For Eagles, A Winning Mix Of Wind, Biodiesel, And Solar

Click here to read the full article from the New York Times

Sports arenas and stadiums are all about getting the most number of people to spend the maximum amount of money in the shortest amount of time possible.

Another rendering of Lincoln Financial Field, scheduled to be completed by September 2011.

But a growing number of sports buildings from Boston to Los Angeles are becoming efficient in other ways, by saving energy and reducing waste with solar panels, low-flush toilets and composting.

On Thursday, the Philadelphia Eagles announced perhaps the most ambitious green initiative yet: the installation of about 2,500 solar panels, 80 20-foot-high wind turbines and a generator that runs on natural gas and biodiesel so that Lincoln Financial Field, the Eagles’ home, will be the first stadium capable of generating all its own electricity.

Becoming self-sufficient in energy is the latest in a string of environmentally friendly measures the Eagles have taken since they opened their stadium in 2003. (Coincidentally, the team’s primary color is green.) Since then, many teams have introduced similar efficiency programs, and the four major sports leagues have set up programs to help their teams share information about how to use less energy, reduce waste and save money.

As large as they are, sports stadiums consume just a sliver of the nation’s energy and produce a fraction of its waste. But they are seen and used by millions of Americans every day, which has helped leagues counter the perception that sports teams are wasteful enterprises and in fact can convey socially responsible messages to fans of all political and economic stripes.

The Eagles’ green efforts “underscore the position that we are all very visible and can make a significant effort in our communities,” said Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the N.F.L. “We think it’s smart business and the right thing to do.”

To become self-sufficient, the Eagles have hired Solar Blue, a Florida-based company that will spend more than $30 million to install the solar panels, wind turbines and dual-fuel co-generation plant by the start of next season. Solar Blue chose vertical wind turbines because they produce less noise than bladed ones. They will also capture energy at night. The panels and turbines will meet about 25 percent of the stadium’s energy needs, with the generator covering the remainder, and will be visible to fans in the stadium, on television and to drivers passing by.

A Tale Of Two Herds

Radha Mohan Das with retired cow Karuna at Bhaktivedanta Manor. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

From Juliette Jowit at The Guardian (UK)

"Cows do not belong in fields," said Peter Willes. And with those six words the dairy farmer ignited what could become the defining battle between the decades-old push for cheaper food and the campaign against the factory farming which produces it.

Willes is one of two directors of a company about to announce plans for what would be by far the UK's biggest milk-producing farm: several thousand cows kept, hundreds at a time, inside large barns for the vast majority of the year. Conservative MP and environmental campaigner Zac Goldsmith has called the proposals "squalid" and warned the project would "take farming to a new low".

The application, expected as soon as next week, is a second attempt: the first proposal for building a dairy for 8,100 cows in rural Lincolnshire and keeping them indoors around the clock, throughout the year, was withdrawn in April following public outcry when the vast scale of the Nocton dairy made it a national symbol of and rallying point for critics of the sort of intensive farming which has almost totally separated food and nature.

This week Willes told BBC radio's Farming Today programme the latest plan would be for fewer cows, and they would be allowed outside as a concession to objectors, while other environmental concerns, such as smell from the slurry and traffic through nearby villages, have also been dealt with.

However, documents shown to the Guardian by the developers a week ago still suggest numbers of up to 8,100 cows, which would make it without doubt the biggest dairy farm in the UK – where a typical herd has about 100 – if not in western Europe. The briefing, which could change by the time of the application, also says access to outdoor "loafing areas" will be restricted to 4.5 acres for each "mini herd" of 450 cows, for six to seven hours a day in summer, if the weather is good enough. These areas will not be for grazing and Willes and his co-director David Barnes "don't think many of the cows will want to go out," it adds. For the rest of the time, the mini-herds will be kept in large barns with 8.3 sq metres of concrete and sand for each animal – less than five times the space taken up by an average Holstein-Friesian dairy cow, or, relative to their sizes, roughly equivalent to a human in a standard toilet cubicle.

