Open Letter to the Major Environmental Organizations,

to the rest of the climate and eco-social movements, to science disseminators and media, and to all other social-political actors,

demanding that they stop silencing the main responses to the climate and ecological crises:

1st, the transition to plant-based diets, and 2nd, deep degrowth.

“Humanity” and all of life on Earth are facing the greatest crisis and crossroads in history, a climatic and ecological one, which poses a possible eco-social collapse and a threat of extinction in this century according to numerous institutional reports, in a scenario of galloping acceleration of processes beyond all expectations, where in 2024 we have already exceeded the 1.5º average increase in temperatures proposed as a limit for this century, we are on track to exceed 3 or even 6 degrees, a scenario of extinction where all the world’s governments, including those on the left, look away, with measures that are at best cosmetic and at worst fanatically opposed to everything that could lessen the already inevitable climatic catastrophe that is coming: increase in food products of animal origin, fossil fuels, extractivism and extreme overconsumption, that is, everything that leads us to the imminent abyss. In the words of Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, we have “our foot on the accelerator on the highway to climate hell” and extinction.

Faced with this situation, we have, on the one hand, a rise in sheer far-right climate denialism, and on the other, environmental, climate and eco-social groups that silence the problems and essential measures, what we can call an “ecologists’ denialism” that is even more dangerous because it prevents society from knowing the problem and the solutions, and co-opts the space for a true revolution and change. It is silenced that the essential measures to respond to the crisis are, firstly, the transition to plant-based diets and secondly, deep degrowth across all consumption, extractivism, production, transport, urbanization and land occupation.

This is recognised by over a hundred institutional reports, and it was recently recognised by one of the most respected climate scientists in the world, Johan Rockström, who said loud and clear in an interview with El Pais that the transition to plant-based diets is the most urgent measure and comes before the energy transition and circular economy. The IPCC itself recognises the utmost importance of both issues, diet change and degrowth, as the main measures to combat climate change, as seen in the initial leaked version of the summary of the 2021 report, which was ultimately censored due to the influence of the food and fossil fuel lobbies. (See point C4.4 on page 20 on diet and points C4.2, 4.3 and 4.5 on page 20 on degrowth, which emphasises that demand-based options, i.e. diet change and consumption reduction, could reduce emissions by between 50 and 80%, being the most powerful measures.)

This is because, as over a hundred of top-level reports state, the Animal Exploitation Food Industry is the leading cause of planetary boundaries being exceeded, including Climate Change, mass extinctions, the destruction of forests and oceans that regulate the Earth’s climate and are the main solution to climate change, as well as global pollution, water depletion, health problems and human inequality, food insecurity and extreme animal abuse. This industry consumes 80% of the world’s agriculture, more than a third of the habitable surface, and is the main source of deforestation, as well as the devastation of more than 55% of the oceans, of which only 0.5 to 3% is protected and even in the protected areas of the EU itself, with very few exceptions, the most destructive human activity is allowed: trawling. According to a report by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs itself (which has been silenced by media and government alike) meat has 4 times more impacts than commercial aviation and the transition of diets would be between 4 and 40 times more effective than energy efficiency and circular economy.

The type of livestock farming with the greatest impact on climate change and biodiversity is extensive livestock, as clearly stated in the scientific consensus literature, but extensive livestock is nevertheless systematically defended by the bulk of environmental movements, which act at the service of the livestock lobby and its scientific misinformation. Animal Exploitation Food Industries are the major force behind 5 of the 6 Planetary Boundaries that we currently exceed, (out of a total of 9): CC, Biodiversity, Land use, Water, Nitrogen and phosphorous; the sixth, Novel entities, is linked to hundreds of thousands of chemical substances, most of them only indirectly linked to fossil fuels, except plastic, pointing to a need to degrow well beyond fossil fuels per se.

