048
t: +1-732-809-3526
e: grandmothers@climatehealers.org
w: https://climatehealers.org/million-vegan-grandmothers

Once again, please feel free to copy this letter, customize it and dash it off to Prof. Munir so that he knows the whole world is encouraging him to make the right choice.

The Airborne Fraction Deception

When the UN IPCC counts CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion one way and CO2 emissions from land use changes another way, it raises eyebrows among us systems engineers, as we are trained to detect shenanigans.

Nature is a self-healing system and tries to balance out the CO2 in the atmosphere as much as possible. The ocean, land vegetation and soil act as natural absorbers of excess CO2 that gets poured into the atmosphere from human activities.

Until about 1800, Nature was able to sequester ALL of the CO2 emitted from human activities so that the CO2 level in the atmosphere stayed constant at around 280 parts per million (ppm) for thousands of years. Since 1800, the CO2 level in the atmosphere has been increasing and it reached 410 ppm in 2020.

In 2020, the CO2 level in the atmosphere increased by 2.25 parts per million compared to what it was at the same time in 2019. Since each part per million is equivalent to 7.81 Billion tons of CO2, that means about 17.6 Billion tons of CO2 got added to the atmosphere in that year. As far as climate models are concerned, it is only this 17.6 Billion ton addition of CO2 to the atmosphere that matters.

However, the UN IPCC spins the story that humans emitted 39.1 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2019-20, of which 33.9 billion tons were from fossil fuel combustion and 5.2 billion tons from land use changes. Then it claims that the “airborne fraction” of the CO2 emissions is 45% as only 17.6 billion tons of the 39.1 billion tons stayed in the atmosphere.

Now, let’s look at how the UN IPCC arrives at these numbers. The 33.9 billion tons of CO2 is ALL of the emissions from burning fossil fuels. The 5.2 billion tons is the NET of the emissions from deforestation (30 million acres) and afforestation (10 million acres) so that only 20 million acres of deforestation are accounted for. Besides, the UN only counts a land grid to have been deforested if its tree cover drops below 10%.

The animal agriculture industry takes advantage of this accounting convention loophole to cut down most of the trees and leave a little over 10% of the tree cover in a 1Km X 1Km grid so that it remains classified as a “forest”. Through these accounting mechanisms and the airborne fraction concept, the UN IPCC is able to low ball the impact of animal agriculture while inflating the impact of fossil fuels. After all, the only CO2 that matters in the climate models is the 17.6 billion tons that got added to the atmosphere, while the rest is just spin doctoring.

Thank you for your support.

HELP us every day to

Heal the planet.
Eat plants.
Love animals.
Plant trees.

It’s that simple.

Thanks again for being a superhero and joining our herd. Please forward this post to all your friends and let’s grow our MOOOvement together.

With much love,
Sailesh on behalf of Vega, Cow and Climate Healer and the Climate Healers core team
(Akhil, Alison, Anne, BJ, Carl, Chip, Debra, Gabriele, Ilse, Jamen, Kelly, Ken, Kimaya, Krish, Maggie, Marco, Paige, Pareen, Ray, Sailesh, Sarah, Shankar, Stacey, Tami and Vega, the Cow and Climate Healer).

PS: If you are looking for Vega the Cow’s weekly update on “50 Ways to Leave My Udder“, please click here.