Aaron Wissner (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} valuesystem) wrote,@ 2008-08-06 17:00:00 |
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Compassion + Animals = Vegan
I've been vegan for six years.
Next week, I'll be speaking at a conference. The audience will be people, most of whom will be vegan, and all of whom are concerned about how humans interact with animals.
What should I say during my 12-minutes on stage?
What can I bring that is new, interesting, helpful, informative, insightful, thought provoking, motivating, inspiring or worthy of 12-minutes of everyone's time?
I've had a few thoughts about this over the past month or so, and I'd like to share my thinking to this point.
My spot in the program is called, "Compassion Into Action (accounts of individual achievements)". I'm going to make a list of talking points below...
* Vegans & Money - How and if money is used is important to keep in mind. Buying veggies does send a bit of money to the farmer who grows the veggies. Unfortunately, out of every food dollar we spend, only about 19 cents was paid to an actual farmer. This means 81 cents goes to marketing process, and these people are probably not vegan. In fact, the farmer probably isn't vegan either. Even if the farmer and marketing people were all vegan, do they buy things only from other vegans? How many steps before most of the money passes from vegan to non-vegan hands?
http://envirovore.com/content/view/1
http://nfu.org/issues/agriculture-progr
http://www.ers.usda.gov/amberwaves/febr
* Ending Abuse - Nude Poster vs. Video Evidence vs. Fear - This week, we've seen three stories contrasting stories of concerned people taking action in the name of animals. The first, a person poses nude on a poster to raise awareness of cruelty. The second, a person video tapes abuse of animals at a rodeo, shares it with event participants, which leads to some participants withdrawing their support. The third, a person invokes fear by using small bombs against a car and a house. What is the impact of these actions on the number of animals that are mistreated?
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/aman
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=22
http://www.mercurynews.com/centralc
* My Vegan Life - My vegan story is of a person who started to pay attention to the world AND starting thinking about his role and actions. For animal issues, I am vegan, with a 95% rule, plus my wife is vegetarian (almost vegan) and our child is vegan. We buy some food from farm markets, order vegan at restaurants, and my wife has started growing increasing amounts of food at home: strawberries, cabbages, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, carrots, etc. When sharing meals, we make only vegan food, for family or friends. When I host a conference, all the food is vegan.
* My Non-vegan Life - My family is spending more money now than it did six-years ago, when I first became vegan. Due to that, and the nature of money, I am indirectly causing more animal exploitation than I once did. But, perversely and conversely, if my family were to die today, even though WE wouldn't be spending the money, someone else would take our jobs, and they would spend that same money. We could take the money out of the bank, hide it at home, and forget about it... but even if many, many people did this, the government and banks would create more money or credit to keep the economy going.
* The Nature of Money -- Anytime we use money, that money flows from person to person forward (backwards???) in time. Along the way, that money rewards and motivates things that we would never want. We have control of the money for the small time that we hold it.
* Church Model for Change -- The most effective model for change might be using something similar to the church model. Trained people offering insight and learning on a weekly basis about life. Everyone is invited to attend for free. Donations are accepted. Each month includes a particular set of lessons best suited to that time of year. Members are encouraged to develop networks. The model is structured around a clearly defined value system.
[Note, I should propose something visionary.]
* Carbon Dioxide - Every dollar we spend causes 1.2 pounds of CO2 pollution, no matter how we spend it. (I believe that is in one year.) Thus, a person spending $20,000 per year is creating about 24,000 pounds of CO2 pollution. The solution is to stop spending so much money, for everyone to stop spending so much money, in other words, to contract the global economy to slow down the use of energy, fossil fuels, animals, etc.
* "Religion is about behavior not belief" - last paragraph
* Energy, Food, Money Crisis - I need to make sure to work this into the presentation because these are essential concepts to understanding why a Local Future is important.
* A Vision of a Local Future - More fun! Parties, sports, socializing, reading, writing, swimming, biking, playing! - Local food, jobs, energy, entertainment, manufacturing,
* "Being Vegan is Not Enough." -- Meaning that an individual person who is already vegan is invited and encouraged to look beyond how being vegan impacts the world and see how else they can spend (or not spend) money (for example) to make the world a better place.
[Remember, this may be your only time speaking to this audience, ever. What is the most important thing you can convey to them? A vision of a Local Future? A vision of our purpose on life? A value system that encompasses everything? A vision for the movement (the consolidated movement)? This may be your only chance, you never know when death will come.]
[Remember, you must start from where others are, show them the destination in all of it's detail, and that the destination is VERY desirable, show them the map to the destination, give them the tools to prepare themselves for the journey, and give them the motivation to begin.]
