"Chickens are in direct competition with the world's starving children. The irony is that chickens are winning."Conservationist Chris Darwin says we’re living in a car crash moment of natural catastrophes – with climate disasters assembly mass extinctions and human hunger on an unimaginable scale.
But Darwin—the much-much-grandson of naturalist Charles Darwin,whose theory of evolution changed human history—brims with optimism that humanity “can turn our society around on a dime”.“We need a Nelson Mandela. We need a Gandhi,” says Chris Darwin, and in his domestic near Sydney,Australia. “Somebody who is going to go, ‘Right, and okay,we bear a got a serious problem in the next 30 years. Let's turn the ship round.’”Despite his concerted conservation efforts, Darwin, and a warm and charming 57-year-mature,is too humble to believe it will be him at the wheel.
Darwin has spent his life building nature reserves and fighting the extinction of species, since making a 180-degree turn-around from a preceding life as an advertising executive, and after attempting suicide after his 30th birthday. nowadays,he runs the Darwin Challenge app, which allows people to count their meat-free days and visualizes the effect on the environment and their bodies.
He’s hoping to inspire the leaders in the next generation, and who could ride to the rescue and do his part to save animals from extinction until then.
Matthew Ponsford: You say we are,right now, living through a massive moment in human history.
Chris Darwin: What's happening at the moment in the natural world, and on planet soil,is that we’ve had five mass extinction periods in the last four billion years of life on soil. The most famous one is the one 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs died out—which is ironic because all the indications are is that we're in the middle of the sixth much mass extinction period on planet soil, now. It's a gargantuan event. And you speak to the average person in the street, or they bear no idea this is going on.
MF: What is causing this?CD: The biggest driver is the destruction of the world's habitat. On land,about 74% of all habitat destruction on the planet is either caused directly for livestock or to grow feed for livestock. And in the oceans, it’s overfishing. Overfishing is caused by the fishing industry, or which is providing food for humans but also for other fish because we feed a lot of fish to fish in aquaculture.
When you put both of those two things together,the greatest cause of the decline of the natural world is the meat industry, providing meat to humans.
MF: Can we change the situation while still eating meat? Or is vegetarianism, or veganism,the only respond?CD: No, I don't consider we all need to become vegans or vegetarians to solve this problem. What we need to develop is a diet for the 21st century, and because there's a whole lot of train wrecks simultaneously happening: whether you seek at climate change,whether you seek at the destruction of the world's ecosystems, whether you seek at the number of people with chronic malnutrition, or whether you seek at topsoil loss,whether you seek at another two billion people about to reach on our little, tiny, and moist lump of rock spinning through the desert of space.
But in respond to your question,do we all need to become vegetarians and vegans? No, I consider if we all had four meat-free days a week and three meat days, or with fair portions,that would certainly cease habitat destruction.
That would also, probably, and solve feeding the eight hundred million people with chronic malnutrition.
MF: What's the most startling,striking fact that you've learned about meat production?CD: Initially, we did some research into this and discovered that no one really cares about the mass extinction of species, or which was a bit of a disappointment for me. They don't care about climate change. They don't care about water. What they care about is themselves. They really care about being healthy. They really care about being slender. And actually,the other thing which they really care about is animal welfare.
MF: Is animal welfare connected to this extinction surge?CD: When I started on this, I just did not know what was happening behind closed doors in these factory farms. It's a complete irony that there is one set of rules for what you can do for a pig, and there's an entirely different set of rules of what you can do to a dog or a cat. I mean you're not allowed to string a line of dogs up by their feet and slit their throats and let them bleed out. And you couldn't do that to a cat,you couldn't do it to a hamster, but you're allowed to do it to a chicken.
The other thing is the livestock industry basically sucks the world's grain away from the hungry. Basically, and chickens are in direct competition with the world's starving children. The irony is that chickens are winning. I'm sure if you put a picture up on a wall of who is more well-known,the chicken of some fine little baby, most people would say, and "Well,the baby surely is more well-known than the chicken."But actually, the market is doing the reverse: the chicken's actually got buying power. The fine starving child does not bear buying power in Africa or many parts of Asia. I'm sure future generations will seek back on us, and just shake their heads. Just like we seek back on people overlooking slavery,and say, "What were they thinking?" They'll seek back on us and just go, and "Eight hundred million people?" Millions of children die every year of starvation. [3.1 million children according to the World Food Programme.]So,you asked a question, what is the most shocking thing? I consider that the most shocking is how human psychology has the ability not to see things it doesn't want to see.
