6/23/2009 JVNA Online Newsletter

Shalom everyone,

This update/Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) Online Newsletter has the following items:

1. Review/WE Are the Ones Who Can Help Save the World/YES We Can!

2. Tisha B'Av and Vegetarianism

2a. Jewish Leaders Call for “Global Healing Shabbat” on October 23-24

3. Humane Society of the US Has Many Summer Opportunities for Youngsters

4. NY Times Op-Ed Article Considers How Factory Farming Is Reducing the Quality of Our Food and Endangering Our Health and the Environment

5. World's Hungry Now Numbers One Billion People

5a. Press Release from EVANA Urges Veganism to Reduce Hunger Crisis

6. Michael Gregor, M.D. Releases New DVD on Nutrition

7. More Re the Possibility of a Fur-Free Israel

8. JVNA Advisor Roberta Kalechofsky Authors and Publishes New Book on Vivisection

9. Challenging Essay on the Need for Us to Change Our Lifestyles to Avoid a Climate Disaster

10. Flood of Appeals for Action Planned for Copenhagen December Conference on Global Warming

Some material has been deferred to a later update/newsletter to keep this one from being even longer.

[Materials in brackets like this [ ] within an article or forwarded message are my editorial notes/comments.]

Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the JVNA, unless otherwise indicated, but may be presented to increase awareness and/or to encourage respectful dialogue. Also, material re conferences, retreats, forums, trips, and other events does not necessarily imply endorsement by JVNA or endorsement of the kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observances, but may be presented for informational purposes. Please use e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites to get further information about any event that you are interested in. Also, JVNA does not necessarily agree with all positions of groups whose views are included or whose events are announced in this newsletter.

As always, your comments and suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks,

Richard

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1. Review/WE Are the Ones Who Can Help Save the World/YES We Can!

[This message is SO important that I am repeating it here, even though it was just sent out as part of the special JVNA newsletter on global warming.]

Yes, yes we can! And it is beginning to look like if we don't, it is not going to happen.

Please consider the basics (more at the strategy section at JewishVeg.com/Schwartz).

* The major US report (discussed below on global warming threats to all sections of the US is just the latest indication that the world is rapidly heading toward an unprecedented catastrophe from global climate change and other environmental threats.

* There have been many reports and articles recently re the VERY significant effect that animal-based agriculture has on greenhouse gas emissions.

* What I have just learned recently (and plan to explore more and report on more) is that: Carbon dioxide effects is significantly reduced by aerosols that are also emitted from power plant and factories. Also, CO2 stays in the atmosphere for many years, so a reduction in CO2 emissions now would not have such a major effect. However, methane, largely emitted by cows and other animals, stays in the atmosphere for less than 15 years, during which time its impact is about 70 times as potent as CO2 in causing global warming. Hence, a major reduction in farmed animals, if we stopped breeding them, would have a very rapid and substantial impact on global warming.

Getting these messages out MUST become a major activity for each one of us, as well as much as possible of the vegetarian, animal rights, environmental and related movements. The future of humanity and all of creation depends on it.

So, what are you waiting for. :

Please start speaking to people, writing letters and articles, calling in to radio talk shows, promoting A SACRED DUTY and doing everything else you can to get these issues onto society's agenda.

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2. Tisha B'Av and Vegetarianism

I am planning to send my article on “Tisha B'Av and Vegetarianism” to the media soon. So, please take a look at the article at the holidays section of JewishVeg.com/Schwartz, and let me know if you have suggestions about it or other ways to promote vegetarianism through teachings related to Tisha B'Av. Thanks.

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2a. Jewish Leaders Call for “Global Healing Shabbat” on October 23-24

Forwarded message from rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center:

[Please respond positively to this important initiative That JVNA had a role in getting off the ground by trying to arrange suitable activities in your community.]

Says an old Southern Black song: "God gave Noah the Rainbow Sign; No more water, the fire next time." In our generation, the Flood of Fire has come upon us in the climate crisis of global scorching and rising of the seas. We ourselves -- all of us -- must build the Ark to save humanity and all endangered life-forms. The Rainbow Sign calls us to this work of transformation.

A CALL TO OBSERVE SHABBAT NOACH, OCTOBER 23-24,
AS "GLOBAL CLIMATE HEALING SHABBAT"

This fall, Shabbat Noach -- when Jews around the world read the Torah portion about the Flood, Noah, the Ark, and the Rainbow -- comes on October 23-24, the day when a number of experts on the global climate crisis have called for world-wide actions to protect our planet from climate disaster.