In these conditions the cows will be milked three times a day – about the rhythm cows choose on farms with on-demand feeding – and are expected to each produce 33 litres a day for 10 months a year. The current national average is 28 litres a day, which is itself nearly double what it was 30 years ago.

Despite the improvements, campaigners have warned they are still unhappy. "The issue really for us isn't so much that big is bad, the issue is the type of cows being used in these very large intensive dairies," said Pat Thomas, director of Compassion in World Farming's anti-Nocton campaign, named "Cows Belong in Fields" in honour of Willes's statement. "When you breed into cows this propensity for high yields you also breed in metabolic problems, and a tendency for mastitis, lameness and infertility, and also early death.

"Nocton is being heralded by its directors as the future of dairy farming. It's a rallying point for us because we don't believe this is the future of British diary farming; we don't believe it benefits the animals, the land, or the farmers." CIWF claims 100 small UK dairy farmers will be put out of business by Nocton, something the developers deny because of huge UK milk imports.

The Farm Animal Welfare Council has said Nocton's plans can provide "satisfactory welfare" (defined by the council as "the legal minimum standard" of welfare) if it is well managed, but there is concern about two previous convictions Willes received at other farms he owns. In 2008 he was fined for polluting a stream in north Devon after a case was brought by the Environment Agency, and in 2005 he had a 12-month conditional discharge after pleading guilty to having four types of antibiotics for cows which are illegal in the UK.

Defending their plans, Nocton's developers argue the super-dairy is big enough to allow them to invest in modern buildings and round-the-clock veterinary care, and by keeping cows indoors they can give them a better diet than they would get from grazing. They also point out no soy protein (associated with cutting down rainforests) will be fed to the cows, while surrounding arable land can be used to grow food for the cows, and benefit from the fertiliser they produce. The digester, used to transform cow slurry into fertiliser, will be different to US designs, so no pollution can escape. Willes said of his previous convictions that the spill was accidental and procedures were changed immediately; the drugs, he said, were prescribed by a vet and imported from Ireland to save money.

Explaining his statement to BBC Radio Humberside that "cows do not belong in fields", Willes compared intensive farming to the progress of humans from caves to cities. "Dairy cows throughout the UK spend at least five to six months of the year in buildings because during the winter months it's too wet to go out into the fields and there's no crops growing for them," continued Willes. "By bringing our cows in for longer, more of the year, we can invest in a system that's far better for the cows."

Standing in the centre ground of this debate are people such as Jon Huxley, associate professor of farm animal medicine at the University of Nottingham. Writing in the October Veterinary Record journal, Huxley and his colleague Martin Green said it is "simplistic and naive to blame the industry" or supermarkets for responding to the huge consumer pressure for cheaper milk. "If … future developments such as higher individual yield, total confinement and the super-dairy are not what we as a society want, we have to vote with our wallet and our feet."

Thomas responds: "If people saw the conditions the cows are in, how unnatural the intensive environment is, they'd know it wasn't right. A five-year-old knows cows belong in fields."

John Vidal

It is an picture of unmitigated bliss. Tulsi and Radika, a pair of beautiful dairy shorthorns, shuffle quietly in knee-deep straw; Gopi chomps a carrot offered by a visitor and Sarasavati and Padmavato murmur beside two calves born a few weeks ago. The Hare Krishna herd of 44 cows and oxen at George Harrison's old mansion in Hertfordshire is as calm as a temple.

Last week the 200 people who live and work in what is now called Bhaktivedanta Manor opened their £2.5m "protected cow" complex. It's been called a "Hilton for cows" and a blueprint for sustainable dairy farming, but the 3,000 sq metre building which is the herd's winter home, is a cross between a nursery, a workhouse and an old cows' home. The cradle-to-grave philosophy of the Hindu group known for its bells and chants ensures that any bovine on the 100-acre farm will not just be treated with respect while it lives, but will not be slaughtered if it is born male, if it falls ill or when it dries up – as happens in most commercial dairy farming.

