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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 28, 2017)
Page 10 S I i p q I Roots • July News RAO, from page 5 them all off the face of the Earth, it’s another 16 years. By 2026, they’ll be gone if we continue doing what we are doing. We are on ecological quicksand. Imagine if a weight-lifter was lifting five times his weight, and he was standing on quicksand and he was sinking. Knowing this weight alone is too much for the quicksand to bear, what is the first thing he should do? E.G.: Drop the weight. " I t h o u g h t t h a t I c o u ld s ie w r f i v e u p » i l k beeaw se I l o w s iy m i l k s w e e ts , I l o w « y I l e w say y o g u rt« B u t I b a d I b is s e n s e o f sb a site w h e n I saw w b a t It was d o in g te tb e e n v ir o n - m e a t." S.R.: Drop the weight! No one is going to stand there and say, I think I can lift three- fourths of that weight, or half that weight - drop it! Because you are on quicksand. Get out of the quicksand first before you think about weight-lifting again. That is what I’m talking about, so when we frame it this way, SAILESH RAO people do respond. Have faith in them. They will respond. E.G.: Have you always been vegan? S.R.: I became a vegan in 2008, when I found out what it was doing to the environment. I was lacto vegetarian (a person who does not eat meat but who does consume dairy products), but I thought that I could never give up milk because I love my milk sweets, I love my pizza, I love my yogurt. But I had this sense of shame when I saw w h a t it w a s d oing to th e e n v iro n m e n t. B e c a u s e th e w a y th in g s a re fr a m e d fo r u s V s c i e i r t i s t s , a n d V>y t h e m a i n s t r e a m m e d i a , is that lacto vegetarianism is just a little bit worse than veganism, in terms of imparl And that’s an accounting gimmick Because if everyone in the world became lacto- vegetarian, the planet would be destroyed today. Because you keep impregnating dairy cows to make milk, so you get new cows coming out, and if you don’t kill them and eat them, they are going to be running around eating your forests for the next 25 years. I saw that in India. In India, a lot of people are lacto vegetarian, and hardly anyone ate meat, at that time. Very few people eat beef, so the cows are proliferated, and they have 10 times the density of cows as the U.S. o Wild E.G.: On the Climate Healers’ website, there is a page about going vegan, and as soon as you click on the page, a number ticker begins to count all the animals, by species, that have been killed for consumption since the time you opened the page - which is really disturbing. B u t I wanted to ask you, climate change aside, the fact that hum ans kill about 56 billion animals a year for consumption (according to Food and Agriculture Organization o f the United Nations FAO STAT 2008), what does this mean to you spiritually? S.R.: I will tell you a story about what happened to me in Marrakesh, Morocco. I was speaking to a high school - 250 high school students were there, and it was about veganism and climate change. I asked, “How many of you are vegan?” And only one child raised his hand. It was clear that he had to raise his hand because everybody knew that h u r t a n in n o c e n t a n im a l, unnecessarily?” Nobody raised their hand. WEDNESDAYS 2-7PM This slide from Sailesh R ao’s lecture shows the distribution over time o f E a rth ’s wildlife compared to hum ans and livestock. And I told them, by definition, all of you are vegan in your heart. But who you are in your heart and what you do in your mind don’t match. So we are bringing that into alignment. That is spirituality. E.G.: Going back to your second book, “Carbon Yoga, ” what is the connection between carbon and yoga? S.R.: Yoga means unity. It’s union. True yoga is really about getting what you think, what you say and what you do in alignment with who you are. What we do as yoga here in the U.S. is really the third step of an eight-step p ro c e ss . A nd i t ’s just the calisthenics part of km what they call posture. It’s been h e w as vegan. T h e y w e re all looking a t him . T h e n I a s k e d t h e m , “H ow m an y of you FARMERS’ MARKET Today 1OÜK-1OK yr» 3RO misconstrued as all of it. It’s not. o C E N T R A L C IT Y CO FFEE Sourcing & roasting craft coffee to benefit programs at Central City Concern. IN STORES New Seasons Market, Whole Foods, Food Front Cooperative Grocery, Green Zebra, Chuck's Produce, Food Fight!, Cherry Sprout Produce, and Know Thy Food. AT YOUR OFFICE interested in serving Central City Coffee at office? Get in touch with us and we can hel make that happen. 503.226.7387 UP TO $10 MATCH WITH EBT CARD ue aoout neiping our community ood that they can tru s t By shopping you H get extra food dollars while farmers and community. ve. btwn Powell & Division muni» ¡¡, ON OUR WEBSITE - Www, Buy Central City Coffee online and have it shipped directly to you or a friend. AT KASBAH MOROCCAN CAFE Get your espresso favorites at Old Town's newest spot (201 NW Davis Street), featuring Central City Coffee! Follow our Facebook page for updates and specials. 1500 centraicltycoffee.org facebook.com/CentralCityCoffee coffee@ccconcern. org Street Roots is a 501 (c)3, nonprofit 2 L « ° n . Your donation may be tax deductible