This Torah passage lends itself to focusing on the danger of destruction of life on our planet, and also on the actions we need to take to prevent destruction and preserve the web of life in which the human race has emerged and created civilization.

So we --- both national and grass-roots leaders of the Jewish people -- urge all Jewish communities to observe Shabbat Noach as "Global Climate Healing Shabbat" with special prayers, sermons, Torah commentary/ midrash, songs, lectures, debates, panel discussions, resolutions, kiddushes, meals, nature-walks, stories for children, invitations to public officials and environmental activists, and other means of bringing Jewish commitment to bear on healing the earth from the dangers that over-use of fossil fuels is bringing upon us all.

We invite those of all religious, spiritual, and ethical traditions to join as well at that time of year.

Please register your intent to create a local event (even if you are just beginning to plan) in both these places: ---

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/4180/event/index.jsp?event_KEY=50242

http://www.350.org/oct24

[Please forward this message to your friends and co-workers, and please support the work by clicking on the logo at the end of this message. Please see the statement we are appending below about the worldwide scheduled events and the key planners.]

The international observance of "Global Climate Healing Shabbat Noach" is a prelude to the crucial United Nations conference on the climate crisis scheduled for Copenhagen in December, 2009.

Almost daily reports of widespread droughts, floods, storms, wildfires and melting polar ice caps, mountain snowcaps, glaciers, and the forced migration of invasive species and diseases into new territories all cry out to us for action. Passage after passage of Torah and secular Jewish writings cry out to us that as Jews we must act more vigorously, not only in private and communal households but in shaping public policy to celebrate and heal the web of life.

We urge our own members and all Jews to contact local rabbis, Jewish educators and other scholars and communal leaders to plan "Global Climate Healing Shabbat" events that will make this Shabbat (and if you wish the days just before and after it) the beginning of a truly transformative time.

We call on Jews not only to green our own households and communal buildings but also to work for major public policy changes away from fossil fuels and toward shifts in energy use, transportation, food production, housing, and other dimensions of our society.

Jewish tradition about caring for the poor also guides us to make sure that industries and regions especially affected must get help from the whole society, and that poor countries also get special help to develop on a non-fossil path and to ward off the destructive effects of climate change.

We hope the continuing momentum of Global Climate Healing Shabbat will help the December UN conference in Copenhagen make the decisions necessary to greatly reduce threats to our climate.

Please register your intentions today in both these places: ---

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/4180/event/index.jsp?event_KEY=50242

http://www.350.org/oct24

Signed (partial list):

Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and a leader in the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Nancy Ratzan, President, National Council of Jewish Women.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Director, and Arlene Goldbard, President, for The Shalom Center, which initiated this Call.

Nigel Savage, director, for Hazon.

Debra Kolodny, director, for ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal.

Richard Schwartz, president, for Jewish Vegetarian Society of North America.

Dr. Michael Kagan and Rabbi Julian Sinclair for Jewish Climate Initiative, Israel.

Nili Simhai, for the Teva Learning Center.

Jakir Manela for Kayam Farm at Pearlstone Center.

Susan Kaplan, Chair, for Southern Arizona COEJL.

Ellen Bernstein, founder of Shomrei Adamah; author, Birthday of the Trees and The Splendor of Creation

Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, Director, Baltimore Jewish Environmental Network.

Rabbi Amy Eilberg, St. Paul Interfaith Network.

Evan Eisenberg, author, The Ecology of Eden.

Dr. Mirele B. Goldsmith, Environmental Activist

Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, Editor, Zeek

Rabbis Sharon Kleinbaum and Ayelet Cohen, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, NYC, a Green Menorah Covenant congregation.

Rabbi Peter Knobel, Beth Emet, Evanston IL; past president, Central Conference of American Rabbis

Barbara Lerman-Golomb, Founder, Barbara Wow Workshop; Director Educaton and Outreach, Hazon; former ED, COEJL

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Board, The Shalom Center

Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives, Brooklyn; Board, The Shalom Center

Rabbi Thomas A. Louchheim, Tucson

Rabbi Richard A. Marker, Co-chair, Board of World Religious Leaders

Rabbi Yocheved Mintz, President, Ohalah/ Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal

Rabbi Brant Rosen, Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation of Evanston IL. a Green Menorah Covenant congregation.

