Transcriber: Mirjana Čutura Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
One of my favorite places to go to is the San Leandro Marina.
It has been a monumental place to my family:
from being the place where a few of my childhood birthdays had been celebrated
to the place my family and I would go to catch up
when my sister returns home from college.
I love sitting on one of the benches with my sister,
letting our feet swing below us
as we watch the waves gently lap the rocks on the shoreline.
With all the recent horrific projections
of how climate change is affecting our environment,
sometimes I wonder what would happen to this part of my community
that holds such a special place in my heart.
In a few short decades, water levels would rise,
wildlife would be scarce, if not completely eradicated.
No more dogs padding alongside their owners,
no more squirrels scurrying up trees,
no more ducks in the water, waiting to catch their next meal.
The same place that brought me such joy and peace of mind
would be gone.
Climate change is the change in global climate patterns
due to an accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,
such as carbon dioxide and methane.
Known as the greenhouse effect
because of its strong resemblance to a greenhouse,
these gases thicken our ozone layer trapping the heat from the sun,
which would otherwise bounce off the surface of the earth,
thus increasing the surface temperature of the earth.
How is all this gas getting into the air in the first place?
One word: us.
The human population is increasing
and creating more and more additional gases in the air
that wouldn't otherwise be there.
With all of this additional gas in the air,
the temperature of the earth is rapidly increasing,
with climate change landing right at our doorstep.
What do you believe is the leading cause of climate change?
Chances are your answer was probably something along the lines
of fossil fuels or maybe big oil companies.
The leading cause of climate change is actually animal agriculture.
Animal agriculture is the process of how animal products
end up as goods for consumers to buy.
Essentially, it is how the livestock we raise
ends up as the food on our plates.
Meat is a huge part of the human diet.
And when there's an increase in population,
there's an increase in the meat demand.
Animal agriculture is the number one cause of species and habitat loss,
water and air pollution, and world hunger.
It is responsible for 65% of nitrous oxide emissions,
which has a global warming potential 296 times greater than CO2 per pound.
Every second, one to two acres of rainforest are cleared
because of animal agriculture.
At that rate, the entire state of California
would be gone in just about three years.
That's not even the length of high school.
With all of this habitat destruction,
about 137 animal and insect species are lost every day
and continues to threaten the species such as the orangutan and Sumatran tiger.
With the island of Sumatra under a constant threat of deforestation,
the only place where rhinos, elephants, orangutans, and tigers
can all live together
will soon be destroyed.
In Asia, tigers are often respected as a symbol of strength and bravery.
And without them, a huge connection to Asian culture would be lost.
Elephants, another highly intelligent and endangered creature,
hold extreme cultural values in both Africa and Asia.
In certain religions, they are worshiped as gods.
And in other cultural practices,
they are known for being symbols of strength and royalty.
Elephants are also capable of eating seeds
that are hard for other animals and insects to digest
and disperse these seeds around the area they travel.
When these seeds grow up, they become huge rainforest trees,
which allows the moisture in the air above them to create rain patterns
affecting the very climate of Africa itself.
It is disheartening that we as a society face a very real, possible future
where these clever creatures could go extinct.
Without elephants,
we would lose parts of what entire cultures have been founded upon,
and ecosystems would be disrupted, if not destroyed.
About a third of the earth's land has been desertified due to livestock.
This is because with the surplus of livestock
needed to meet the growing meat demand,
livestock had been overgrazing the land and eroding the topsoil with their hoofs.
The intensive farming methods needed to raise and sustain these livestock
deplete the soil of its natural resources.
Used correctly, this land can feed about 1.4 billion people otherwise.
Dharwadi is a village in India whose land has become increasingly arid
due to overfarming practices.
Families who had spent generations cultivating a life in the village
were forced to leave if they wanted to keep their families alive.
By the '90s, those few who decided to stay
had to wait for water to be delivered to them on a truck,
unable to produce or get any themselves.
While my family is not from this village specifically,
this still affects me personally
because India shapes a huge part of my own cultural identity.
In a way, they are my people too.
And it saddens me
that decades worth of family and community history was destroyed.
About three-fourths of the world's fisheries are exploited,
meaning they're either fully fished or overfished.
Ninety million tons of fish are pulled from the oceans each year.
Within the past century, about a million whales have been killed.
Researchers have been able to improve upon our own sonar capabilities
by studying the echolocation patterns of these highly intelligent creatures.
Whales are also vital to the oceanic food chain,
making sure that one species does not overpopulate another.
Even their feces plays a crucial role by providing sustenance for krill,
which fish need to eat.
Without whales, the marine ecosystem as we know it would be gone.
For every one pound of fish taken out of the ocean,
five pounds of marine species are caught and discarded.
Leading scientists have predicted
that we are going to see fishless oceans by the year 2048
if we continue this way.
Take the bluefin tuna, one of the largest species of tuna.
According to the World Wildlife Fund,
since the bluefin tuna started being harvested for consumer purposes,
its population has declined by 85%.
At this rate, it won't take long
for the bluefin tuna to go extinct altogether.
Without the bluefin tuna,
we would no longer enjoy some of the eccentric seafood dishes
we incorporate into our daily lives:
no more sushi, no more poke.
While some of us are able to continue without fish,
for millions of people, a world without fish means a world without food.
With all these horrible statistics,
it's easy to feel hopeless,
as if climate change is out of our control.
But it's not.
We can make an impact on climate change every day
just based on what we have on our plate.
Diet is the most immediate change we can make.
The key is moderation.
Start with meatless Mondays
or even better, one meatless meal per day.
Government nutritionists actually recommend
that we eat only about five to six and a half ounces of meat per day,
which is roughly the size of a deck of cards.
Not only can you help with carbon emissions,
you can also help reduce the amount of water
we are taking out of our ecosystems.
One burger is 660 gallons of water.
That's the equivalent of showering for two whole months.
There is power in your purchase.
Carefully modifying the foods you buy
can help both you and the environment at the same time.
If everyone in the world were to give up meat by 2050,
seven million deaths could be prevented.
Eliminating meat means less heart disease, stroke,
certain types of cancers, and diabetes.
We could reduce the carbon emissions from diet with 60 to 70%.
We could repurpose the land
originally used to raise and feed the surplus of livestock
to fight world hunger
or to restore the land to its natural state.
Giving up meat doesn't mean you have to give up quality-tasting food.
A couple of months ago,
I was in a restaurant in San Francisco with my sister
when we tried the Beyond Meat burger, a purely plant-based burger,
for the first time.
We had to call the waitress back
and ask her if she had our order mixed up with some other type of burger
because it was that good.
This is coming from the person
who used to swear an In-N-Out burger was the best burger anyone could ever get.
More and more celebrities are using their platform
to encourage healthier diet choices for the benefit of the planet.
Beyoncé recently put a link on her Instagram page
to a website promoting the power of a plant-based diet
called the Green Print Project.
It gives a perfect visual
on how even one plant-based meal can change the environment.
Personally, I want to live in a world
where I can still take weekend trips into nature with my family.
I want to able to see the gorgeous Yosemite waterfalls,
to continue my family walks at the marina.
I want there to still be the wonders of the world for my family to visit.
I want to live in a world that I'm proud to live in,
a world that I know I made a difference in.
This is where we are heading.
Climate change is no longer some abstract idea
we can just pass on to future generations.
The power is in our own hands to fix the planet.
Generations after us could still bear witness
to some of the gorgeous natural treasures our world has to offer,
such as the Great Barrier Reef or Victoria Falls.
We must invest in our earth.
It is our responsibility to be caretakers of the planet.
After all, there is no planet B.
Thank you.
(Applause)