Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California hosted an International Vipassana Teachers Conference June 10-13. Before the conference began, DVA learned that the teachers were planning to discuss climate change/global warming, how to reflect the urgency of climate change in their teachings, and how to encourage students to get involved. Concerned that the enormous impact of factory farming on global warming would either be ignored or under emphasized, we contacted the organizer to express our concerns. In addition we created a DVA fact sheet showing the data accumulated by the United Nations that factory farming is a main cause of climate change/global warming. We also requested that a DVA member and contributor and Amazon best-selling author Will Tuttle, of The World Peace Diet, be allowed to present to the conference.

Although our request for Will to present at the conference was not granted, the conference did talk about factory farming as a main contributor to climate change, mentioned Dharma Voices for Animals, and made available the DVA fact sheets to the more than fifty teachers from around the world. Although we are disappointed that animal agriculture as a main cause of climate change was not the focus of the discussion, we are happy that some attention was paid to the animals that suffer so needlessly as we irreparably damage our environment raising them for food.

Thanks to Will Tuttle for making himself available.