Max Samson, Milwaukee; Board of The Shalom Center

Lindsey Paige Savoie, Director, Shomrei Adamah of Greater Washington

Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Adat Shalom, Washington area; Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light, Board of The Shalom Center

Reb Zalman Hiyya Schachter-Shalomi, Boulder

Rabbi David Shneyer, Am Kolel, Washngton DC area; past president, Ohalah.

Daniel Sieradski, director, Jew It Yourself.

Rabbi Margot Stein, composer/lyricist, Guarding the Garden

Rabbi Warren Stone, Temple Emanuel, Kensington MD, a Green Menorah Covenant congregation; co-chair, environment committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

Rabbi Shawn Zevit, Director of Outreach and Tikkun Olam, Jewish Reconstructionist Federation

Daniel Ziskin, PhD, Climate Scientist and President, Jews Of The Earth

Information on Jewish teachings on environmental stewardship and sustainability can be found at the websites of -----

The Shalom Center 's Green Menorah Covenant

Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism http://www.urj.org/green

Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) http://www.coejl.org

Canfei Nesharim http://www.canfeiNesharim.org,

Hazon http://www.hazon.org

Teva Learning Center http://tevalearningcenter.org

Adamah Fellowship http://www.isabellafreedman.org/adamah

Jewish Farm School http://www.jewishfarmschool.org

Jewish Vegetarians of North America

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Major Global Warming-Related Events Planned for October 24, 2009

http://www.350.org/invitation

Dear World,

This is an invitation to help build a movement--to take one day and use it to stop the climate crisis.

On [Saturday] October 24, we will stand together as one planet and call for a fair global climate treaty. United by a common call to action, we'll make it clear: the world needs an international plan that meets the latest science and gets us back to safety.

This movement has just begun, and it needs your help.

Here's the plan: we're asking you, and people in every country on earth, to organize an action in their community on October 24. There are no limits here--imagine bike rides, rallies, concerts, hikes, festivals, tree-plantings, protests, and more. Imagine your action linking up with thousands of others around the globe. Imagine the world waking up.

If we can pull it off, we'll send a powerful message on October 24: the world needs the climate solutions that science and justice demand.

It's often said that the only thing preventing us from tackling the climate crisis quickly and equitably is a lack of political will. Well, the only thing that can create that political will is a unified global movement--and no one is going to build that movement for us. It's up to regular people all over the world. That's you.

So register an event in your community for October 24, and then enlist the help of your friends. Get together with your co-workers or your local environmental group or human rights campaign, your church or synagogue or mosque or temple; enlist bike riders and local farmers and young people. All over the planet we'll start to organize ourselves.

With your help, there will be an event at every iconic place on the planet on October 24-from America's Great Lakes to Australia's Great Barrier Reef--and also in all the places that matter to you in your daily lives: a beach or park or village green or town hall.

If there was ever a time for you to get involved, it's right now. There are two reasons this year is so crucial.

The first reason is that the science of climate change is getting darker by the day. The Arctic is melting away with astonishing speed, decades ahead of schedule. Everything on the planet seems to be melting or burning, rising or parched.

And we now have a number to express our peril: 350.

NASA's James Hansen and a team of other scientists recently published a series of papers showing that we need to cut the amount of carbon in the atmosphere from its current 387 parts per million to 350 or less if we wish to "maintain a planet similar to that on which civilization developed."

No one knew that number a year ago-but now it's clear that 350 might well be the most important number for the future of the planet, a north star to guide our efforts as we remake the world. If we can swiftly get the planet on track to get to 350, we can still avert the worst effects of climate change.

The second reason 2009 is so important is that the political opportunity to influence our governments has never been greater. The world's leaders will meet in Copenhagen this December to craft a new global treaty on cutting carbon emissions.

If that meeting were held now, it would produce a treaty that would be woefully inadequate. In fact, it would lock us into a future where we'd never get back to 350 parts per million-where the rise of the sea would accelerate, where rainfall patterns would start to shift and deserts to grow. A future where first the poorest people, and then all of us, and then all the people that come after us, would find the only planet we have damaged and degraded.

October 24 comes six weeks before those crucial UN meetings in Copenhagen. If we all do our job, every nation will know the question they'll be asked when they put forth a plan: will this get the planet back on the path to 350?

This will only work with the help of a global movement-and it's starting to bubble up everywhere. Farmers in Cameroon, students in China, even World Cup skiers have already helped spread the word about 350. Churches have rung their bells 350 times; Buddhist monks have formed a huge 350 with their bodies against the backdrop of Himalayas. 350 translates across every boundary of language and culture. It's clear and direct, cutting through the static and it lays down a firm scientific line.

