TrineDay’s The Journey 171. Neil Pine: Antibiotics, Bird Flu, and Global Warming

Publisher Kris Millegan – here – speaks with Neil Pine, author of THE CONSCIOUS PLANET: A Vision of Sustainability, Peace and Prosperity, available at TrineDay.com and the usual sellers. Learn more about Neil and his work at TheConsciousPlanet.org.

Topics and paraphrasing:

80% of antibiotics are fed to livestock. They compromise the immune systems of people who eat meat and dairy products. Ways to strengthen our immune systems are discussed, many of which are in Neil’s book. For instance, the benefits of wheatgrass and wheatgrass juice. It oxygenates our blood, which helps prevent cancer, which can’t live in an oxygenated environment.

Bird flu, Neil says, has now been found in 66 different animal species, causing the preventative destruction of millions of chickens and eggs. “Veganism is the most powerful strategy to adopt for health, for psychological wellbeing, and for the environment.”

Global Warming, the California Fires, and Animal Agriculture

Hempcrete should be used more often. It is heat-and-fire resistant.

The U.N. says that 51% of global warming gases are linked to the raising of livestock. Daily, 200,000 acres of the rain forest are burned away, creating massive amounts of C02 and turning the land into a desert.

We grow 10X the crops for livestock consumption than for human consumption. 80% of dairy cows, in factory farms, never eat a blade of grass. Cattle can eat up to 60 pounds of grain a day. Growing and transporting that grain, transporting cattle to slaughterhouses, then to packaging plants, then to distribution centers for delivery to retail stores creates enormous amounts of C02.

Fishing trawlers are another major cause of C02, not only emissions from the diesel fuel they consume but dragging their nets on the ocean floor dredges up or releases massive amounts of C02.

Methane is a bigger contributor than C02. And there are dead zones in the ocean due to fertilizer run-off where there is no marine life because those areas have been deoxygenated.