Compassionate living requires
making connections:
·
BETWEEN THE WAY WE LIVE AND THE WAY OTHERS SUFFER, and working for change in ourselves, our
life styles and the world.
·
BETWEEN OUR OVERFLOWING WASTE BINS AND THE EMPTY FEEDING BOWLS OF
THE WORLD'S POOR. In
many parts of the world, land traditionally worked by peasants to meet their
own needs now grows crops for export. The peasants labour in the fields for
sometimes less than subsistence wages, or migrate to the appalling conditions
of the big towns. The landowners, motivated by profiteering, use artificial
chemicals that require vast amounts of irreplaceable, polluting, global warming
fossil fuels for their manufacture. The fertilisers damage soil life and
structure, thus speeding soil erosion. They use more water to produce less
nutritious food. The pesticides kill wild life, upset the balance of nature and
often make the labourers seriously ill. Compassionate living requires using, as
far as possible, crops grown locally by vegan-organic methods that exploit
neither humans or other animals and benefit the environment.
·
BETWEEN CONSUMERISM, INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE MAKING OF A
WORLD UNFIT FOR OUR CHILDREN.
Money worship, debilitating self-indulgence and economic growth based on
unnecessary industrialism are corrupting human nature and destroying the life
support systems of the planet. Forest destruction, soil erosion, pollution of
air, soil and water, climate disruption, ozone layer depletion, genetic
interference and the ever present danger of nuclear explosions are threatening
all life on the planet.
·
BETWEEN HUMAN CONSUMPTION OF ANIMAL MILK AND THE COW AND HER CALF
CRYING FOR EACH OTHER.
Few people realise that in modern dairy systems cows are robbed of their calves
soon after birth. Most cows have strong maternal instincts and they cry and
search for their babies for days. Some calves are slaughtered at once, others
are reared for veal, imprisoned in closely confined conditions. Calves are
naturally active, playful creatures.
THE VEGAN WAY
Once people justifiably
believed that animal products were necessary for human health, but now it has
been demonstrated through fifty years and more of vegan living that this is not
true. Much scientific research has shown that a well balanced vegan diet is not
only adequate but in some ways superior to an omnivorous one. The continued
exploitation of animals for food derives from nothing but ignorance, profit
making and habitual palate satisfaction.
TREES FOR A FUTURE
If animal farming were phased out, the vast
areas of land released could be used for trees - most of it was formerly
forested. Trees can meet nearly all human needs. They can yield abundant food
and also wood for many construction purposes. Waste wood can be used as fuel or
processed into gas, electricity, liquid fuel, plastics, etc. At the same time,
forests maintain the water cycle, fertilise the soil, purify the air and check
soil erosion, floods, droughts and global warming. A FUTURE DEPENDS ON RESTORING THE FORESTS.
HOPE
The ideals that inspire the
Movement for Compassionate Living have been preached by founders of great
religions, philosophies and humanitarian movements throughout the ages. Living
consistently according to them can direct awesome human intellectual and
technological powers to the service of life. People are beginning to wake up to
the evils of the system that now imprisons them. MCL works to free them from
the ignorance that keeps them dependent on livestock farming, on vivisection
laboratories, and on the unnecessary industrialism that degrades them to cogs
in machines.
Our herbivorous ancestors
turned predators in response to an environmental challenge aeons ago when the
forests dried up and they lost food supplies. The forests grew again but humans
remained victims of the habit that had seduced them. Vegans have now proved
that it is not necessary to kill to eat. This can inspire the faith and hope to
respond to today's crises by creating a system based on equity and compassion
for all living creatures and the planet itself.
Kathleen
Jannaway.
(Click to view Food Target)
MCL,
105 Cyfyng Road, Ystalyfera, Swansea SA9 2BT, UK.