Climate change is very real. Throughout the world, people are being faced devastating floods, drought, earthquakes, tsunamis… the list goes on. Mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters try flee their homes as rising sea levels engulf entire communities, only to find that they have very few or no place to go to restart their lives. Senior US Senator John Kerry highlighted this in an August 2009 “Huffington Post” article, titled “We Can't Ignore the Security Threat from Climate Change.”

“Scientists tell us we have a 10-year window -- if even that – before catastrophic climate change becomes inevitable and irreversible. The threat is real, and time is not on our side.” “The truth is that the threat we face is not an abstract concern for the future. It is already upon us and its effects are being felt worldwide, right now. Scientists project that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013. Not in 2050, but four years from now.

Make no mistake: catastrophic climate change represents a threat to human security, global stability, and – yes -- even to American national security. Climate change injects a major new source of chaos, tension, and human insecurity into an already volatile world. It threatens to bring more famine and drought, worse pandemics, more natural disasters, more resource scarcity, and human displacement on a staggering scale. We risk fanning the flames of failed-statism, and offering glaring opportunities to the worst actors in our international system. In an interconnected world, that endangers all of us.”

Fortunately, there is still hope for our planet. As is increasingly recognized by international scientists, officials, and media, humanity need just turn to the vegan diet to alleviate global warming and secure our world’s sustainable future. In the article “Vegetarianism, the mantra to overcome climate change challenges,” for India’s “Financial Express,” Rajiv Tikoo wrote:

“Vegetarianism is emerging as a new solution to solving the climate change challenge. The latest to champion the cause is the best-known climate economist Nicholas Stern, who has said that turning vegetarian would help to check climate change. He is not alone in taking up the dietary aspect of climate change. Now, even celebrities are joining the campaign.

Cutting down on meat not only helps in reducing emissions, but also the cost of fighting climate change, according to another study by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. Climate Benefits of Changing Diet has concluded that reducing meat intake would help slash the costs of fighting climate change. It would not only bring down emissions of methane and nitrous oxide, but also free up grazing land for carbon sequestration. The study has estimated that low-meat diets help would cut the cost of stabilising GHG emissions by more than half in 2050.”

In “The Star Online” Allan Koay suggests: “Be kinder to your body, and the planet” by being meat-free.

“We’ve always known that eating meat has impacts on our health, but few of us know that the consequences extend to our environment as well… Think about this: a European cow emitting a year’s worth of methane is comparable to a family-size car travelling 70,000 km. Cow and pig waste worldwide weighs 5.5 billion tonnes annually. The gas from that and from the millions of tonnes of fertilisers used in the Amazon to grow animal feed, called nitrous oxide, is a greenhouse gas 295 times more potent than carbon dioxide. All that, plus the fact that land is being deforested for livestock pasture, and you have more than enough reason to go vegetarian.”

“A vegetarian diet also has its bonuses; numerous studies have shown that vegetarians live healthier and longer, and have lower rates of cancer, heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, kidney stones and gall stones. Some even argue that humans are not meat-eaters because of our physical features, such as our flat nails and the absence of incisors. Humans also have carbohydrate digestive enzymes in our saliva, which carnivores and omnivores don’t have. Also, our long intestines are designed for a high-fibre diet and ill-equipped for meat digestion.”

Not only the environment but our health benefits tremendously from switching to a plant-based diet. One US company injects beef with ammonia and does not conduct E. coli testing, saying the ammonia removes the potentially deadly illness. But evidence suggests otherwise. All the while, people continue to eat “ammonia burgers.” In Michael Moss’s “New York Times” article entitled “Safety of Beef Processing Method Is Questioned,” he further explains the issue:

“But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times… challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. [US Department of Agriculture] about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated.

In early 2003, officials in Georgia returned nearly 7,000 pounds … after cooks who were making meatloaf for state prisoners detected a “very strong odor of ammonia” in 60-pound blocks of the trimmings, state records show. “It was frozen, but you could still smell ammonia,” said Dr. Charles Tant, a Georgia agriculture department official. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Unaware that the meat was treated with ammonia - since it was not on the label – Georgia officials assumed it was accidentally contaminated and alerted the agriculture department. In their complaint, the officials noted that the level of ammonia in the beef was similar to levels found in contamination incidents involving chicken and milk that had sickened schoolchildren.”

Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television. We’ll be right back with more media reports on the vegan solution to a thriving planet.

Welcome back to today’s program as we look at mainstream media coverage on the need for a global shift to the vegan lifestyle in order to ensure our planetary and personal welfare. Meat production is causing once curable diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria to mutate rapidly into aggressive drug-resistant strains. Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza of the Associated Press explain more in the article, “Drug-resistant infections lurk in meat we eat” for MSNBC.

“…more and more Americans - many of them living far from barns and pastures - are at risk from the widespread practice of feeding livestock antibiotics. These animals grow faster, but they can also develop drug-resistant infections that are passed on to people. The issue is now gaining attention because of interest from a new White House administration and a flurry of new research tying antibiotic use in animals to drug resistance in people.

Researchers say the overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year – more than prostate and breast cancer combined.

And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs – 28 million pounds - went to pigs, chickens and cows. Worldwide, it's 50 percent. "This is a living breathing problem, it's the big bad wolf and it's knocking at our door," said Dr. Vance Fowler, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University. "It's here. It's arrived."

A single slaughterhouse may have hundreds of holding ponds that they call “lagoons.” They can span over a hectare and run nine meters deep. They carry bacteria, blood, stillborn piglets, chemicals, and drugs, which make them pink. Sometimes, just a light rain can cause these deadly pink lagoons to overflow. In the article “Boss Hog” for Rolling Stone Magazine, Jeff Tietz addressed their horrors upon human lives.

“…major floods have transformed entire counties into pig-[excrement] bayous. To alleviate swelling lagoons, workers sometimes pump the [excrement] out of them and spray the waste on surrounding fields, which results in what the industry daintily refers to as "overapplication." This can turn hundreds of acres -- thousands of football fields -- into shallow mud puddles of pig [excrement]. Tree branches drip with pig [excrement]...

A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig [excrement] to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death.

In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig [excrement].”

Thankfully, such harsh incidents as well as climate change impacts can be avoided, prevented, if everyone adopts the wholesome vegan lifestyle. It is, in fact, a necessary solution – and the best, because as Laura Barton wrote in the UK-based “The Guardian,” “Giving up meat is easy.”

“…the plain fact is that we must reduce the amount of meat and dairy we consume if we are to protect our planet. A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gases than a three-hour car journey while leaving all the lights on in your home. Our oceans are overfished and polluted by commercial fish farms. And while you might be a little gloomy about the notion of a lunchtime without a ham sandwich, the message is really quite simple: grow up and stop wrinkling your nose. After all, they are only lentils, and they will not hurt you.”

“…there are many other types of cooking, such as Indian, Thai and Japanese, that lend themselves more readily to simple vegetarian cuisine. When giving up meat, many people are tempted to run straight into the welcoming arms of cheese. This is not a great idea. Dairy farming also has a hugely detrimental effect on the environment (not to mention the fact that not all cheeses are actually vegetarian). Broaden your culinary horizons, get to know tamari and tempeh, soy milk and cashew cheese, enjoy a little experimentation.”

The good news is, people are broadening their veg culinary horizons around the world – and for the world. We send a green salute to all journalists and media groups around the world who are raising awareness of the adverse role of meat consumption – and the importance of being veg – for climate change and our health. May all people heed the urgent call that will not only save our world, but also make it a much safer, happier place to live.

Considerate viewers, it was a pleasure having you with us on today’s program. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television for Words of Wisdom, coming up after Noteworthy News. May Heaven’s light guide to evermore wisdom and happiness.

To read the full articles cited in today’s program, you can find them online:

In times of dangerous flooding, four Philippine men took the initiative to help their fellow neighbors.

It was so dark and the water was raging.

We’re just thinking about to help our people and then we pray that we’re safe in rescuing them.

Join us as the Shining World Heroes recount their amazing rescue stories, this Saturday, February 6, on Supreme Master Television.