Tulsi, Radika and co may be the most loved cows in Britain, says farm manager Shyamasundara – birth name Stuart Coyle. There are only four farms he knows that have similar no-kill policies. All the animals have names, they have all the space they want and they live on grass most of the year. The 11 that are lactating are hand-milked while listening to traditional Sanskrit music, the calves get their mothers' milk for their first five months and only then are separated. Only four of the 11 are made pregnant each year; the others are expected to pull ploughs and turn a wheel.

But if any society can be judged by how it treats its old, then the Hare Krishna cows appear to live in the ultimate nanny state. The animals all retire at around 15 – about 60 in human years – after which they are only expected to leave urine and dung on the fields to enrich the soil. And when one dies it can expect flowers and a farewell ceremony.

"It's the best a cow can get," says Shyamasundara. "They are part of our community. They give us their lifeblood in the form of milk and we care for them all their life. Of all the animals in the world the cow is the most important to humans. The cow replaces the role of the mother. You wouldn't bump your mum off if she stopped giving milk."

The 11 cows provide about 1,000 litres of "ahimsa milk" (milk produced without harm to any living being) a week, much of which is used by the group, but the plan is to sell it to the general public next year at £3 a litre. It will be the most expensive cows' milk in Britain but so many people have asked for it, they may increase the size of the herd. "Once the new dairy is working we may build it up. We can see ourselves growing it to 200 cows," he says.

According to Hindu philosophy, man and cow were created side by side; the animals are sentient beings and the relationship between them and people is spiritual not economic. Shyamasundara is not too bothered if the cows are a trifle overweight or don't have a "scientifically balanced" diet because they are being fed "for happiness not profit", he says. For him, the very idea of turning them into milk machines, as proposed by the Nocton dairies for Lincolnshire, is abhorrent.

"There's nothing inherently wrong with 8,000 cows. It's how they live and are cared for that is important. But what is proposed [for Lincolnshire] is the most remote system conceivable, the furthest away from nature that you can go. It's factory farming at its most efficient, where a cow is just a number, a chemical-based machine; not loved, but milked robotically and overseen by computers. It's not how life is meant to be. Life should be happy. The nature of cows is peaceful and living near them is relaxing. The automated callousness of that kind of environment must go into the milk," says Shyamasundara.

It is not at all naive or simplistic to farm the Hare Krishna way, he says, because intensive dairy farming has many hidden costs that are not reflected in the price of milk and is heavily subsidised.

"The £3-a-litre cost is the real price of producing the best milk and caring for animals.

This kind of farming is highly efficient in that it employs people and animals, cares for the land and does not pollute. It can provide food for the masses."

The milk taste test: Can our experts tell the difference?

We asked our panel of experts to compare the Hare Krishna milk with the supermarket version

Sam Clark (chef, Moro restaurant, north London)

Looking at both of these, the colour is hugely different, and tells a big story without even tasting them. You can also see that one of the milks has a much better viscosity. One tastes like a very ordinary low-grade milk; you can feel that the cow didn't go to a lot of effort for that, it's probably over-milked.

The other one tastes like a meal in itself. You really feel it's got a lot of goodness, it tastes three times more concentrated, there's not just a marginal difference here. The flavour lasts for a long time, it doesn't just disappear. People are so used to drinking thin, high-volume milk that they might find it difficult to drink this, they might find it too strong. It's sad that we're so used to a watered-down version.

We make all our own cheese and yoghurt here at Moro, and of course I'd love to use milk like this to produce it. You can tell it'd make a great cheese or yoghurt. I wish my kids could drink this. It tastes like you're on a farm. The flavour is very complex and really stays with you. There's no comparison. This is the real thing.

Rosie Sykes (chef and author)

Number two [the Hare Krishna milk] was much richer and more delicious and generally lovelier. It had an amazing silky texture. I've never drunk milk like that before. It even moved in a different way; it seemed very rich. I could imagine that making anything with it would improve it so much. If you made a white sauce or a custard with that it would be incredible. It was almost like cream, it was so rich. When I first opened it I actually wondered if it was all right, because it almost smelt like it was raw; not cheesy but more smelly than ordinary milk. You can't really smell shop-bought milk unless it's gone bad, but this had a definite smell. Once I tried it I realised it was fine, and instantly thought, my god, it's incredible.

