35
Russian red foxes) lurking somewhere amid our 25,000 to 50,000 genes.
20
It has
been estimated that humanity weighs 300 million tons, while all remaining wildlife
is less than 100 million tons, and the farm animals we slaughter over 700 million
tons and growing.
21
All those sentient beings’ pain constitutes that largest aggregate
of suffering in the last 65 million years, what we have elsewhere termed the “pain
points,” referring to the geography of industrial slaughterhouses, on land and at
sea.
22
Add to that the centuries-old crime against forests. Humanity in all her guises
has cut down 50% of all known trees on the planet, or roughly 3.4 trillion sylvan
individuals since the origin of all human civilizations.
23
If there is a gene tameness,
it might account for what both Leonardo da Vinci and Rajendra Pachauri, former
chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, both embraced,
namely, vegetarianism.
24
That tameness, or “reciprocity potential” (for compassion
and virtue), can happen in an instant, without legal hair-splitting or cumbersome
international treaty negotiations.
In ancient Jain doctrine, the foremost decree held to the proposition:
“Parasparopagraho jivanam,” all life forms are interdependent and must care for
each other. Such pantheistic wisdom is hard-pressed against a syndrome now widely
known as “treaty congestion,” well over 500 international environmental treaties
agreed to by nations since the formation of the UN—and a total of 3716 environmental agreements in general—but without requisite or realistic incentives for compliance. In Harvard Professor Lawrence Susskind’s groundbreaking 2008 essay
“Strengthening the Global Environmental Treaty System” he made it clear that
“Today, there is no official body with responsibility for improving the global environmental treaty-making system,” one of the most troubling of human paradoxes:
20 See “red fox genome assembly identifies genomic regions associated with tame and aggressive
behaviours,” by Anna V. Kukekova, Jennifer L.Johnson, Goujie Zhang, et al., Nature Ecology &
Evolution, August 6, 2018, ISSN 2397-334X (online), Accessed August 6, 2018; and “Open
Questions: How many genes do we have?” by Steven L. Salzbert, BMC Biology 16, Article number: 94 (2018) BMC Biol 16, 94, August 20, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1186/x12915-018-0564-x,
Accessed February 22, 2020.
21 See “Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history,” by Yuval Noval Harai, The
Guardian, September 25, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrialfarming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question
22 See M. C. Tobias and J. G. Morrison, God’s Country: The New Zealand Factor, A Dancing Star
Foundation Book, Zorba Press, Los Angeles CA and Ithaca, NY, 2010.
23 See “Seeing the forest and the trees, all 3 trillion of them,” by Kevin Dennehy, September 2,
2015, YaleNews, https://news.yale.edu/2015/09/02/seeing-forest-and-trees-all-3-trillion-them,
Accessed February 22, 2020.
24 See “Get Back In The Car: Vegetarian IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri Says Less Meat Will
Slow Global Warming,” News Staff at Scientific Blogging, September 6, 2008, https://www.science20.com/news_releases/get_back_in_the_car_vegetarian_ipcc_chairman_rajendra_pachauri_
says_less_meat_will_slow_global_warming_more; See also, “Go vegetarian to limit climate
change: IPCC report,” by Graham Lloyd, The Weekend Australian, August 8, 2019, https://www.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/go-vegetarian-to-limit-climate-change-ipcc-report/news-story/41160
4a4b88159d85859e72fa5aee888, Accessed February 22, 2020.
4.3 Human Nature and Red Foxes
Russian red foxes) lurking somewhere amid our 25,000 to 50,000 genes.
20
It has
been estimated that humanity weighs 300 million tons, while all remaining wildlife
is less than 100 million tons, and the farm animals we slaughter over 700 million
tons and growing.
21
All those sentient beings’ pain constitutes that largest aggregate
of suffering in the last 65 million years, what we have elsewhere termed the “pain
points,” referring to the geography of industrial slaughterhouses, on land and at
sea.
22
Add to that the centuries-old crime against forests. Humanity in all her guises
has cut down 50% of all known trees on the planet, or roughly 3.4 trillion sylvan
individuals since the origin of all human civilizations.
23
If there is a gene tameness,
it might account for what both Leonardo da Vinci and Rajendra Pachauri, former
chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, both embraced,
namely, vegetarianism.
24
That tameness, or “reciprocity potential” (for compassion
and virtue), can happen in an instant, without legal hair-splitting or cumbersome
international treaty negotiations.
In ancient Jain doctrine, the foremost decree held to the proposition:
“Parasparopagraho jivanam,” all life forms are interdependent and must care for
each other. Such pantheistic wisdom is hard-pressed against a syndrome now widely
known as “treaty congestion,” well over 500 international environmental treaties
agreed to by nations since the formation of the UN—and a total of 3716 environmental agreements in general—but without requisite or realistic incentives for compliance. In Harvard Professor Lawrence Susskind’s groundbreaking 2008 essay
“Strengthening the Global Environmental Treaty System” he made it clear that
“Today, there is no official body with responsibility for improving the global environmental treaty-making system,” one of the most troubling of human paradoxes:
20 See “red fox genome assembly identifies genomic regions associated with tame and aggressive
behaviours,” by Anna V. Kukekova, Jennifer L.Johnson, Goujie Zhang, et al., Nature Ecology &
Evolution, August 6, 2018, ISSN 2397-334X (online), Accessed August 6, 2018; and “Open
Questions: How many genes do we have?” by Steven L. Salzbert, BMC Biology 16, Article number: 94 (2018) BMC Biol 16, 94, August 20, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1186/x12915-018-0564-x,
Accessed February 22, 2020.
21 See “Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history,” by Yuval Noval Harai, The
Guardian, September 25, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrialfarming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question
22 See M. C. Tobias and J. G. Morrison, God’s Country: The New Zealand Factor, A Dancing Star
Foundation Book, Zorba Press, Los Angeles CA and Ithaca, NY, 2010.
23 See “Seeing the forest and the trees, all 3 trillion of them,” by Kevin Dennehy, September 2,
2015, YaleNews, https://news.yale.edu/2015/09/02/seeing-forest-and-trees-all-3-trillion-them,
Accessed February 22, 2020.
24 See “Get Back In The Car: Vegetarian IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri Says Less Meat Will
Slow Global Warming,” News Staff at Scientific Blogging, September 6, 2008, https://www.science20.com/news_releases/get_back_in_the_car_vegetarian_ipcc_chairman_rajendra_pachauri_
says_less_meat_will_slow_global_warming_more; See also, “Go vegetarian to limit climate
change: IPCC report,” by Graham Lloyd, The Weekend Australian, August 8, 2019, https://www.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/go-vegetarian-to-limit-climate-change-ipcc-report/news-story/41160
4a4b88159d85859e72fa5aee888, Accessed February 22, 2020.
4.3 Human Nature and Red Foxes