On October 24, we'll all stand behind 350--a universal symbol of climate safety and of the world we need to create. And at the end of the day, we'll all upload photos from our events to the www.350.org website and send these pictures around the world. This cascade of images will drive climate change into the public debate--and hold our leaders accountable to a unified global citizenry.

We need your help-the world is a big place and our team is small. Our crew at 350.org will do everything we can to support you, providing templates for banners and press releases, resources to spread the word, and tools to help you build a strong local climate action group. And our core team is always just a phone call or e-mail away if you need some support.

This is like a final exam for human beings. Can we muster the courage, the commitment, and the creativity to set this earth on a steady course before it's too late? October 24 will be the joyful, powerful day when we prove it's possible.

Please join us and register your local event today. Click to both --

http://www.350.org/oct24

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/4180/event/index.jsp?event_KEY=50242

[Please forward this message to your friends and co-workers.]

Onwards,
Bill McKibben - Author and Activist- USA
Vandana Shiva - Physicist, Activist, Author - India
David Suzuki - Scientist, Author, Activist - Canada
Bianca Jagger - Chair of the World Future Council - UK
Tim Flannery - Scientist, Author, Explorer -Australia
Bittu Sahgal - Editor of Sanctuary magazine - India
Andrew Simmons - Environmental Advocate, St. Vincent & The Grenadines
Christine Loh - Environmental Advocate and Legislator - Hong Kong

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3. Humane Society of the US Has Many Summer Opportunities for Youngsters

Forwarded message from HSUS:

A Summer of "Paws"-itive Service

The start of summer can mean long idle days for young people. Or, it can mean time for summer camps, animal shelter collections, work on wildlife habitats, and teaching others to be kind. Use our summer project ideas and award-winning Mission: Humane service-learning projects to get kids to roll up their sleeves for animals. And be sure to stop by our new KIND News Online Summer Camp for rainy day activities, hot car warning fliers, and more!

To see how young people are making a difference for animals all around the country, meet our 2009 KIND Kid and Humane Teen of the Year.

For more ideas to help kids get started, check out the 100 Ways to Be Kind to Animals Teaching Poster.

For more information on these possibilities, please visit the Humane Society of the US web site.

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4. NY Times Op-Ed Article Considers How Factory Farming Is Reducing the Quality of Our Food and Endangering Our Health and the Environment

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/opinion/21kristof.html?th&emc=th

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5. World's Hungry Now Numbers One Billion People

FAO newsroom - www.fao.org/newsroom/

FAONEWSRELEASE 09/58

Contact:

Erwin Northoff
Media Relations (Rome)
(+39) 06 570 53105
(+39) 348 252 3616
erwin.northoff@fao.org

1.02 billion people hungry

One sixth of humanity undernourished - more than ever before

Rome, 19 June 2009 - World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1 020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by FAO today.

The most recent increase in hunger is not the consequence of poor global harvests but is caused by the world economic crisis that has resulted in lower incomes and increased unemployment. This has reduced access to food by the poor, the UN agency said.

"A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. "The silent hunger crisis - affecting one sixth of all of humanity - poses a serious risk for world peace and security. We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions."

"The present situation of world food insecurity cannot leave us indifferent," he added.

Poor countries, Diouf stressed, "must be given the development, economic and policy tools required to boost their agricultural production and productivity. Investment in agriculture must be increased because for the majority of poor countries a healthy agricultural sector is essential to overcome poverty and hunger and is a pre-requisite for overall economic growth."

"Many of the world's poor and hungry are smallholder farmers in developing countries. Yet they have the potential not only to meet their own needs but to boost food security and catalyse broader economic growth. To unleash this potential and reduce the number of hungry people in the world, governments, supported by the international community, need to protect core investments in agriculture so that smallholder farmers have access not only to seeds and fertilisers but to tailored technologies, infrastructure, rural finance, and markets," said Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

"For most developing countries there is little doubt that investing in smallholder agriculture is the most sustainable safety net, particularly during a time of global economic crisis," Nwanze added.

"The rapid march of urgent hunger continues to unleash an enormous humanitarian crisis. The world must pull together to ensure emergency needs are met as long term solutions are advanced," said Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme.

Hunger on the rise

Whereas good progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, hunger has been slowly but steadily on the rise for the past decade, FAO said. The number of hungry people increased between 1995-97 and 2004-06 in all regions except Latin America and the Caribbean. But even in this region, gains in hunger reduction have been reversed as a result of high food prices and the current global economic downturn (see background note).

