How one species is killing our planet

[tks]

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This speech in the video makes a compelling case ...

Best speech ever? Must See. The former CEO of Citibank Phillip Wollen captivates the audience. - YouTube

 

[Raji Ram]

Dear Sir,

Thank you very much for posting this link. I liked each and every word said here. :thumb:

But, will the world change? :dizzy:

 

[Naina_Marbus]

This is an outstanding presentation. I feel that people with limited internet connectivity ( like a dial-up or low bandwidth connection) would benefit from a transcript of the speech. I have therefore provided a brief description as obtained from the internet.

According to Wikipedia:

Philip Wollen (born 1950) is an Australian philanthropist who went to school at the Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore.

He is a former vice-president of Citibank and was also a general manager at Citicorp.

Wollen became a vegetarian following his departure from Citibank and is a prominent member of the Animal Rights movement. He conducts intervention programs to rescue abused animals and funds outreach programs that promote animal welfare and abstinence.

In 2005 he received the Medal of the Order of Australia andin 2007 he won the Australian of the Year (Victoria) award.

A partial transcript, as found here:

http://freefromharm.org/videos/educational-inspiring-talks/philip-wollen-australian-philanthropist-former-vp-of-citibank-makes-blazing-animal-rights-speech/

Philip Wollen, Australian Philanthropist,Former VP of Citibank, Makes Blazing Animal Rights Speech

Animals must be off the menu because tonight they are screaming in terror in the slaughterhouse, in crates, and cages.

I heard the screams of my dying father as his body was ravaged by the cancer that killed him. And I realised I had heard these screams before. In the slaughterhouse, eyes stabbed out and tendons slashed, on the cattle ships to the Middle East and the dying mother whale as a Japanese harpoon explodes in her brain as she calls out to her calf.

Their cries were the cries of my father. Id iscovered when we suffer, we suffer as equals. And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a bear. . . . . . is a boy.

Meat is the new asbestos – more murderous than tobacco.

90% of small fish are ground into pellets to feed livestock. The oceans are dying in our time. By 2048 all our fisheries will be dead. Billions of bouncy little chicks are ground up alive simply because they are male.

And we torture and kill 2 billion animals every week. 10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one species.

We are now facing the 6th mass extinction in cosmological history. If any other organism did this a biologist would call it a virus. It is a crime against humanity of unimaginable proportions.

The world has changed. 10 years ago Twitter was a bird sound, www wasa stuck keyboard, Cloud was in the sky, 4 g was a parking place, Google was ababy burp, Skype was a typo and Al Kider was my plumber.

Animal Rights is now the greatest Social Justice issue since the abolition of slavery.

There are over 600 million vegetarians in the world. Thatis bigger than the US, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada,Australia combined! If we were onenation we would be bigger than the 27 countries in the European Union!! Despite this massive footprint, we are still drowned out by the raucous hunting, shooting, killing cartels who believe that violence is the answer – when it shouldn’t even be a question.

Meat is a killing industry – animals, us and our economies.

Cornell and Harvard say that the optimum amountof meat for a healthy diet is precisely ZERO.

Water is the new oil. Nations will soon be going to war for it. Underground aquifers that took millions of years to fill are running dry.

It takes 50,000 litres of water to produce one kilo of beef.

1billion people today are hungry. 20 million people will die from malnutrition.Cutting meat by only 10% will feed 100 million people. Eliminating meat will end starvation forever.

If everyone ate a Western diet, we would need 2 Planet Earths to feed them. We only have one. And she is dying.
Poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in theirarms. And we feed it to livestock. So we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. When I look into her eyes, should I be silent?

The earth can produce enough for everyone’s need. But not enough for everyone’s greed.We are facing the perfect storm. If any nation had developed weapons that could wreak such havoc on the planet, we would launch a pre-emptive military strike and bomb it into the Bronze Age.

But it is not a rogue state. It is an industry. The good news is we don’t have to bomb it. We can just stop buying it. George Bush was wrong. The Axis of Evil doesn’t run through Iraq, or Iran or North Korea. It runs through our dining tables. Weapons of Mass Destruction are our knives and forks.

This is the Swiss Army Knife of the future – it solves our environmental, water,health problems and ends cruelty forever. Meat is like 1 and 2 cent coins. It costs more to make than it is worth. And farmers are the ones with the most to gain. Farming won’t end. It would boom.Only the product line would change. Farmers would make so much money theywouldn’t even bother counting it. New industries would emerge and flourish. Health insurance premiums would plummet.Hospital waiting lists would disappear. Hell“ We’d be so healthy; we’d have to shoot someone just to start a cemetery!”

So tonight I have 2 Challenges for the opposition:

1. Meat causes a wide range of cancers and heart disease. Will they name one disease caused by a vegetarian diet?
2. I am funding the Earthlings trilogy. If the opposition is so sure of their ground, I challenge them to send the Earthlings DVD to all their colleagues and customers. Go on I DARE YOU.

