Blog
Introducing INSPIRE AWARENESS NOW organization
January 20, 2012 at 2:29 PM
Inspire Awareness Now is a non-profit organization committed to improving the health and well being of our country and planet by way of food choice—solving many interrelated issues along the way. Inspire Awareness NOW(IAN) will create awareness and initiate sustainable systems where food is involved, reducing Global Depletion on all fronts. With some initiatives, IAN will merely provide information and educational assistance to essentially facilitate and enhance those services and projects already undertaken by the particular institution we are working with, serving as a catalyst for proper change. Other initiatives will demand that IAN serves as the primary provider because it may be the first project of its kind. Inherent in this goal is to develop more accurate definitions of what can be considered sustainable and then create change based on these more accurate definitions. In doing so, IAN will provide educational assistance and network with other institutions that are committed to planetary health, on many levels.
Over $2.3 trillion are spent on health care in our country each year while minimally half of that can be attributed to what we eat. At the same time, we are using our natural resources at an unsustainable rate. Over 78% of all agricultural land and 50% of all fresh water used in our country is used to produce livestock, which then after consumption is the major contributor to our health care crises. Globally, raising livestock occupies 38% of the entire landmass on earth and is the primary cause of the rapid loss of biodiversity—plants, insects, animals—we are seeing on earth (30,000 animal species are becoming extinct each year). The meat, dairy, and fishing industries are also one of the largest sectors affecting climate change. It is common knowledge that the 70 billion animals raised each year emit more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector—all the cars, trucks, planes, and trains in the world, and yet global beef, pork, and chicken production and consumption are expected to continue to increase. One to two trillion fish are taken from our oceans each year, causing irreversible damage to vital ecosystems. Many researchers agree that it would require 1.5 to 2 full earths to sustain what we are currently taking from and doing to our planet.
There are 1 billion people suffering from hunger in the world with 6 million children dying from starvation each year. At the same time, over half of the grain produced in the world, nearly 1 billion tons, is fed to livestock. Global food security is not an issue of production—it’s an issue of where all the food produced is going. Last year (2011), 77% of all coarse grain produced globally (oats, corn/maize, barley, sorghum, rye, millet) was given to animals.
Inspire Awareness Now views these as serious disconnects in levels of awareness and policy. Therefore, we help correct or solve these problems by educating, advocating change, and administering services to transition our current meat and dairy farming as well as fishing systems into organic or biodynamic plant based operations, which will result in much more efficient use of our nation’s water and land, and food supply while drastically reducing pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and fossil fuel use. Importantly, this transition will result in the increase in many more job opportunities in skilled labor, management, and education—all of which span the academic and previous job experience spectrum. By providing more green jobs, our initiative will ultimately have a positive impact on the 9% unemployment rate and the current 3% “structural” component of those who are jobless in the U.S. The envisioned goal is for a healthier economy, healthier and more productive population, a truly more sustainable food production system, a healthier country, and ultimately a healthier and more peaceful planet.
There are several notable organizations and movements to create healthier food choices and implement food productions systems. Institutions and communities are beginning to rally around concepts such as Real Food, local, farm-to-table, farm-to-campus, organic, biodynamic, sustainable seafood, grass and pasture fed, free range, traceable, small family farms, CSAs (community supported) and urban agriculture, and humane—all of which are fueled by the desire to move away from agribusiness and the previous 50 years of industrialized, profit-driven food production systems. However, none of these concepts or movements will be accurately considered successful long term if they include raising, slaughtering, and eating animals or harvesting fish out of our oceans or on land. Beyond the primary reasons implicit to their effect on Global Depletion, nearly all of these movements have precepts embedded in misinformation and inaccuracy. While operating with inherently good intentions, the results of these movements and organizations will never be optimal.
Although there are many reasons for this, it is essentially an issue of definition. What entity has deemed a food or production system as “sustainable?” Whatfood can really be constituted as “sustainable?” In the case of grass fed, for instance, it is not a sustainable practice in many geographical regions or on a collective global basis long term from a land and water use, contribution to anthropometric greenhouse gas production, food security, and human health standpoints. And, yet, there is that stamp of approval, made primarily by those stakeholders in the meat and dairy industries—the National Cattleman’s Association, National Dairy Council, AGA, and individuals such as Michael Pollan and others with large audiences serving as experts or advisors to many organizations but who consumes beef and tuna, and raises grass fed cows themselves. Therefore, IAN introduces the concept of ‘Relative’ sustainability—how could our land, air, water, and other resources be best used to obtain a ‘more’ sustainable food product.
It is time that the wealth and wellness of a country or nation are measured not simply by economic standards but by the health of its natural resources, its people, and by the fact that truly sustainable systems, particularly those for producing food and caring for biodiversity, are properly defined and in place. This then becomes our civilization’s new metric of success.
Please find out more about this very important organization at: http://inspireawarenessnow.org/
Add Pingback