This year, mainly due to the shocks of the economic crisis combined with often high national food prices, the number of hungry people is expected to grow overall by about 11 percent, FAO projects, drawing on analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Almost all of the world's undernourished live in developing countries. In Asia and the Pacific, an estimated 642 million people are suffering from chronic hunger; in Sub-Saharan Africa 265 million; in Latin America and the Caribbean 53 million; in the Near East and North Africa 42 million; and in developed countries 15 million in total.

In the grip of the crisis

The urban poor will probably face the most severe problems in coping with the global recession, because lower export demand and reduced foreign direct investment are more likely to hit urban jobs harder. But rural areas will not be spared. Millions of urban migrants will have to return to the countryside, forcing the rural poor to share the burden in many cases.

Some developing countries are also struggling with the fact that money transfers (remittances) sent from migrants back home have declined substantially this year, causing the loss of foreign exchange and household income. Reduced remittances and a projected decline in official development assistance will further limit the ability of countries to access capital for sustaining production and creating safety nets and social protection schemes for the poor.

Unlike previous crises, developing countries have less room to adjust to the deteriorating economic conditions, because the turmoil is affecting practically all parts of the world more or less simultaneously. The scope for remedial mechanisms, including exchange-rate depreciation and borrowing from international capital markets for example, to adjust to macroeconomic shocks, is more limited in a global crisis.

The economic crisis also comes on the heel of the food and fuel crisis of 2006-08. While food prices in world markets declined over the past months, domestic prices in developing countries came down more slowly. They remained on average 24 percent higher in real terms by the end of 2008 compared to 2006. For poor consumers, who spend up to 60 percent of their incomes on staple foods, this means a strong reduction in their effective purchasing power. It should also be noted that while they declined, international food commodity prices are still 24 percent higher than in 2006 and 33 percent higher than in 2005.

The 2009 hunger report (The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI) will be presented in October.

Online news from FAO: http://www.fao.org/newsroom/

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5a. Press Release from EVANA Urges Veganism to Reduce Hunger Crisis

Forwarded message from EVANA (European Vegetarian and Animals News Alliance:

FAO warning: '1.020 million people going hungry every day'

Common Press Release

23 June 2009

In spite of various important international treaties with the noble intent of affirming everyone's right to food, we are now being confronted with the stunning fact that one sixth of all of humanity is starving.
This catastrophe is an indication that in our global village something has obviously slipped out of the balance of ethics and reason:

- Hunger and malnutrition are killing nearly six million children each year, whilst for their peers in other parts of the world meat-laden diets lead to obesity and a wide variety of diseases, thus shortening their life expectancies and putting increasing burdens on public health systems;

- The inefficient meat trade expansion continues to spiral out of control, but still decision makers like the FAO continue their efforts to accommodate the gruesome trend even at great environmental cost to soil, air and water, instead of trying to halt it, or at least slow it down.

-Social justice is compromised by the fact that even when confronted with so much misery, huge shares of available food stuffs (even 95% of soy) are still siphoned off for farm animals.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf: "The present situation of world food insecurity cannot leave us indifferent."

Indeed, it cannot. Sidelining this drama has been going on for far too long.

However, it is somewhat surprising that the FAO press release avoids addressing the impact which around 56 billion animals, fed to be slaughtered worldwide each year, are representing for the problem of food security.

Where is the social justice?

Especially in times of great suffering, decency calls for a thorough and objective investigation of all possible means suitable to lighten the burden, and that in interest of all, poor and wealthy alike. After all, when starving people refuse to carry their load quietly any longer and instead decide to shatter systems of injustice, the resulting social unrest may bring danger and hardship for everyone.

Vegetarianism offers a multitude of benefits and this compassionate lifestyle represents also the ideal way to ease the hunger drama. A meatless diet or even a reduction in meat consumption will quickly free an enormous amount of food resources: If Americans reduced their intake of meat by merely 10%, 100,000,000 people could be fed!

Each vegetarian is a living proof of solidarity and a silent hero who contributes greatly to the new fair and compassionate society we so urgently need.

