Dear Jessica,

It is wonderful that you have been a vegetarian for so long, and I am glad you are setting your sights on being a vegan. I am about 90% vegan, but being 90% vegan still means I am a vegetarian, I guess, and I hope one day to make the full transition also. It is easier because my brother is vegan and several of my friends are also, but it is still hard!

I am fortunate that nowadays people don’t question my diet choices. In the 1970s, when I first gave up meat, there were certainly some raised eyebrows, but in 2008 California it is common to be a vegetarian. I guess Sweden is more of a meat-eating country.

Here is my advice to you regarding people who may challenge you on your vegetarianism: don’t engage in an argument. If someone genuinely wants to know, then by all means explain to them your animal rights beliefs. But you don’t have get into a debate about it; when I feel someone wants to be argumentative, I just shrug and say, “I just feel it is the least cruel way to live”. Or, “I feel that it is the diet that is most aligned with my personal beliefs”. And then I walk away.

An important way to remind yourself of your beliefs and the terrible things that go on in slaughterhouses, factory farms and laboratories is to continue to go to websites that promote animal rights, such as www.lcanimal.org (Last Chance for Animals), www.peta.org (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) www.hsus.org (Humane Society of the United States). In Sweden, where you are from, I found http://www.arkangelweb.org/international/sweden.php and www.djurensratt.se . I also recommend reading books about animal issues, like those by John Robbins (Food Revolution and Diet for a New America are two of my favorite books).

One of the tenets of veganism is non-violence, so it is silly to equate all vegans with breaking windows and attacking meat trucks. Certainly there are animal rights activists who have broken down doors to free animals in cages, and I support those actions. I believe that a broken door or broken lab equipment, or even burned buildings, are not as violent as what is happening to the animals when they are experimented on in labs, or held in feedlots. If you knew sentient beings were being tortured behind those doors by that equipment, would you say it is wrong to break in and save them? So, when people talk derisively about animal activists, I would ask them, What have you done to stop suffering?

Be yourself, do what you believe in. Don’t feel a need to explain or defend.

I applaud you.

Alexandra

Dear Lydia,

I am well aware that population would continue to grow for a while if humans continued to reproduce with no more than 2 children per family (replacement rate is technically 2.1 children per family), because the parents are still alive for about 40 years after they have their kids. And grandparents are in the picture too, so for probably 12 years, there would be 3 generations of a family alive, even if each generation only had 2 kids to” replace themselves”. Eventually, however, the population would stabilize, and then hopefully go down. I see the ideal number of people on this planet as 2 billion, well below the 6.8 million people now on earth). I remain an advocate of families with no more than 2 children, and a proponent of the ethic of simply replacing oneself.

I read the link you sent, and I agree that to justify having a kid with “well, it is going to be a kid who cares about the environment and will do good things for the planet” does not make up for the resources that baby will consume in its lifetime. Even though a lot of people encouraged me to have a baby with that line, I would respond with, “Well, actually my smart, educated kid will use up many more resources than a whole family in Kenya, so no, I am not going to bring another person into this world, and there are plenty of kids I can adopt whom I can also educate.”

I feel very strongly about human overpopulation, but if you are suggesting that we should not have any children at all, then I disagree completely. North Americans are among the most wasteful humans on earth, and that no matter how “green” our lifestyle is, it is still undoubtedly more destructive to the planet than someone from a developing country, and I stated that in the video I co-produced, co-wrote and hosted, The Cost of Cool. But telling people not to have kids at all is not going to help stabilize the population in the long run, it will only serve to alienate people from our cause.

Alexandra

I was very disappointed when Dennis dropped out of the presidential race, but I supported him financially when he ran to defend his seat in Congress a couple months later. He is an asset anywhere, and I am so happy that he was re-elected to represent Ohio.

As for Ralph Nader, I supported him in 2000 when he ran, but at the last minute I voted for Al Gore. This year, I think it is folly for him to run. I believe he would better serve this country in more local politics, and that he should then work his way up to running for President. I can see him doing a lot as mayor, or even on a city council. Nader argues that he cant have as much of an impact on a lower level than President, and I completely disagree with him. Really progressive changes usually begin on the local level, and as they gain acceptance from the public they widen out to the national level. Just look at the smoking ban, for example – that started in a few cities and, when the local economy didn’t collapse because of it, was able to spread to more municipalities quickly. Now it is pretty much normal to not be able to smoke in public places, and a lot of other countries have adopted those rules too. So, the local level is where I see Ralph Nader as most effective, but I think he has been on the national stage as a consumer advocate for so long that he believes that would be a step backward.

Thank you for writing,

Alexandra