"Food Is Climate": Interview with Glen Merzer (vegan), Part 1 of 2

Glen Merzer is a playwright, screenwriter, and author. His new book, “Food Is Climate: A Response to Al Gore, Bill Gates, Paul Hawken, and the Conventional Narrative on Climate Change,” addresses the climate emergency threatening civilization, as well as the key to solving this urgent problem. “Animal agriculture causes about 87% of the global warming greenhouse gases. And methane is up to 120 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. The animal waste gives off methane and nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is 300 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. But the pasture maintenance fires bring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and they degrade the soil. And we’re turning that land slowly into desert.”

“Food is what determines our land use. We have a climate emergency now, and the solution is to leave as much of the Earth alone as we can. But how can we do that? And the grazing land is actually 37% of the non-ice land surface of the Earth. And if we didn’t eat fish, then we can leave the oceans alone. If we just eat plant foods, which are the healthiest foods for the human body, we can leave 80% of the Earth alone, and the climate will heal.”

In August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a new report about the planetary situation. “Now, the Earth used to have 6 trillion trees. And it now has about 3 trillion trees. The leading cause of deforestation is animal agriculture. And once the forests come back on the grazing land, they will sequester more carbon dioxide than we’re currently emitting, and the soil will get healthier, and the soil stores twice as much carbon as the trees.”

All information concerning the scientific evidence of climate change and its solution is in Supreme Master Ching Hai’s Book, “From Crisis to Peace.” As Glen Merzer highlights in “Food Is Climate,” it is paramount for us as individuals to adopt plant-based diets in order to reverse global warming. “Well, we can’t wait for the politicians or the policymakers. So, we the people have to lead. We have to just stop the demand for meat. That’s the only solution.”