Dear Climate Healers,
“The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know” – Joseph Campbell.
Share Vega’s message about animal agriculture and climate change.
Share Vega’s message about Food Healers.
Imagine that you are the EarthShot Marathoner. You have been chosen to run the most consequential race of all time and you have been training for this race all your life. This is no ordinary marathon, for the stakes are far, far higher.
If you win the race, you gain an eternal life of peace and prosperity, not just for you but for all life on Earth. If you lose, you and everyone you know, will die a horrible death.
The day of the race arrives. You run an amazing race. You are so far ahead of your competitors that when the finish line is in sight, you look back and you don’t see them even on the horizon.
You have run more than 26 miles and you are now just 90 yards from the finish line. You just have to run a triple and you will be home. At that moment, you detect an enticing, seductive aroma. You glance to the left and you see this Burger Joint. It’s about to close and its clown mascot is beckoning you come in.
If you get to the finish line, then you will have to wait for all the ceremonies to be done and the Burger Joint will definitely be closed.
After all the years of discipline during training, you think, “Why not?”
You take a detour into the Burger Joint and you order yourself an Extra Large Milkshake, Supersized Fries and a Cheeseburger with everything on it. As you dig into this Bacon-Chicken-Turkey-Lamb-Fish-Beef Cheese Burger with Supersized French Fries and Extra Large Milkshake, you hear your competitors coming down the road.
Then you see them. There they are, all in a bunch. You see the ones with just one name: Famine, Drought, Flood, Fire, Pandemics. You see the ones with two names: Bomb Cyclone, Atmospheric River, Biodiversity Loss, Ecosystem Collapse, Climate Change. You see the ones with three names: Arctic Permafrost Melt, Sea Level Rise, Ice Sheet Collapse. And you see many others whose names you do not even know.
They are all coming closer and closer.
You calculate that you can take another bite and still make it to the finish line ahead of them. But the rich food begins to clog your arteries and fog your brain. You feel dizzy as you stagger out to finish the race, still clutching the burger and milkshake in your hands.
You are the EarthShot Marathoner. How will you end this story?
This story is grounded in science. Mother Earth has been training us for this marathon race ever since we were given control of fire, about 500,000 years ago. The marathon we’re running has been going on for 50,000 years, when our ancestors moved out of Africa and migrated to every part of the globe during the ice age.
During the current warm period, our ancestors started agriculture almost everywhere. In the process, they burned down forests and heated up the Earth. As a consequence, they kept global temperature fairly constant for about 10,000 years until the industrial era began. They were fulfilling our ecosystem role as the climate harmonizing species of the planet.
In the industrial era, our ancestors built all the tools and technologies we need to take us to the finish line while raising the Earth’s temperature by 1 deg C. Our generation is the first to acknowledge that humans have the power to change the climate of the planet and the last generation that can win the race or lose.
We knew three decades ago that we were in a consequential race of our lives, but we have frittered those three decades indulging in burgers and milkshakes, pretending that there is no Cow in the Room. As Gus Speth said,
“Thirty years ago, I thought that the three major environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. And I thought that with 30 years of good science, we can solve these problems.
I was wrong.
The three major environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy. To solve those, we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.
And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
Now, we engineers, are taking a crack at it. Unlike scientists who can be easily cowed into ignoring the Cow in the Room, engineers are trained to put everything on the table and look for the optimal solution. After all, this EarthShot Marathon is a typical Hero’s journey and this is its final twist, where everything looks bleak and lost, just before the Hero breaks through and wins.
We will not only be thinking of future generations, but also honoring the millennia of sacrifices that our ancestors endured to give us what we have.
Please stay tuned.
Thank you for your support.
HELP US on World Food Healers day and 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 MOOvement together.