Food for Thought
Quotations
For inspiration, sharing and knowledge.
Quotes about the Environment
Adopting a plant-based diet is one of the most powerful choices an individual can make in mitigating environmental degradation and depletion of Earth's natural resources.
National Academy of Sciences
A 1% reduction in world-wide meat intake has the same benefit as a three trillion-dollar investment in solar energy.
Chris Mentzel, CEO of Clean Energy
As environmental science has advanced, it has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease.
Worldwatch Institute, "Is Meat Sustainable?"
The livestock sector emerges as one of the top contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.
UN Food and Agricultural Organization's report "Livestock's Long Shadow"
Our use of animals as a food-production technology has brought us to the verge of catastrophe.
United Nations Environment Programme
However they are achieved, plant-based diets are a compelling win-win for society... Few climate solutions of this magnitude lie in the hands of individuals or are as close as the dinner plate.
Paul Hawken, environmentalist, entrepreneur, author and activist
To consider yourself an environmentalist and still eat meat is like saying you're a philanthropist who doesn't give to charity.
Howard Lyman, 4th Generation Cattle Rancher-Turned-Vegan Activist
Quotes about Compassion & Activism
The notion that we can be "kind," "compassionate," or "humane" to the animals whom we bring into the world to slaughter and eat is one of the most profoundly perverse and delusional ideas in the history of human thought.
Gary Francione, American Legal Scholar
In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.
Ruth Harrison, "Animal Machines"
The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but rather, ‘Can they suffer?'
Jeremy Bentham, English Philosopher, Economist, and Theoretical Jurist
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead, American Cultural Anthropologist
To my friends in the rescue community who work tirelessly to save dogs and cats: There is absolutely no difference between the animals you save and those you eat.
Gary Francione, American Legal Scholar
When you feel the suffering of every living thing in your own heart, that is consciousness.
Bhagavad Gita
They say that actions speak louder than words. Sometimes it's what you don't say or do that sends the loudest message.
Carlos Wallace, bestselling author, motivational speaker, and youth advocate
Some of the slogans, bumper stickers and memes created through the years by Jim Corcoran (JC)
"I'm not vegan to be different from others, but to be the same as my beliefs."
If you could extend life, prevent illness, reduce pollution, conserve resources, save money and rescue animals, all in one delicious step, wouldn't you take it? Do all of this and more by going vegan!
Just how happy can a local, sustainable, natural, organic, GMO-free, free-range, grass-fed, pasture-raised, antibiotic-free, hormone-free, cage-free, free-run, free-roaming, home-raised, free-farmed, small-farmed, certified-humane animal be, when she's repeatedly raped, her offspring kidnapped, her reproductive system exploited, and is then brutally murdered in the prime of her life - all for some 'caring' consumer?
It isn't a 'personal choice' when you're destroying the planet and eating my friends.
What really sets carnists apart from higher forms of life is their seemingly infinite capacity to love, nurture and care for other animals and then to betray, kill and eat them.
I think, therefore I'm vegan.