"Lack of heart, lack of generosity, is the real disease of our world." - Bernard Moitessier

A serious condition of human-environment imbalance existed when "Earth Day" began in 1970, because most of the world's four billion inhabitants lacked understanding of our interconnected planetary life-support systems. Thirty-three years of ecological education later, we've learned much about the effect of our actions on the Biosphere, yet a majority of now 6.3 billion continue living in ecologically unhealthful and destructive ways. Is this rational? Enlightened? Natural to our species, Homo sapiens, which means "Wise man"? I say NO!

We're now taking about 120% of what the Biosphere produces annually. Before we push irreversibly beyond Earth's ecological capacity to support us and 10-30 million other species, let's
explore what we can do to transform practices and reverse trends now killing us and the Earth.

The moral, environmental, and health arguments for adopting vegetarian and vegan diets have been convincingly made in books like John Robbins' Diet For A New America, The Food Revolution, and Howard Lyman's Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth From the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat. Yet these valuable books have not explored how raw (uncooked) vegan diets can help propel a great leap forward for those seeking to minimize harm and maximize benefit to the Earth. Books on raw and eco-conscious eating are proliferating, and many teach important and inspirational facts on the connection between a raw diet and a healthier environment. It would take a book to detail all the benefits, so let's just briefly review the primary problems and the solutions available now via raw, organic, vegan diet choices.

1. Soil Depletion/Malnutrition/Famine. We can view this as one mega-problem and probably most
critical: The cumulative effects of 11,000 years of depletion of soil minerals and organic matter have been vastly accelerated by the rapacious chemical-forcing and fertility-mining practices of "modern" agribusiness. A raw, organic vegan diet sets new standards for quality and the methods for its attainment! If the majority of people adopted this diet, imagine the drastically increased demand for high-quality organic produce! When farmers remineralize soils with mixed rock powder and plant-derived compost, avoiding the byproducts of animal enslavement and slaughterhouses, it lays the biological foundation for a truly regenerative, abundant, healthful and thriving veganiculture. Visualize the beautiful diversity of gardens, farms, fruitful orchards, and forests rejuvenating so much land now in an ugly, depleted state. This process of regeneration and re-fruition is happening now, insofar as we live as conscious producers and consumers who insist on enlightened care of our small planet–this rare shining jewel in the vast Universe.

2. Human Health. Degeneration/Insanity/Violence/War/Extinction? The worsening cancer epidemic, with 1 of every 2.15 people in America expected to harvest a crop of cancer in their lifetime, stands in stark contrast to Nature's promise of perfect health. This should inspire us to sow the healthiest seeds possible in every aspect of living. Cancer tops a long list of interconnected physical, mental, and spiritual diseases that plague humankind, revealing the extent of our degeneration. Simply observing most people and the daily "news" also reveals this degeneration. A raw, organic, vegan diet–most wisely as part of a complete system of "health by healthful living" such as Natural Hygiene–can supply all the essential nutrients as found in food grown from fertile, mineralized soils, free of the toxic byproducts of animal-based chemical agribusiness and cooking. It can virtually eliminate all disease–starting now–by removing the primary causes: body toxicity and nutritional deficiency.

3. Deforestation/Desertification. The primary causes of deforestation and desertification are land-clearing for cattle raising, use of wood and other biomass as cooking fuel, and the ongoing depletion and dying of soils. A raw vegan diet removes these causes and promotes reforestation and orchard plantings by Nature and "Wise man." Remineralizing new orchards and forests is crucial, as is remineralizing the existing acidified, impoverished late-interglacial forests. Evidence
shows these forests are increasingly stressed and dying from insect and disease epidemics, climate extremes, and forest fires, thus transferring vast amounts of carbon from land to atmosphere...which brings on more climate extremes, more fires like those which burned much
of Southern California, etc.–in short., a cycle of degeneration calling for a generous response of regeneration. See how generosity and regeneration are
related?

4. Air Pollution/CO2 Buildup/Climate Change/Famine. Soil remineralization and reforestation reverses the CO2 flow from soil and plant life! A raw vegan diet hugely reduces energy expenditure and CO2 emission by eliminating demand for cooked foods, which also means elimination of demand for most refrigeration, packaging, and, when we create fertile abundance in bioregions everywhere, most long-distance shipping of food, fiber, and fuel. Naturally, this is wholly preferable to ruining our global climate, whether by "global warming" or–as much evidence is warning us–by an accelerated onset of the next glacial cycle in our current Ice Age.

5. Fossil Fuel/Nuclear Energy Addiction. Soil remineralization, a vital key to successful raw veganiculture, can enable us to grow the biomass/alcohol fuels to meet the saner, reduced demands of a raw, vegan, health-and peace-oriented culture. We can swiftly wean ourselves from our addictions to these ecologically-obsolete energy forms. Up to 2000 farmers per week have been going out of business in the U.S. over the past 25 years, while over a billion dollars per week is spent on oil imports. This is clearly a national and a global tragedy in need of immediate transformation.
.
6. Toxic Waste. A committed, eco-conscious raw vegan lifestyle can minimize toxic waste beginning now, and phase it out soon. As for existing toxic wastes (and human sewage
which is now usually toxic), it has been demonstrated that their microbial decomposition and detoxification is possible, practical, and necessary. Here again the generous feeding of mixed rock dust and organic matter to the microbes will help their proliferation and priceless foundational work.

7. Animal Exploitation/Killing. We can minimize the suffering of exploited animals quickly, and potentially end it entirely, as worldwide compassion and "the Balance of Nature" is restored. To continue needlessly enslaving and killing billions of our fellow creatures each year must surely be intolerable to the compassionate conscience of our awesomely gifted species. Obviously, it is up to me...and you?

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." - Seneca

Don Weaver, a gardener-ecologist-writer-educator in the San Francisco Bay Area, is on the writing staff of Living Nutrition magazine and has enjoyed 100% raw foods and excellent health since 1977. He invites the world to read the free online books he co-authored with John Hamaker at <www.remineralize.org>. Don is also helping create new Earth Regeneration gardens, orchards, farms, centers, and communities worldwide. Contact Don via <earthdon@yahoo.com> or POB 620478, Woodside CA 94062.