The Future Is in Our Hands – The Year 2020 in Review

Welcome to our show, “The Future Is in Our Hands – The Year 2020 in Review.” What a year 2020 has been! It may forever be remembered as the year of COVID-19. As of December 2020, over 75.7 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported around the world. Pandemics have come and gone in the past, proving that we humans are a highly resilient species. However, the confluence of an insidious pandemic, a locust plague of biblical proportions, and an unusually high number of climate-related natural disasters such as we experienced this year are unlike anything we have seen before. We have been amply forewarned of such events. Expert bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have indicated for years that most emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, meaning originating from animals, and that our livestock factories and wet markets are ticking time bombs for pandemics. As for climate change, scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades. Unfortunately, repeated pleas by climate scientists in the past decades have largely been ignored. So, what are we to do? In trying times such as these, humanity has often turned to the enlightened Ones for answers. One who walks among us today is Supreme Master Ching Hai. For decades, She has tirelessly and compassionately advocated a panacea for virtually all ills on Earth. It hinges on the fact that practically all our Earthly woes are the result of the human habit of consuming animal products. Fortunately, even before COVID-19, a rising wave of conscious consumption and veganism has been sweeping the globe. We pray that we will not one day look back at the year 2020 with regret that we did not take to heart the hidden message of COVID-19 to forgo animal-based food, but rather, will celebrate 2020, as the year that humanity awoke and pivoted towards a resplendent vegan world and Golden Era.