Dr Sailesh Rao: Meat and dairy are driving climate damage

PEOPLE’S food choices and relationship with nature can help tackle climate change, a technology entrepreneur turned environment campaigner has said.

Dr Sailesh Rao is a founder of Climate Healers, a non-profit aimed at exploring solutions for climate change issues. He previously enjoyed a successful career in the technology sector, but is now focused on solving environmental crises. He has written books and produced documentaries on themes related to the planet and sustainability.

In an interview with Eastern Eye, Rao said, “Humanity needs to move from being a predatory species to becoming a caregiving species” and cited meat consumption, the dairy industry, and the race for excessive economic growth for causing “serious damage to the planet”.

It was in December 2005 that he became interested in environment issues while listening to former US vice-president Al Gore speaking about climate change on television.

Rao said, “I wrote him a letter expressing my willingness to join him. He invited me to train with him, and I shut down my company to make a fresh start in the climate change field and joined him.

“During the training, I asked him if the problem could be solved if we all stopped eating animals and reforested the land that gets freed from animal agriculture. He immediately turned to his chief of staff, Roy Neel, and asked, ‘How did this guy get in here?’ After that, I spent five years trying to convince him to address the food issue.

“Unfortunately, he believed fossil fuels were the main cause of the problem. He came from the cattle industry background, and his father owned a cattle ranch. How could he believe that animals could also be responsible for climate change?”

Rao said he parted ways with Gore in 2012 to focus on Climate Healers.

“I laid everything out on the table and realised the solution to this problem requires not just a cultural transformation, but also a spiritual transformation.”

He added, “One interesting incident was when my granddaughter, who was born in 2010, was sitting in my lap. Looking at her natural smile, I realised we are part of nature and nature also uses us. In 2011, I wrote my first book, Carbon Dharma. After that, I spent five years thinking about what the solution to this problem could be, and then I wrote another book, Carbon Yoga.

“Dharma tells us what is right, while yoga tells us how to do it. Since 2006, I have continuously tried to persuade people what we are doing does not have to continue forever, and that it is part of a ‘Planet A operating system.” We constantly extract something from the planet for our own benefit. I studied a total of 26 interconnected ecological, social, ethical and institutional crises created by this way of life.

“Similarly, I also studied seven myths that underpin this system”

Rao has also There IS a Planet B, A Guide to Planet B and is an executive producer of documentaries, including The Human Experiment (2013), Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014), What the Health (2017), A Prayer for Compassion (2019), and They’re Trying to Kill Us (2021).

According to Rao, people’s misconceptions have caused harm to earth.

He said: “One false belief is that the protein necessary for our lives can only come from animal foods. In reality, that is not true. Protein also comes from plants, which is why cows grow large by eating grass and gorillas grow strong by eating fruits and plants.

“We humans are among the slowestgrowing mammals on earth, which is why we need the least amount of protein in our food compared to other mammals. Our mother’s milk contains only around six per cent protein by calories. That is the food designed by nature when we are growing the fastest. The World Health Organisation also says only about six per cent protein by calories is needed for the average human as well.

Dr Sailesh Rao Eastern Eye

“In the name of getting protein, people eat meat, become victims of diseases, and then rush to hospitals. Human beings can get all the protein they need from plants.

“Another myth is that calcium can only be obtained from milk or dairy products. Calcium can also come from plants.

“As long as you continue consuming meat and dairy products, you remain a source of revenue for companies and industries. The entire meat industry runs on the myth linking protein only with meat. We are using nearly half of the planet’s land just to raise farmed animals to get just 12 per cent of the food we eat, by dry weight.”

He added, “Today, 95 per cent of people in the UK do not consume enough fibre, which makes them ill and vulnerable to chronic diseases, allowing money to be made from them.” On the race among countries to increase their economies, Rao said: “Today, the world economy is 75 per cent larger than what the planet can support. People are made to believe economic growth is necessary because people are poor. In reality, systems keep people poor so that cheap labour remains available.

“In the same way, society has been conditioned to believe that humans are superior to other animals, distancing us from nature.

“But in reality, every species has been gifted with something unique by nature. We are masters of engineering. What is really needed is for us to work with other species rather than exploiting them.

“By exploiting other species, we are destroying the planet’s life-support systems, and if those systems collapse, how will we survive? All systems are interconnected, and if one breaks, others will follow.

“My activism is about reconnecting humanity with the rest of the living world. We need to move from being a predatory species to becoming a caregiving species, requiring a transformation from our current Planet A Operating System to a new Planet B Operating System.”

For more information, visit www.climatehealers.org/sailesh-rao.