I knew the other milk was normal milk as it seemed thin and lighter and bubbly.

John Vidal (Guardian environment editor)

Oooh it's creamy! It's rich! Mmmmmm! It's delicious! The other one is beige and bland. It's like a Stilton compared with Dairylea.

Interviews by Kate Abbott

Opening The Kimono On Climate Change

From the MacroWikinomics blog of Dan Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams at the Huffington Post

In an economic and political environment where progress on global warming seems to have ground to a halt, climate change advocates in America are wondering how to move forward. A Republican-controlled House surely spells doom for climate change legislation and other measures that could stimulate the green economy. But those who support taking action on climate change should not be discouraged. Around the world there are already hundreds, and probably thousands, of collaborations occurring; everyone from scientists to school children are mobilizing to do something about carbon emissions. And the most forward-looking political leaders recognize that amplifying these grassroots energies could be our best short-term hope for meaningful action.

Already a leader in addressing climate change, the British Columbia government recently lit a fire under Canadian software developers by open sourcing hundreds of its best climate datasets and asking for innovative Web-based and mobile apps that could raise awareness of climate change and inspire action. As an incentive, the government put up $40,000 in prize money.

One of the winning apps allows helps students mange their carbon footprints. Users can track their bathing, eating, transportation and entertainment habits, and the app spits out an impact statement with annualized kg of CO2 equivalents generated. Another app aimed at small and medium size businesses, enables business owners to measure their company's emissions and then benchmark their score against peers in industry.

Executives with the B.C. Ministry of Citizen Services tell us that collaborations like these provide a low-cost way to tap new ideas and skills in pursuit of the government's climate goals. In fact, the initiative cost BC taxpayers very little. The government contributed its data. Private sector partners contributed the funds for the prize money. Software coders and local businesses provided their labor and ingenuity. And none of the initiatives spurred on by the contest require new rules or new legislation to move forward.

Should other governments be following BC's lead?

To be sure, most climate change experts generally agree that the surest way to accelerate action on climate change boils down to simple economics: if you want discourage carbon intensive activities, make pursuing them more expensive. Putting a price on carbon (through a cap and trade system or a straightforward carbon tax), for example, would help usher in a new mind-set among consumers, investors, farmers, innovators and entrepreneurs that in time will make a big difference. Make people and businesses pay the full environmental costs of what they produce and consume and suddenly every investment and purchasing decision made in retail stores, financial markets and small and large companies around the world would be made in pursuit of the least-cost low-carbon option.

Weaving carbon emissions into every business decisions would drive innovation and deployment of clean technologies to a whole new level, and make investments in energy efficiency much more attractive. Industries would need to invent and adopt new technologies that boost efficiency to limit their emissions. And consumers would curtail their own carbon footprints as the prices they pay for things like air travel and exotic fruits begin to reflect their true costs to the planet.

However, while it is true that centrally managed taxes, credits and incentives provide important levers for steering society toward low-carbon solutions, these are not the only levers. And while Congress is unlikely to take action, there is no shortage of valuable initiatives that can both help us better understand the causes and consequences of climate change and marshal the knowledge and talent required to advance sensible solutions. In fact, everyone - including climate skeptics - stands to benefit from initiatives that, like the BC apps contest, make information that was once inaccessible and hard to understand available to policymakers and the broader public.

Today, insufficient information about which economic activities--and, by extension, which communities, companies and nations--are contributing most to climate change undermines society's ability to target remedial actions and assign responsibility for correcting damaging behaviors. The right amount of transparency in such cases can change perceptions, reveal new factors that alter the stakes, or compel other participants to accept the need for and legitimacy of new regulations.

Getting our hands on comparable CO2 emission data for all industrial facilities and other human activities such as logging, fishing or mining, would be a goldmine for scientists, policy-makers, environmentalists, investors and ordinary citizens. Even better would be the ability to measure the impact of those activities on our climate in the same way companies apply financial metrics to their investment decisions to understand the bottom line impact.

