By George Monbiot
Posted on September 8, 2010, Printed on September 8, 2010

This will not be an easy column to write. I am about to put down 1,200 words in support of a book that starts by attacking me and often returns to this sport. But it has persuaded me that I was wrong. More to the point, it has opened my eyes to some fascinating complexities in what seemed to be a black and white case.

In the Guardian in 2002 I discussed the sharp rise in the number of the world’s livestock, and the connection between their consumption of grain and human malnutrition. After reviewing the figures,p I concluded that veganism “is the only ethical response to what is arguably the world’s most urgent social justice issue”. I still believe that the diversion of ever wider tracts of arable land from feeding people to feeding livestock is iniquitous and grotesque. So does the book I’m about to discuss. I no longer believe that the only ethical response is to stop eating meat. Read the complete Post.

You’re invited to a lively debate and discussion open to the public on
the theme of climate change and sustainability with Prof. John
Robinson – UBC, Alexis Morgan – World Wife Fund for Nature (WWF) -
Canada, and Fiona Koza – Amnesty International. Wednesday, February 4
at 7pm (UBC Robson Square). Read the complete Post.

ACCELERATING CHANGE TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY

Strategic Planning for Sustainability Workshop
Introduction to The Natural Step Framework

• What is sustainability?
• How do you know that you are moving in the right direction?
• What is the opportunity of strategic sustainability?
• What is the Natural Step Framework?
• How have businesses and communities applied it?

Throughout the workshop, you will have the opportunity to engage in dialogue, learn from case studies, and apply tools that are useful in bringing this unique framework to life.

When: Friday, Feb. 6th 8am – 12pm (PST)
Where: UBC at Robson Square, Vancouver
Cost: $89 before January 16th, after $100 (last day to register February 2nd)

Please fill out the Registration Form at the bottom and send to Magdalena Szpala at mszpala@naturalstep.ca and pay using PayPal through this link:

For more information:
Tel.604-374-8445 email: mszpala@naturalstep.ca
The Natural Step is an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to education, advisory work and research in sustainable development. Since 1989, we have worked with thousands of corporations, municipalities, academic institutions and not-for-profit organizations that have proven that moving strategically toward sustainability leads to new opportunities, reduced costs, and dramatically reduced ecological and social impacts.

www.thenaturalstep.org/canada

Check out the Natural Step workshop

“We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no longer know how to produce food. We no longer can heal ourselves. We no longer raise our young. We have forgotten the names of the stars, fail to notice the phases of the moon. We do not know the plants and they no longer protect us. We tell ourselves we are the most powerful specimens of our kind who have ever lived. But when the lights are off we are helpless. We cannot move without traffic signals. We must attend classes in order to learn by rote numbered steps toward love or how to breast-feed our baby. We justify anything, anything at all by the need to maintain our way of life. And then we go to the doctor and tell the professionals we have no life. We have a simple test for making decisions: our way of life, which we cleverly call our standard of living, must not change except to grow yet more grand. We have a simple reality we live with each and every day: our way of life is killing us.”

published Feb. 2002