* The three events, #1 reading Animal Liberation, #2 car accident, and #3 peak oil.
I've been vegan for six years.
Next week, I'll be speaking at a conference. The audience will be people, most of whom will be vegan, and all of whom are concerned about how humans interact with animals.
What should I say during my 12-minutes on stage?
What can I bring that is new, interesting, helpful, informative, insightful, thought provoking, motivating, inspiring or worthy of 12-minutes of everyone's time?
I've had a few thoughts about this over the past month or so, and I'd like to share my thinking to this point.
My spot in the program is called, "Compassion Into Action (accounts of individual achievements)". I'm going to make a list of talking points below...
* Vegans & Money - How and if money is used is important to keep in mind. Buying veggies does send a bit of money to the farmer who grows the veggies. Unfortunately, out of every food dollar we spend, only about 19 cents was paid to an actual farmer. This means 81 cents goes to marketing process, and these people are probably not vegan. In fact, the farmer probably isn't vegan either. Even if the farmer and marketing people were all vegan, do they buy things only from other vegans? How many steps before most of the money passes from vegan to non-vegan hands?
http://envirovore.com/content/view/1
http://nfu.org/issues/agriculture-progr
http://www.ers.usda.gov/amberwaves/febr
* Ending Abuse - Nude Poster vs. Video Evidence vs. Fear - This week, we've seen three stories contrasting stories of concerned people taking action in the name of animals. The first, a person poses nude on a poster to raise awareness of cruelty. The second, a person video tapes abuse of animals at a rodeo, shares it with event participants, which leads to some participants withdrawing their support. The third, a person invokes fear by using small bombs against a car and a house. What is the impact of these actions on the number of animals that are mistreated?
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/aman
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=22
http://www.mercurynews.com/centralc
* My Vegan Life - My vegan story is of a person who started to pay attention to the world AND starting thinking about his role and actions. For animal issues, I am vegan, with a 95% rule, plus my wife is vegetarian (almost vegan) and our child is vegan. We buy some food from farm markets, order vegan at restaurants, and my wife has started growing increasing amounts of food at home: strawberries, cabbages, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, carrots, etc. When sharing meals, we make only vegan food, for family or friends. When I host a conference, all the food is vegan.
* My Non-vegan Life - My family is spending more money now than it did six-years ago, when I first became vegan. Due to that, and the nature of money, I am indirectly causing more animal exploitation than I once did. But, perversely and conversely, if my family were to die today, even though WE wouldn't be spending the money, someone else would take our jobs, and they would spend that same money. We could take the money out of the bank, hide it at home, and forget about it... but even if many, many people did this, the government and banks would create more money or credit to keep the economy going.
* The Nature of Money -- Anytime we use money, that money flows from person to person forward (backwards???) in time. Along the way, that money rewards and motivates things that we would never want. We have control of the money for the small time that we hold it.
* Church Model for Change -- The most effective model for change might be using something similar to the church model. Trained people offering insight and learning on a weekly basis about life. Everyone is invited to attend for free. Donations are accepted. Each month includes a particular set of lessons best suited to that time of year. Members are encouraged to develop networks. The model is structured around a clearly defined value system.
[Note, I should propose something visionary.]
* Carbon Dioxide - Every dollar we spend causes 1.2 pounds of CO2 pollution, no matter how we spend it. (I believe that is in one year.) Thus, a person spending $20,000 per year is creating about 24,000 pounds of CO2 pollution. The solution is to stop spending so much money, for everyone to stop spending so much money, in other words, to contract the global economy to slow down the use of energy, fossil fuels, animals, etc.
* "Religion is about behavior not belief" - last paragraph
* Energy, Food, Money Crisis - I need to make sure to work this into the presentation because these are essential concepts to understanding why a Local Future is important.
* A Vision of a Local Future - More fun! Parties, sports, socializing, reading, writing, swimming, biking, playing! - Local food, jobs, energy, entertainment, manufacturing,
* "Being Vegan is Not Enough." -- Meaning that an individual person who is already vegan is invited and encouraged to look beyond how being vegan impacts the world and see how else they can spend (or not spend) money (for example) to make the world a better place.
[Remember, this may be your only time speaking to this audience, ever. What is the most important thing you can convey to them? A vision of a Local Future? A vision of our purpose on life? A value system that encompasses everything? A vision for the movement (the consolidated movement)? This may be your only chance, you never know when death will come.]
[Remember, you must start from where others are, show them the destination in all of it's detail, and that the destination is VERY desirable, show them the map to the destination, give them the tools to prepare themselves for the journey, and give them the motivation to begin.]
* The three events, #1 reading Animal Liberation, #2 car accident, and #3 peak oil.