Signed:
AgireOra Network
www.agireora.org
Italy

Association Végétarienne de France
www.vegetarisme.fr/
France

Centro Vegetariano
www.centrovegetariano.org
Portugal

Edinburgh the Fur-Free City
www.edinburghfurfreecity.co.uk
UK

European Vegetarian and Animal News Alliance (EVANA)
www.evana.org
International

European Vegetarian Union
www.euroveg.eu
International

Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA)
www.JewishVeg.com
USA

Romanian Vegetarian Society
www.svr.ro
Romania

SHARAN
www.sharan-india.org
India

Swiss Union for Vegetarianism
www.vegetarismus.ch/
Switzerland

Vegan Society Austria
www.vegan.at
Austria

Veg Climate Alliance
http://vegclimatealliance.org/
International

Vegetarierbund Deutschland e.V. (VEBU)
www.vebu.de
Germany

Contact: info@evana.org
URL: http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=45849&lang=en

References:

- FAO: One sixth of humanity undernourished - more than ever before: www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/20568/icode/
- Every six seconds a child dies of hunger: www.earthsave.org/environment.htm
- If Americans reduced their intake of meat by merely 10%, 100,000,000 people could be fed: www.earthsave.org/environment.htm

Petition Food vs Feed: “In the name of humanity, a responsible global community can no longer afford to invest 7-16 kg of grain or soya beans, up to 15,500 liters of water, and 323 m2 of grazing land in the production of just one kilo of beef for those with the means to pay for it.” http://www.evana.org/UN/index.php?lang=en

Please sign the petition: http://www.evana.org/UN/sign.php?lang=en

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6. Michael Gregor, M.D. Releases New DVD on Nutrition

I'm so excited to announce that the newest volume of my annual Latest in Nutrition series is being released next week! As usual, I scoured the world's scholarly literature on clinical nutrition so you don't have to, bringing together the most interesting, practical, and groundbreaking science published
over the last 12 months on how best to feed ourselves and our families to prevent, treat, and even reverse chronic disease.

I found so much great stuff this year that it wouldn't even fit on one DVD! So, Latest in Nutrition 2009 is being released as a special 2 DVD set, with more than 3 hours of material split into more than 100 chapters.

Here is just a small sampling of the questions I address this year:

Does soy really lower sperm counts?
Does tofu cause dementia?
Is cat companionship or dog companionship linked to human lymphoma risk?
Should pregnant women avoid peanuts?
Should one really not eat the bruised parts of apples?
Which artificial sweetener is best?
What's the latest on chocolate and coffee?
Did they really find benzene in soda?
Did they really find mercury in corn syrup?
Do cell phones really give you brain tumors?
Which supermarket fruit should be avoided?
Are there dangerous herbal teas other than yerba mate?
What are the benefits and risks of moderate alcohol consumption?
What's the #1 cancer fighting vegetable?
Which is worse: sugar or corn syrup?
How does one get nutrition without calories?
Is white bread harmful?
Avocados: Friend or Foe?
Which plastics should be avoided?
What did the first ever study of thousands of vegans find?
What disease did vegetarians recently get named after them?
Why should one avoid fat-free dressings?
Whose health is unaffected by egg consumption?
Which fast food chicken item was found to have the most carcinogens?
Can fecal residues be detected on retail chicken products?
How often were restaurant workers found to wash their hands?
What's this about a sexually transmitted fish toxin?
How common are brain parasites in the U.S. meat supply?
What effect does maternal fish consumption have on the fetus?
Which food has the highest aluminum contamination? Highest arsenic contamination?
Is gluten (seitan) really bad for you?
What are the best and worst studies of the year?
Can cancer be reversed through diet?
How can the #1 cause of death be essentially eliminated?
Are there more hormones in skim milk or whole milk?
How can one avoid the consumption of banned pesticides like DDT?
Should people take vitamin C supplements? Multivitamin supplements? Iron supplements? Antioxidant supplements?

For a complete listing of chapters and to place an order, go to:

http://www.DrGreger.org/DVDs

As always, all the proceeds I receive from the sale of my DVDs go to charity.

Enjoy!
-Michael

Michael Greger, M.D.
Director, Public Health and Animal Agriculture
The Humane Society of the United States
2100 L St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20037
direct line: (202) 676-2361

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7. More Re the Possibility of a Fur-Free Israel

Forwarded message:

ISRAEL TO GO FUR FREE? IT'S A GOOD POSSIBILITY!

A FUR FREE ISRAEL?

We hope so!

Israel has created a precedent by submitting the world's first nationwide bill to “Prohibit Fur Trade" anywhere inside Israel.

Knesset member Nitzan Horowitz proposed on March, 18th 2009 a bill to prohibit the fur industry in its entirety, including all importation, production and/or sales in Israel. This historic bill will be discussed for the first time on July 22nd at the government's office.