Animals are not just other species. They are other nations. And we murder them at our peril.The peace map is drawn on a menu. Peace is not just the absence of war. It is the presence of Justice. Justice must be blind to race, colour, religion or species. If she is not blind, she will be a weapon of terror. And there is unimaginable terror in those ghastly Guantanamos. I believe another world is possible.

Let’s get the animals off the menu and out of these torture chambers.

 

[Raji Ram]

​Thank you Naina Sir!

 

[tks]

Dear Sir,

Thank you very much for posting this link. I liked each and every word said here. :thumb:

But, will the world change? :dizzy:

Not sure if the world will change - Human beings have 'evolved' to be the worst species, in my view. The American Indians of previous era or India's people from the past generations were content to take from nature what they needed. This was true in other parts of the world too when one had to truly work for a living in a agrarian setting.

The world will be changed perhaps not in our life times but soon after....And the change when it begins will be catastrophic ...

 

[amala]

I was listening to the speech until i realised that it was in fact a tiny part of a full debate with a for and an against. In the interest of fairness and such like may i please take the liberty to post the full debate. I am lacto (ovo sometimes) vegetarian, just in case it matters.

[video=youtube;mNED7GJLY7I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNED7GJLY7I[/video]

 

[amala]

One of the most emotive aspects of the debate was when a member of the audience asked about the unethical dairy industry. As we all are aware most SI Brahmin households holds milk, dairy and curds very highly and not a day goes by without consuming them.

As the member of audience put it a female (cattle most probably) has to lactate. For that it has to conceive and give birth. The progeny is then taken away and the female produces obscene amounts of milk for our consumption. Does that not seem just as cruel as the slaughterhouses in another way? Or is it any less cruel? its progeny is most probably killed as well. I grew up drinking milk and i do enjoy my curd rice and cheese. I don't know the alternative simply because even though i was aware of the diary/milk industry being cruel, it never struck chords in me the way it has today. It does scare me in a way to think of putting my money where my mouth is and the thought of my progeny in future never having to taste milk and curds the way i got to growing up.

I know most people on this site are probably lacto vegetarian. Do you struggle with this dilemma or just get on with life and let the cows go on doing what cows do? If thats the case then why the grief over meat and slaughtering etc?

 

[sravna]

Dear Amala,

In a physical world the concept of zero harm is impossible. One organism kills another which in turn is killed by another and this goes on probably in a cycle to maintain balance. But human beings should not cross the line and resort to what would amount to cruelty. I think then nature would have ways of getting back.

 

[tks]

One of the most emotive aspects of the debate was when a member of the audience asked about the unethical dairy industry. As we all are aware most SI Brahmin households holds milk, dairy and curds very highly and not a day goes by without consuming them.

As the member of audience put it a female (cattle most probably) has to lactate. For that it has to conceive and give birth. The progeny is then taken away and the female produces obscene amounts of milk for our consumption. Does that not seem just as cruel as the slaughterhouses in another way? Or is it any less cruel? its progeny is most probably killed as well. I grew up drinking milk and i do enjoy my curd rice and cheese. I don't know the alternative simply because even though i was aware of the diary/milk industry being cruel, it never struck chords in me the way it has today. It does scare me in a way to think of putting my money where my mouth is and the thought of my progeny in future never having to taste milk and curds the way i got to growing up.

I know most people on this site are probably lacto vegetarian. Do you struggle with this dilemma or just get on with life and let the cows go on doing what cows do? If thats the case then why the grief over meat and slaughtering etc?

Smt Amala

You raise an excellent point.
Generally in villages in India many years ago they will have the offspring and excess milk will be consumed by people.


Today the milk industry is just cruel. In addition to factory like farms, they milk the cow, kill the offspring if it is a male and make milk.

That is why I am against milk being used in doing temples for Abhishekam. In some of the temples in NJ and PA they actually raise cows so that the milk used is not generated out of cruelty.

For most of us there is a balance. Even without killing an offspring there is enough milk production for most human needs. I will be willing to pay 10 times the price to have milk that is not generated from factory farm. I have limited intake and do not go after lot of cream (bad for health anyway) since those industries force the dairy farms to increase production.

So as a simple measure for our health we may consume milk unless alternatives (soy milk or almond milk) is unavailable or not acceptable to the body. Limit consumption and avoid excess use of ice cream and enriched cream products.

Yes, there are no simple answers but sometimes it not all or nothing.

It all comes to attitude we hold when we consume something.

If we have to kill for our survival (say in a jungle) that is fine and is still practice of Ahimsa (when one includes pain to our body in the equation of minimizing injury).

Similarly if a child needs milk taking the minimal amount for our survival unless alternatives exist is fine in my view

Regards

 

[Brahmanyan]

Dear Sri Tks,

Thanks for posting this thought provoking subject.

Regards,
Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.