We're not there yet. But over the past few years, a cornucopia of initiatives has emerged to make climate change information more accessible to the public and key institutions, including the investment community, regulators, and government purchasing organizations. Whether mapping the world's oil spills, simulating the effects of sea-level rises, tracking mammals on the verge of extinction or showing national per capita CO₂ emissions, the initiatives tend to emphasize the use of bold visual formats help communicate complex phenomena in a way that both scientists and laymen can easily grasp.

Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA), for example, maps the CO2 emissions of over 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies across the world. The data for current and planned installations is easily accessible through a Google Map on the project's website as well as through an API. "Our role is to translate" says CARMA's lead researcher, David Wheeler. "We take reams of data which are available out there and translate them into an easily accessible format. There are few other institutions that have the incentive to do this - most scientists don't as it doesn't affect their publication records, and policy people are either too busy or not sufficiently technical to do the work." CARMA's work is particularly important as the energy sector is the single largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, at around 65% of the world total.

The power of the platform became apparent one day when Wheeler received a call from a friend at the World Bank inquiring about a plant being built in Mmamabula, Botswana. It turned out that the installation would be a major polluter, which piqued Wheeler's interest - what else is the World Bank funding? Scrolling over to India he found plans for another coal plant, the Tata Ultra Mega, which ultimately would become one of the biggest emitters of CO2 in the world. Wheeler's finding led to a large campaign by the not-for-profit Environmental Defense Fund to institute stricter standards at the World Bank. The following year new legislation was put in place to limit the types of projects that would be eligible for funding.

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) targets people with lots of money and enormous influence on the companies in which they invest. Institutional investors--the big mutual and pension funds--are a critical audience in the effort to accelerate business action on climate change. After all, they pretty much own the economy. Paul Dickinson, the organization's founder, has calculated that access to capital will become a powerful lever for encouraging companies to reduce carbon once a critical mass of investors and lenders starts attaching risk premiums to companies with climate liabilities and those without sound carbon management plans. The CDP aims to speed the transition by helping the investment community better understand how companies are positioned in relation to the risks and commercial opportunities associated with the transition to a low-carbon economy.

CDP's analysis is based on information it receives from some 2500 private and public organizations, including many of the largest corporations in the world. Less altruistic operators might have chosen to keep the data proprietary and make money by selling access to institutional subscribers. But Dickson thinks the public value of exposing the data to a broader audience exceeds the commercial potential. "Our goal is to apply the intelligence of the world to the climate change problem. Anyone that wants to look at the data can go to the website and download it."

Scientists are getting on board too. Greg Asner and Carlos Souza, two scientists at the forefront of forest science, are now working with Google to gather petabytes of historical and present satellite imagery. This information will help uncover the location and rates of deforestation around the world and allow colleagues to pitch in on research that will determine the links with climate change.

The evidence accumulated to date is already having an impact. We now know, for example, that emissions from tropical deforestation are comparable to the emissions of all of the European Union, and greater than those of all the cars, trucks, planes, ships and trains on the planet. And thanks to the work of economists such as Nicholas Stern, we also know that protecting the world's standing forests is one of the most cost-effective ways to cut carbon emissions and mitigate climate change.

Of course climate deniers, and those who see the world's attempt to control climate change as a threat to their business interests, aren't necessarily interested in the truth. They will continue to unleash their armies of lobbyists to water down policy, spread bogus science, and block innovations that might threaten their business models. But the best way to counter back-room lobbying and misinformation is not to hunker down as some climate scientists have in the wake of the climategate scandal, but to foster greater transparency and open debate around the risks of not acting now.

Tim Palmer, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford whose current work focuses on quantifying and managing the uncertainties surrounding climate change, suggests that everyone concerned by the climate change issue, particularly those who are skeptical, ask themselves exactly how large the probability of serious climate change should be before we should start cutting emissions? 0.1%, 1%, 10%, 50%? "Considered this way," says Palmer "it's clear that the black and white dichotomy between the 'climate believers' versus 'climate skeptics' is indeed a false one."4 And if you happen to be one of those people who believe that action is merited today, there is no point waiting for the political gridlock gripping the country to recede. Thanks to Web, we have the most powerful platform ever for people to learn about climate change, inform others and self-organize.