So far, the only Israeli group that shows concerns about this bill is the Ultra-Orthodox MKs as they fear that such ban would deeply affect their "shtreimel trade." However, there is no religious opposition to synthetic streimels which means that there's virtually no opposition for us to see a FUR FREE ISRAEL!

The coalition heading this campaign asks for worldwide support to help this bill become law. If you are an organization, please submit a letter of support on behalf of your group. If an individual, your letter is just as welcome.

Please submit your letter of support on this http://www.antifurcoalition.org/support-bill-int.html

Let's help Israel go fur free so we'll have some hope to see this trend spread throughout the world!

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8. JVNA Advisor Roberta Kalechofsky Authors and Publishes New Book on Vivisection

[Kudos, Roberta on this new achievement. Your continuous efforts to promote vegetarianism and related causes has been invaluable and MUCH appreciated.]

Forwarded message:

The Poet-Physician and The Healer-Killer
Vivisection and The Emergence of Å Medical Technocracy

Roberta Kalechofsky, Ph.D.

ISBN: 978-00-916288-55-6 Paperback
Pages 230 5-1/2 X 8-1/2
Price: $22.00 Publication Date: Oct. 1, 2009

While there are many books on animal research, The Poet-Physician and the Healer-Killer makes three unique contributions to this subject.

The historic context of the book is from the time of the poet John Keats who, trained as a doctor, sought a definition of medical practice based on sympathy, at the time of the Nazi doctors and traces their use of human beings for experimental purposes to the rise of academic vivisection in the Victorian age. The book reveals how the practice of vivisection was conceived as the philosophical metaphor for the "Enlightenment," for science as "a male discipline," for progress, and for the conquest of nature, as articulated by one of its great practitioners, Claude Bernard.

Ms. Kalechofsky also illuminates how the merger of the Woman's Movement in the Edwardian era, with the Anti-vivisection movement gave the medical profession its propaganda platform of the Anti-vivisectionists as "little old women in sneakers."
Vivisection became a symbol for machismo and the denunciation of sentiment as a female weakness.

Finally, the dispute between the vivisectionists and the "Sanitarians, " as Environmentalists were called in the 19 century, and the victory of the vivisectionists has had enormous--and disastrous--implications for our present-day health care problems.

Told in a blend of autobiography and scholarship, the author has tackled subtle historical problems with wit, humor---and anguish, and has captured the colorful personalities of the men and women who led the battle against vivisection in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Roberta Kalechofsky, Ph.D., fiction writer, speaker, essayist, publisher.
Micah Publications (www.micahbooks.com) is the source for Jewish vegetarian and animal rights books. See website for these and other titles.

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9. Challenging Essay on the Need for Us to Change Our Lifestyles to Avoid a Climate Disaster

Forwarded essay by Margaret Swedish, who regularly send out such messages.

Live differently - we'd better, and in a hurry

Posted: 17 Jun 2009 02:31 PM PDT

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

If you want, and in a hurry.

If you want a liveable world, if you want your kids to grow up not in catastrophe but rather in difficulty that contains hope for a future, live differently -

-if you want, as we said in our previous post, and in a hurry, if you are listening to our scientists.

Blue Marble - NASA Earth Observatory

I just returned from the EarthSpirit Rising gathering at Xavier University in Cincinnati and it was a jolt of adrenaline. It is comforting and invigorating to be with a couple hundred people who 'see' the world as it is - the magnificence of creation, and the very real threat we humans pose to the manifestation of creation that is our beautiful Earth.

I am certain that I am not the only participant who found it unsettling to return from this gathering just in time for the release of the new multi-agency report on climate change and its impacts on the U.S. from the United States Global Change Research Program, research paid for with our tax money. Thank you, government, for using my tax money in such a wise and responsible way. Is this the report that will finally snap us into action?

NBC did a terrific story on this on last evening's Nightly News and there have been a few articles in the newspapers. But this is what I fear will happen - one more time, this alarming news will get buried, simply disappear from headlines and our national consciousness. Recent polls in fact show that US Americans are less and less concerned about what greenhouse gases are doing to warm the atmosphere and the catastrophes that await us if we continue business as usual. As this report shows, sadly, these changes have already begun.

See, in this project - articulating a spirituality of ecological hope, and in the spirit of our parent organization, the Center for New Creation - we are pretty certain, as the evidence of my generation indicates, that we will not act in time to prevent disruptive climate change. After all, we were the generation that created Earth Day and wrote all those books and read all those studies about all the things that were going to unfold on this planet - overpopulation, energy crises, acid rain, toxic pollution, global warming - and then became just about the biggest consuming generation in the history of the human species.

