Читать книгу BOSH! How to Live Vegan - Henry Firth - Страница 34

When people ask us why we’re vegan, one of our responses is: ‘To avoid awkward conversations with our unborn children.’ Our generation – and the generation before us – has presided over the biggest extinction event in recent history, and it is the next generation that will pay the price for our inaction.

You really can make a difference to the world just by virtue of the decisions you make.

There can be no greater way to care for the happiness of others than to preserve the planet and future for them. The predictions of where the planet may end up otherwise are too grave to consider. We owe it to our young people to do something about climate change before it’s too late. The effects of our actions will be felt by them. They will be clearing up our mess. Think about the conversations you’ll have with them in the future. ‘What did you do when we could have stopped climate change, Daddy?!’

It may feel easier to avoid responsibility by thinking that the problem is bigger than us, or has been around longer than us. But to put it into perspective, consider how long humans have existed, and how recently climate change has escalated.

Humans have been on the planet for 12,000 years, but it’s only in the past 140 years that we‘ve burned fossil fuels, which has caused a lot of our current problems. Just 30 years ago, we knew most of what we know now about climate change, and we nearly put the wheels in motion to stop it. But we didn’t. And since then we have done almost everything in our power to make it worse. We have a couple of decades to stop complete, irreversible disaster. It’s crunch time.[67]

We can’t sit back and do nothing. Let’s spend our time on Earth trying to fix what we’ve broken – and enjoy some amazing food along the way!

YOUR MONEY IS YOUR VOTE

The money you spend is a vote for how you believe the world should be. Every single thing you buy fuels the economy. Every plant-based product that you buy tells the global economy that you want more plant-based – and therefore more sustainable – products. And every animal product that you buy tells the global economy that you want to continue to consume animal products, which are, we know, significantly worse for the planet.

What the world needs, for us to survive, is for us to spend our money on delivering change. If enough of us change our buying habits, then we can take our planet off the pressure cooker. We can start to put measures in place to cool it again, while letting the animal kingdom recover.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN

Right now, let’s take a moment to think about how we can all make a few simple changes to what we buy to help make a real difference.

 What do you spend your money on?

 What is the money that you spend demanding from our economy?

 Are there any changes that you could make to start persuading food producers to act more sustainably?

 If you do eat meat, how often?

 Do you think you could reduce it?