Follow Anthony Williams on Twitter: www.twitter.com/adw_tweets

Follow Don Tapscott on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dtapscott

Take Back Control Of Your Food!

Click here to learn more!

There are 2 million farmers and 300 million eaters in the United States. Between them stand a handful of corporations who control how food gets from one side to the other.

December 8 is the last of five public workshops held by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the USDA to examine whether a handful of food and farming companies may be exercising illegal monopoly control over the food system. You’re probably well aware that corporations have far too much control over what we eat, how it’s grown, where it’s available, what it costs, and so much else. Most of what matters about why our food isn’t healthier and safer is the direct result of the stranglehold that just a few corporations have on every link of the food chain.

So, this government investigation is a really big deal for the future of what and how we eat — and you can be a part of the outcome. We need to show USDA and DOJ that all of us working for food justice — and all of us who eat! — reject big business’ control of our food system and that we demand strong action from the investigation.

Ready to take action?! Go to DC on December 8 and speak out to DOJ about justice in the food system! If you’re too far away, submit an online comment! Use the resources on this site to help.

We’ll be updating and adding new info and pages regularly in the next couple of weeks, so check back often! Make a comment about what other info would be useful!

Well's Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Special thanks to Caitanya Mangala for the link!

Celebrate Thanksgiving with vegetarian and vegan dishes from some of your favorite chefs and cookbook authors. Find all the recipes from Well’s Vegetarian Thanksgiving series below or go to the Well blog to learn more about the series. New dishes will be added daily until Thanksgiving Day.

As Glaciers Melt, Science Seeks Data On Rising Seas

Click here to read the full article from the New York Times

The scientists say that a rise of even three feet would inundate low-lying lands in many countries, rendering some areas uninhabitable. It would cause coastal flooding of the sort that now happens once or twice a century to occur every few years. It would cause much faster erosion of beaches, barrier islands and marshes. It would contaminate fresh water supplies with salt.

In the United States, parts of the East Coast and Gulf Coast would be hit hard. In New York, coastal flooding could become routine, with large parts of Queens and Brooklyn especially vulnerable. About 15 percent of the urbanized land in the Miami region could be inundated. The ocean could encroach more than a mile inland in parts of North Carolina.

Abroad, some of the world’s great cities — London, Cairo, Bangkok, Venice and Shanghai among them — would be critically endangered by a three-foot rise in the sea.

Climate scientists readily admit that the three-foot estimate could be wrong. Their understanding of the changes going on in the world’s land ice is still primitive. But, they say, it could just as easily be an underestimate as an overestimate. One of the deans of American coastal studies, Orrin H. Pilkey of Duke University, is advising coastal communities to plan for a rise of at least five feet by 2100.

“I think we need immediately to begin thinking about our coastal cities — how are we going to protect them?” said John A. Church, an Australian scientist who is a leading expert on sea level. “We can’t afford to protect everything. We will have to abandon some areas.”

Animal Rights, Vegetariaism, and Karma-Free Living

A great interview from our friend, the world-renowned vegetarian chef extraordinare Kurma Dasa.

Click here for Kurma's website, Cooking With Kurma, featuring tons of great and transcendentally delicious recipes.

Claudette Vaughan recently interviewed me for the excellent website Abolitionist-Online - a Voice for Animal Rights

Here's the interview, serialised.

Transcendental Higher Life: Kurma Dasa from the Hare Krishna’s Interviewed on animal rights, vegetarianism and karma-free living

Kurma Dasa is one of the world’s leading proponents of pure vegetarian cuisine. Dubbed “Australia’s Vegetarian Guru,” Kurma has been writing cookbooks, teaching students and hosting internationally broadcast TV shows for over thirty-five years. Kurma’s innovative cooking continues to shake off the outdated notion that vegetarian food is lackluster.

We at the Abolitionist are great fans of his because every recipe book works – like magic! Even some of the supposedly complicated recipes like breads are easy to follow with Kurma’s recipes and every recipe is a success.