We simply do not want to believe what is happening to this planet. It remains abstract and seemingly distant, or too big a notion to wrap our minds around. Or worse, we don't want it to interfere with our upscale lifestyles and expectations. In fact, we had all the information we needed more than three decades ago to keep us from coming to this moment.

Projected 100-degrees days this century - US Global Change Research Program

So here is yet another group of scientists, some of them among our most brilliant, like John P. Holdren, Obama's chief science advisor, and Jane Lubchenco, new administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), telling us the situation is dire, serious, the need for action immediate, urgent - and then? Are we being called to action yet from within our political culture? Already the coal industry is talking about how we dare not move too quickly for fear of grave economic consequences. Are you kidding me? We are facing ecological catastrophe!!! Read about their lobbying efforts here.

Once again, we are being told that things are bad, but there is still time to keep the worst from happening; and once again we are being told that this requires, however, big changes right now. When do these messages finally come together in a critical mass that wakes us from our malaise?

We are a species out of touch with the danger we are in within our own habitats.

In a presentation at EarthSpirit Rising, David Orr, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin, one of the keynote speakers, said that it is “too late to avoid trauma,” but “it may or may not be too late to prevent the worst” from happening.

On my way back I stopped to visit my niece who is about to give birth to a little girl who will be my godchild. The stakes for me are about to get a whole lot bigger. I figure one of my most important responsibilities to this child will be to offer her every opportunity to fall in love with the natural world, and then to work like crazy to preserve it for her.

So, friends, I am embedding yesterday's press conference below and urge you to take time to watch it (for subscribers, if the embed doesn't work, here's the YouTube link). And I encourage you to look at the report paid for by us - it is very accessible, well done visually, quite readable. It has sections devoted to how climate change will face specific regions of the country, so you will find stuff all about where you live. In my case here in Wisconsin, what they describe certainly matches our experience in recent years.

Then, here again comes our call to action:

Please, please, be part of the awakening, be part of the urgency, be part of the truth-telling, be part of the 'new creation,' the one where we learn once more how to live on this planet - in time to keep it a beautiful planet for my godchild and all the others of her generation-to-come.

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10. Flood of Appeals for Action Planned for Copenhagen December Conference on Global Warming

[Veg Climate Alliance and other groups are planning ways to get dietary changes on the Copenhagen conference agenda. If you are planning to attend and would like to represent JVNA, please let me know. Many thanks to vegetarian activist Carolin Gschwim for her wonderful initiatives re this event.]

The Flood is coming

Join Friends of the Earth International on December 12, 2009 and help 'flood' Copenhagen in a call for climate justice.

From December 7-18, 2009, the 15th UN climate conference (COP-15) will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark. Here, governments from around the world will meet to discuss efforts to tackle global warming.

Friends of the Earth International will also be there. We're inviting people to come to Copenhagen to help build pressure on governments to find fair solutions to the climate crisis. We believe that rich industrialised countries, which have historically emitted the most greenhouse gases, must agree to urgent and dramatic cuts in their emissions starting NOW.

This is absolutely fundamental if we are to prevent the most devastating effects of global warming on the world - in particular on the world's most impoverished and vulnerable people. Our message to the negotiators is that the historical climate debt to the Global South must be repaid.

The talks will also be attended by lobbyists from the World Bank and industry. We need to make sure that any agreement that might be reached doesn't end up promoting the interests of big business, while robbing people of their land and their rights to survival.

An agreement that allows rich countries to continue polluting by funding unsustainable offset projects in the Global South, and which relies on false solutions such as mega dams, nuclear power, carbon capture and storage and monoculture tree plantations, must be rejected. The World Bank must not be allowed to control climate finance. Forests must not become commodities to be traded as part of global carbon markets.

People can influence our governments and hold them to account. That's why Friends of the Earth International is organising the 'Flood for Climate Justice' in Copenhagen on Saturday December 12, 2009. In the middle of the two weeks of negotiations, we will 'flood' through the streets of Copenhagen with our demands for climate justice.

We're encouraging as many people as possible to come to Copenhagen, using the most environmentally friendly transport they can, to be part of a movement for climate justice. The event will be the high point in a year of cyber-actions, street actions and campaigning from Friends of the Earth groups around the world.

We invite everyone who shares our vision to join the exciting spectacle on December 12, when we will use our bodies and our voices to create a message that decision-makers and lobbyists cannot ignore:

The Flood Is Coming!

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