Dear Rabbi,

News of war and conflict are the order of the day, but something far worse looms over us. I am writing you because you have the potential to help avert a climate catastrophe and leave a sustainable world for future generations. There is a very strong consensus composed of almost all climate experts, all the major science academies, and over a thousand peer-reviewed articles in respected science journals that climate change poses an existential threat to humanity. Animal-based diets which seriously violate fundamental Jewish teachings, are the major contributors to climate change. Your help in increasing awareness of these realities can help shift our imperiled planet onto a sustainable path.

The world has been heating up rapidly in recent years. The hottest year was 2024, breaking the record set in 2023. Amazingly, the 13 consecutive months from June 2023 to June 2024 all broke monthly temperature records. All 25 years so far this century are among the 25 hottest years in recorded history.

Because of the hotter temperature, glaciers worldwide and polar icecaps have been rapidly melting, raising sea levels significantly. There has also been a significant increase on the frequency and severity of droughts, heat waves, wildfires, storms, and floods, with many records being broken.

In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an organization composed of climate experts from many countries, warned that “unprecedented changes” were needed by 2030 for the world to have a chance to avert a climate catastrophe. Despite that warning, atmospheric carbon dioxide has continued to increase, indicating that the world is heading in the wrong direction.

Israel is especially affected by climate change. The hotter, drier Middle East projected by climate experts makes inability, terrorism, and war more likely. Also, a rising Mediterranean Sea could inundate the coastal plain that contains much of Israel’s population and infrastructure.

As devastating as climate events have been so far, prospects for the future are even more worrisome for four very important reasons:

• While all the recent severe climate events have occurred at a time when the global temperature has risen about 1.5 degrees Celsius (about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the start of the Industrial Revolution, climate experts project that this will likely at least double by the end of this century, triggering far worse climate events.
• While climate experts believe that 350 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric carbon dioxide is a threshold value to avert the worse effects of climate change, the world has reached 420 ppm, and it has been increasing by 2 – 3 ppm per year.
• Climate experts fear that self-reinforcing positive feedback loops (vicious cycles) could result in an irreversible tipping point, causing climate change to rise uncontrollably, with catastrophic results. One example is that more air conditioning will be used as the world gets hotter, meaning that more fossil fuel will be burned. This will release more greenhouse gases, heating the atmosphere even more, resulting in still more use of air conditioning, etc.
• Military experts are warning that there will likely be tens of millions of desperate refugees fleeing from severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, floods, and other climate events, which will promote social and political instability, terrorism, and war. Severe droughts already caused major migrations that contributed to civil wars in both Sudan and Syria…………………………………………………..

Fortunately, as you know, there are many Jewish environmental teachings that should be applied in efforts to stabilize the climate. They include:

• The Jewish sages interpreted the dominion that God gave humans in Genesis as responsible stewardship.
• This view is reinforced by Genesis 2:15, in which God tells Adam to till the land in the Garden of Eden, but also to guard it. So, we are to be guardians of the earth, co-workers with God in protecting the environment.  
• The Jewish sages expanded Deuteronomy 20:19, 20, which forbids the destruction of fruit-bearing trees in wartime into a general prohibition against waste and unnecessary destruction.

Because of the above factors, averting a climate catastrophe must become a central focus for civilization today. Every aspect of life should be considered in terms of reducing “carbon footprints.” We need to shift from fossil fuels to solar, wind, and other renewable forms of energy; produce more efficient cars, lightbulbs, and other items; improve public transportation,; recycle and compost.

As president emeritus of Jewish Veg and author of “Vegan Revolution: Saving Our World, Revitalizing Judaism,” I want to stress the approach that has by far the greatest potential to help avert a climate catastrophe  — a societal shift toward vegan diets. This shift would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions because there would be far fewer cows and other farmed animals emitting methane, a potent greenhouse gas with over 80 times the ability to heat up the planet as CO2 per unit weight during its 10 – 15 years in the atmosphere. 

The shift also has the potential of dramatically reducing atmospheric CO2 by permitting reforesting of the over 40 percent of the world’s ice-free land that is currently being used for grazing and raising feed crops for animals. This could reduce the current very dangerous level of atmospheric CO2  to a much safer one. Unfortunately, the opposite is happening, because forests continue to be destroyed for animal-based agriculture. We are literally eating our way to extinction.

Taking into account the lost “opportunity cost” of  permitting reforestation to draw CO2 out of the atmosphere, systems engineer Sailesh Rao, PhD argues in his paper, “Animal Agriculture Is the Leading Cause of Climate Change,” published in the Journal of Ecological Society, that animal agriculture is responsible for 87% of human-caused greenhouse gasses.

The UN has stressed that the world can’t avert increasingly severe climate events without shifting to a plant-based food system. The 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Climate Change and Land emphasized that plant-based diets are essential to reducing emissions, yet this remains largely absent from mainstream climate discussions. 

 Shifts to animal-free diets are consistent with Jewish teachings on preserving human health, treating animals compassionately, protecting the environment, conserving natural resources, reducing hunger, and pursuing peace. This is another crucial reason to urge Jews to shift to plant-based diets. Other important considerations are (1) the increasing abundance of plant-based substitutes with appearances, textures, and tastes very similar to those of meat and other animal products and (2) it is much easier to be strictly kosher on plant-based diets. It is also noteworthy that God’s initial dietary regimen (Genesis 1:29) was vegan and that, according to Rav Kook, the Messianic period will also be vegan, based on Isaiah 11:6 -9, which states that in that future ideal time, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, … the lion shall eat straw like thee ox, …and no one shall harm nor destroy in all of God’s holy mountain.

The bottom line: Society-wide shifts toward vegan diets is essential to ensure a decent, habitable, environmentally sustainable world for future generations. Your help in making this happen will be a crucial game-changer.

The is no planet B, and there is no effective Plan B.

Many thanks for your kind consideration.

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More information can be found at my website, Jewish -Vegan, where I have over 300 articles and links to several of my books, and at the websites of The Center for Jewish Food Ethics (JewishFoodEthics.org ) and Jewish Vegan Life (JewishVeganLife.org}. Both of these organizations are doing splendid work in promoting veganism and working for a better future, so you would find it very valuable to work with them.

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