Tom Lohre's video: Clifton Vegan Day Food

Vegan Earth Day, Monday, April 22, 2019, Noon-8 p.m. Burnet Woods Music Pavilion Circle Saving the Planet…with your Fork!” A joyful celebration of Earth that offers all the abundance to raise life, diversity and the ability to exist complimentary. Demonstrations, Speakers, Information Sharing, Petition Signing, Activities, Food Trucks Music: Preston Bell & Charles Ill , Jamaican - American – violinist David Kisor & Andrea Celalo Contact: William Messer, 513-221-3686, wfm@fuse.net Loa Bennett, 772-261-7581, VeganEarthUS@outlook.com Cincinnati, OH (March 18, 2019) - VeganEarth and the City of Cincinnati’s Office of Environment and Sustainability have partnered to co-sponsor the first city recognized Vegan Earth Day east of Berkeley CA, in Clifton at Burnet Woods, on the 50th Earth Day. The Economist has declared 2019 the “Year of the Vegan”. Cincinnati’s first Vegan Earth Day will take place Monday, April 22, noon to 8 PM at the Burnet Wood Park bandstand circle. The event is to celebrate Earth Day and acknowledge the increasing awareness of the causal relationship of food choices to climate change and other environmental and human health issues. There will be vegan food, live music, speakers and information sharing, petition signing, etc. It is to be a gathering of the like-minded and the open minded. In 2008 Cincinnati became the first city in the world to recommend reduced meat and dairy consumption. Then OEQ director Larry Falkin opined that if implemented this recommendation would have greater impact than any of the 80+ other recommendations in the Green Cincinnati Plan “short of Duke Energy ceasing to use coal altogether.” Since then countless other cities worldwide have followed suit, some even citing the Green Cincinnati Plan as their inspiration. In 2009 ecologists for the World Bank estimated the percentage of anthropogenic climate change directly related to meat and dairy production at a staggering 51% (Worldwatch). Since then scientific studies worldwide have concluded that the only way humanity has a chance to remain below the UN’s 2º C threshold beyond which climate degradation will become irreversible and catastrophic is for the bulk of the population to effect “urgent and dramatic shifts towards plant-based diets.” (Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future). TheWorldwatch report stated, “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.” The American Dietetic Association adds “Not only is mortality from coronary heart disease lower in vegetarians than in non-vegetarians, but vegetarian diets have also been successful in arresting coronary heart disease. Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for…obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer.” They hadn’t even considered vegans at that point; now we do. Using our land, water and energy resources to grow food to feed not to ourselves, our families, dear ones and community but to animals which we then eat is an extraordinarily inefficient way to live and a major contributor to hunger and societal breakdown on the planet. The single most efficient, effective, least expensive action individuals can take to curb climate collapse and advance environmental justice is simply to eat less meat and dairy and adopt a plant-based diet. Our event will showcase the abundance, variety and value of plant-based lifestyles. More than 41 million households in the United States grew a vegetable garden in 2009, meaning that 38 percent of the population tended and harvested their own fresh food. The gift of developing our own food includes: invigorating communities, bringing people together, working together in a non-competitive environment, giving them an opportunity to experience success and failure without judgment, provide horticultural, occupational and recreational therapies, participate in local farmers markets and develop marketable products from their garden, provides unique recreational outlets and a healthy source of exercise for people of all ages.