The aberrant animal slavery thus aims to sustain a biocidal, ecocidal and genocidal food system, as it is also the main source of human health problems and inequality. The nearly one hundred reports mentioned agree that the vegan diet would be the most beneficial, both for the ecological and climatic crisis, and for human health, and, obviously, for the non-human animals exploited and exterminated. The IPCC considers the vegan diet three times more effective than the Mediterranean diet for reducing GHG emissions.

In relation to “Climate Change”, environmental movements insistently call for an “end to fossil fuels”, but nothing is said about what would be necessary to do to put an end to them. It is not feasible to do so with the energy transition, due to its well-known limitations (a large part of today’s industry and transport cannot operate with it), its unsustainable production and recycling (depending on rare materials and fossil fuels), its serious environmental impact, its slowness and its very high cost, being a very partial measure and above all a new business and a Greenwashing strategy. The only effective way to end fossil fuels is the aforementioned deep degrowth in all sectors of consumption, production, extraction and waste: urbanization and housing, transportation and manufacturing (household goods, clothing, appliances, and new technologies).

Such deep degrowth cannot consist of a couple of cosmetic patches, such as having an electric car and renewable energy at home, it must be associated with a deep systemic change in the dominant and industrialized ways of life, which privileged people in the global north must initiate, learning from the numerous indigenous communities of the earth (whose essential role the UN increasingly recognizes), towards a terrestrial decolonization. In relation to this, it is also not acceptable to continue avoiding the taboo of overpopulation, which we must put on the table from radically democratic, anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-ableist, eco-transfeminist and LGBTI-queer intersectional perspectives, questioning reproductivist heteropatriarcal normativity.

These measures can be implemented by individuals without waiting for the unlikely event that governments and companies of the current lobbyocracy act. But individual and collective action is impossible if the core of the problem and the solutions are silenced and unknown. Just as it is unacceptable that these key issues are absent in the demands to governments and the denounciation of companies and billionaire elites.

These issues and no other must be, LOUD AND CLEAR, at the epicentre of all public debate and campaign, across the entire spectrum of the eco-social struggle.

Some time ago, more than 100 environmental organisations in Spain denounced that the Big environmental organisations have left us alone in the fight against the photovoltaic and wind power stations that are ravaging our territory, destroying it. Today, it is urgent to denounce even more forcefully that these organisations justify the activities that most threaten a livable future, the most damaging to the Earth and all its inhabitants.

In the Report “Hidden at First Sight” on the livestock-food lobby in eco-social movements, the seriousness and complexity of this problem and its motivations are outlined, which have to do with the fatal alliance of these movements with the “countryside”, which has led the movement to defend the most toxic of industries, extensive livestock farming, and to the fear of touching the taboo of diet in order not to lose members and subsidies, as well as to human supremacism and speciesism, and the lack of willingness of activists in rich countries to question their privileges, attitudes that are rampant in almost all sectors of eco-social movements, in which a new deep intersectionality is urgently needed across social, ecological and anti-speciesist struggles, demonstrating that they are inseparable. Furthermore, although extensive livestock farmers dominate the environmental movement with their discourse, it cannot be said that there is reciprocity because farmers, with rare exceptions, tend to reject any serious environmentalism.

We demand that all large and small environmental, climate and social organizations, as well as scientific disseminators, media, and all other socio-political actors, abandon this criminal denialism and silencing, and stop hiding or minimising these issues, which are the key measures in the face of the greatest crisis in history, and cannot be silenced for a single minute more.

We urge society to mobilize against this silence and invite the organisations and people to adhere to this letter, with a united call to action.

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You can send your support endorsing this letter as individual or institution by writing to rebeldesindignadas@gmail.com

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Signing entities:

Rebeldes Indignadas

Metabody Insitute

Salvemos Mojácar y el Levante Almeriense

Salvemos Las Rozas

Asociacion Transdisciplinar Reverso

VegAnarQueer

FEUMVE

Valencia Animal Save