All Kurma’s dishes are consistent with the concept of Indian Ayurveda – this means no meat derived products, no fish, eggs, garlic, onions or mushrooms. Vegan soy milk can easily be substituted when required by a recipe. His cookbooks won’t let you down!

Claudette: "What is the Hare Krishna’s contribution to animal rights?"

The Hare Krishnas have contributed enormously to the rights of animals ever since the inception of the Krishna Consciousness Movement over 40 years ago, specifically in the following ways: distributing literally millions of books in over 38 languages, encouraging people to become vegetarians; establishing farming communities all over the world where animals are allowed to peacefully live out their natural lives; and cooking and distributing tens of millions of plates of pure vegetarian food in all our restaurants, temples and festivals.

Claudette: "We fight for one right for God’s animals and that is: Animals have a natural lifespan that should not be truncated by humans and they have a right to live. What’s a Hare Krishna’s understanding Kurma das?"

We agree. All creatures are sons and daughters of God. So the animals are our brothers and sisters. We have no right to kill and eat our brothers and sisters.

Claudette: "I think a Hare Krishna devotee believes fully that animals have souls. There’s no argument there – is that correct?"

Correct. All living things that exhibit the six symptoms of life - birth, growth, development, reproduction, dwindling and death - are alive. Life is the symptom that the soul, the living force, is present, in all these varieties of life. It is more accurate to say they ARE souls, living out their lifespan in the dress of whatever body they may inhabite this time around, whether it be plant, insect, bird, aquatic, beast or human form.

Claudette: "Tell us about your cooking books because they are all veg, very easily adaptable to vegan, no eggs etc."

I have written four cookbooks. My first, Great Vegetarian Dishes, was written in 1989 and is a bit of a classic, having been re-printed seven times, and still in the shops. My next book was Cooking with Kurma, then came Quick Vegetarian Dishes, and lastly (for now) Vegetarian World Food. The recipes are all strictly vegetarian. There are now close to 1 million of my books in print.

Vegans, who don't indulge in any dairy or animal-origin food find the recipes very easy to adapt, almost without exception.

Claudette: "Did your cooking talents emerge out of all those wonderful Hare Krishna Sunday feasts?"

Yes, and also my 10-year stint in the kitchen at Gopal's Restaurant in Swanston Street, Melbourne, where I started cooking seriously for 500 patrons a day throughout the 1980's.

Claudette: "What’s your latest work called and how did it come about?"

My latest work is a new version of a classic Hare Krishna Cookbook and guide to Karma-free living entitled "The Higher Taste".We distributed over 3.7 million copies of the first edition. The new version not only has over 50 of my recipes, but also has the latest information on important subjects as health and a meatless diet, the hidden cost of meat on the environment, factory farming and compassion.

Claudette: "What animals are you particularly close to?"

I am particularly fond of cows. I regard the cow as my mother, and feel very blessed when I can have her company.

Claudette: "Tell us about your Vegi-Cards".

The Vegi-Cards are two sets of 52 gorgeous, laminated recipe cards with full-colour photos in sturdy boxes. One set is a selection of quick recipes, and the other is a selection from my second book 'Cooking with Kurma'

Claudette: "Many animal rights people eat at the Hare Krishnas ‘Food For Life’ van especially here in Sydney where the devotees are sensitive and cook with vegetable oil for us to eat. What’s the philosophy behind feeding humans veg food."

'Food' infers vegetarian food. Partaking of body parts and organs hardly qualifies as food for humans. Specifically, non-vegetarian animals like dogs and cats and tigers are equipped physiologically to eat meat, they require it, and they accrue no karma in eating it.

Humans, however, are designed to be vegetarian. We can live long, natural healthy lifes eating vegetarian food. Eating animal food leads to disease, shortens our life and pollutes our bodies. As a direct result it dulls our finer perceptions and leads to a cruel mentality. Furthermore, eating animals is bad karma. Those that regularly eat animals will have to become animals in future lives and be eaten themselves.

Click here for Part 2