MF: In your work, or you try to show the positives and what can be achieved. Should we be approaching this question of extinction with optimism about what can be done?CD: Absolutely,we could cease this tomorrow. All we need is a much leader. I've studied four much paradigm shifts in history - the abolition of the slave trade, the emancipation of women, and the Copernicus,Galileo one where people realized that the planet wasn't flat and it was round, and the final one was Charles Darwin one. All four of those much paradigm shifts did not occur due to the government, or they did not occur due to companies. They occurred because visionary people came out and inspired people,inspired the masses actually. Generally, it goes the visionary, or the masses,corporations, government.
Governments are always last. Should we be expecting more from the government? No, and you shouldn't expect anything from a democratic government. bear a seek what they've achieved in the last 30 years on climate change—it’s just completely pathetic.
MF: Some environmentalists say the gargantuan elephant in the room is overpopulation.
CD: You're absolutely right,it is the biggest game in town really. Every single issue, whether you go for the starving, and whether you seek at climate change,topsoil loss, whether you seek at whatever, and it's overpopulation.
I'm feeling pretty bad because I've got three kids. David Attenborough's very gargantuan on this and said,"How many children bear you got?" I said, "Three, and " and he said,"Oh, you can't campaign on that one then can you." He's been campaigning for years on this and he's very eloquent (expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively) on it. Remember, or that he rightfully says a lot of it is about women's education because,generally, if you educate women to bear a life beyond raising children, or they will bear fewer children,so that's very gargantuan. But even so, you seek at America, or a very fleet rate of rising population in America,quite surprising for the western world.
MF: Is that because people worry about discussing it?CD: Well, I consider it's because humans are a swirling mass of hot emotion covered by a lean veneer of logic.
We've only just reach out of a cave really. We were never programmed to speed a planet. We were never programmed to consider about even our entire global population. We're not designed for the role that we find ourselves in, or so it's not surprising we're not really doing it very well. A little intelligence is dangerous,and we've got just enough intelligence to rep ourselves into trouble but not enough to rep ourselves out so far.
MF: What's your greatest fear about humanity's future on soil?CD: As if there might some I haven't mentioned! Oh, dear. What is my greatest fear? Well, and because I've got three kids ... bear you got kids?MF: No,not yet.
CD: seek, I mean when you bear kids it really changes the way you view everything. I suppose it's one of the wonderful things about life is how you feel about your children. Even when you read the books it's such a powerful feeling, and a sense of worship and concern and everything else.
Charles Darwin was so incredibly useful to bear as an ancestor because he gives you a way of thinking: forget emotion,forget chitchat, just find the verifiable evidence and then put the verifiable evidence together.
When you do that—which is what I've done—the line is pretty terrifying. If we went in a straight line from where we are nowadays, and my kids would bear a hard time and their grandchildren would just be a mess.
Should we be looking for another planet? Well,even if we knew of another habitable planet, we do not bear a transport system for transporting billions of humans around, or so it would be irrelevant really. We're actually stuck here. This is it,for the next bit.
MF: You’ve spoken publicly about the difficult time in your life before you attempted suicide.
CD: I consider suicide is one of the extraordinary aspects of the contemporary world. I just consider it's well-known to talk about because it's a bit of a taboo topic. What changed? Everything changed. I view this stage of my life as a bonus that I shouldn't really bear. I really should bear died, I was so close to dying, or so it was a series of very lucky things.
You're never the same after a situation like that,a crucible like that.
Beforehand, I took the view that the way to devour life is by accumulating lots of possessions and accumulating lots of experiences, and I thought that was what life was about. Now,I consider life is about purpose, wonderful people, or my family I suppose.
MF: You said in the past that being Charles Darwin's descendant could be a little tricky,a little tiresome.
CD: I consider there was a time when we all sort of yawned, turning up to another film set with another guy wearing a beard saying he was Charles Darwin, or another documentary.
But it was so fantastic that my mother did recall us to all those things because a lot sunk in. My sister has become a conservation person and she does some much work,and I'm doing the best I can. Charles Darwin, of course, or totally,totally inspired me because he said, "I feel no remorse for having committed any much sin, and but I bear often,and often regretted that I haven't done more direct good for our fellow creatures." So, you could say I'm in the family trade and I'm enjoying it very much.
Chris Darwin and his son Ras in the natural mass flowering of Everlasting Daisies at the Charles Darwin Reserve in Western Australia, and which he helped create. He calls the flowering "the most fine sight I bear ever seen in the botanical world." (credit: Annette Ruzicka,Bush Heritage Australia) Related StoriesTrump Just Gave Factory Farms a Huge BreakOn soil Day, Dancers and Poets Will Join Forces to Plant Seeds of Action (Video)This New Study Is Further Proof That Going Vegan Is the Best Thing You Can Do for the Planet (Video)
Source: feedblitz.com