Summer 2022
Vegan International Founder, Sharon L. Wallenberg, will participate in the United Nations World Health Organization World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany on October 16 to 18, 2022.
The World Health Summit and the United Nations World Health Organization have joined forces to organize the 2022 edition of one of the world’s leading international, inclusive, and inter-sectoral global health conferences to bring global health actors closer to setting the agenda for a healthier future.
Participants in the Summit will focus on “Making the Choice for Health” by reflecting on pressing topics such as Investment for Health and Well-Being, Climate Change and Planetary Health, Architecture for Pandemic Preparedness, Digital Transformation for Health, Food Systems and Health, Health Systems Resilience and Equity, and Global Health for Peace.
The World Health Summit 2022 aims to strengthen exchange, stimulate innovative solutions to health challenges, foster global health as a key political issue and promote the global health debate in the spirit of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 17 “Partnership for the Goals”.
Ms. Wallenberg will the participate in the World Health Summit “Making the Choice for Health’ by emphasizing the relationship between the unsustainable meat and dairy based diet and the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, and obesity, as well as antibiotic resistance, zoonotic disease, and pandemics (United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 ‘Good Health’).
Ms. Wallenberg will also bring attention to the relationship between methane, an animal agriculture related greenhouse gas that holds heat in the atmosphere more effectively than carbon dioxide, and rapidly accelerating global warming (SDG 13 ‘Climate Action’).
Animal agriculture unsustainably uses scarce natural resources, (SDG 15 ‘Life on Land’). Considerably more land and water are needed to support the meat and dairy based diet than the plant-based food choice. Additionally, meat and dairy from animal agriculture causes the ongoing devastating pollution of land, water, and air, (SDG 6 ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’).
There is a correlation between the financial subsidies given to animal agriculture in the developed nations and the resulting poverty and hunger in the developing nations, (SDG 1 ‘No Poverty’), and (SDG 2 ‘Zero Human Hunger’). Eliminating these subsidies and promoting the plant-based rather than animal-based diet would eliminate these inequities, (SDG 10 ‘Reduce Inequities’).
In addition, Ms. Wallenberg will discuss the relationship between the ongoing war against other species, including habitat destruction, and species extinction, causing a deterioration of the dilution effect. The dilution effect protects the human species from zoonotic pandemics by reducing or eliminating the transference of disease from other species to the human species.
Most importantly, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 ‘Peace and Justice’ currently does not include all individuals on Earth. It is only applied to the human species. This is not only an outrageous injustice, but also threatens the very existence of human life through zoonotic pandemics starting with other species and spilling over to the human species, as well as destruction of planet Earth through methane induced climate change
This injustice is a major contributor to global warming, results in health pandemics and other preventable illnesses such as the Non-Communicable Diseases NCDs and takes away resources from other important health issues such as the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). The NTDs are usually preventable and treatable but cause devastating disability to the already disadvantaged and overlooked individuals in developing nations. Adults with NTDs cannot work to support themselves, and children with NTDs cannot go to school, and remain uneducated their entire lives.
If peace and justice (SDG 16) really was extended to individuals of all species on Earth, and all individuals on Earth really were given a ‘place at the table’, more than the majority of health issues would be eliminated.
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