UnchainedTV: How Vegans Won at Oxford!

0:00 What an exciting show we have for you. The famed Oxford Union, a 201-year-old debating organisation connected with prestigious Oxford University in England, recently voted for veganism. That's right, people, they had a debate with four people opposing veganism, four people in favour of veganism, and we're going to talk to one of the winning team members, Dr. Silas Rao. Now, it looks very, very posh and very civilised, but this debate got down and dirty.

0:40 It got really ugly, actually. A high point, Dr. Silas Rao, the gentleman you are going to hear from today, just take a look at his outfit, and that's not just style. There's a tremendous significance to what he was wearing when he tackled this extraordinary, extraordinary stage. Mind you, the likes of Albert Einstein have debated at the Oxford Union. Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth II, we understand that Richard Nixon finally admitted he made a big boo-boo with Watergate at the Oxford Union.

1:21 This is no just debate. This is the debate of all debates, and the vegans won. We are going to hear from Dr. Silas Rao in one second, but first, why don't we start by listening to Dr. Rao at the Oxford Union debate. We want to thank Plant Based News for providing this video to us so we can bring it to you on Unchained TV. It is undeniable that human civilisation has adversely impacted life support systems on the planet. Scientists have identified nine planetary boundaries that we must stay within for the sustainability of life on Earth.

2:04 At the moment, we have transgressed six of them, and any one of these transgressions is enough to kill life as we know it on this planet. The good news is that when we go vegan, we help resolve all six of them. That's the power we have as individuals to reverse our existential crisis. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of ecological destruction because it uses 37% of the ice-free land area of the planet just to graze animals, while bottom trawling an area of the ocean floor the size of South America every year.

2:52 Wow, I just want to say absolutely brilliant arguments, and I do also want to say that the other side engaged in what I would call really lame and even just low. For a classy institution, it was a very low-class argument on the other side. Dr. Rao, tell us all about this experience. No, it was actually amazing. The fact that they were going low, they were basically appealing to fear. They were appealing to, do you really want to change, that sort of emotion.

3:35 On the one side, we were dealing with facts and science, and the anti-vegan side was dealing with emotions and culture. Of course, the students saw through it, so they voted for us. To me, it was an amazing experience. The history of it, we spent a couple hours before the debate just having dinner, getting photographs, and then going through the facility, looking at the pictures of Albert Einstein and Mother Teresa and all the people who were there before us. They have all these pictures there.

4:16 It's, you can see the history. It's old buildings and very well done, actually. The library is beautiful. What was the significance of your outfit? The significance of my outfit was they wanted it all to be a black tie dinner. It's a black tie. Everyone has to come in black tie. I said, I would like to wear my traditional Indian dress. Is that okay? They said, okay, that's fine. I wanted to wear my traditional Indian dress to show that this is actually a worldwide movement, and we are now all of us coming together from around the world to say, let's fix this together.

5:01 Our team, if you look at the team who spoke for the proposition, the vegan side, I was from India. Disha Hegde is originally from India, but she grew up in the UK. She was born in the UK. Joey Carbstrong is from Australia, I think. I'm not so sure, but he's from Australia or something. And Dr. Chidi Nwagwa is from Nigeria, originally. So we were all from all over the world, but the other side was mostly just the UK. The idea behind the dress was, I mean, I actually had promised my colleagues that I had gone to Indian Institute of Technology before that in Madras, and they'd given me the shawl as a present.

5:52 And I promised them that I'd wear it during my debate. I want to go straight to what I would consider, and we've got callers lined up. So thank you for your patience, callers. We'll get to you in a second. But we've got to establish what the issue is we're talking about here. Again, we're talking about a debate at perhaps the most prestigious debate club in the world, the Oxford Union, 6,000 members. This is 201 years old, and it was originally established because there was a perceived suppression of debate and challenging authority at Oxford University. So they created this debate club to give themselves the power to speak.

6:34 And so the idea that veganism, to go vegan or not go vegan, would be debated at this incredible forum is a victory in itself. But I was truly shocked by the arguments of the opposition and embarrassed for them. Let me play one particularly disturbing, if I have to say, argument or debate. There's a moment where Joey Carbstrong, who is for veganism, he's a big vegan influencer, speaks. And then Katie Hopkins comes on. And, well, you're just going to have to see it for yourself.

7:17 It's more like a perpetual genocide, because in this case, the victims cannot fight back. They are truly gentle, fragile, and helpless beings, and humans capitalise in every twisted, conceivable way off of their helplessness. And their only crime is being born into the wrong species. It's for these reasons that I truly believe, and I hope you do too, that the house and the world should go vegan. Thank you. It's the Holocaust. You eat a cow. It's the Holocaust. You murderers. He has spent his life going around abattoirs, watching animals die. And that's what vegan people call a hobby.

7:59 Do you remember with or from COVID? They died with or from? Linda McCartney. She died with or from being a vegan. Death is what happens to you when you're a vegan. And they lie. They lie. They lie straight to your faces because they have a certain dress style, or they have a certain doctorate, or they have about one follower on Instagram. They lie to you. Nothing that they tell you is true. They even lie to themselves. The Bible says lying is one of the seven deadly sins.

8:41 The Bible says if you lie, it is because you hate yourself. And that is true of every single vegan I know. They hate themselves so much, they will only suck on quinoa for sustenance. And my question to people who say that being vegan isn't an end point. It's a journey, like they're on the bloody X Factor. You know where they want that journey to end up, don't you good people? They want you sat in the dark, sucking on the ass end of a locust. They may sell you the journey like it's an attractive thing, but the end point of your journey is not attractive.

9:27 Point of information, who asked? Yes, sir. I am a slave to desire, darling. What do you have to offer? Or is that too meaty for you? I so support vegans. I love you. I want you to join together with your miserable little friends who are all short. And I want you. I want you to be happy together, sucking on your locusts. I want you to be happy. But allow me, sir, the same tolerance and respect by allowing me to sit nuzzling, eating a whole cow from head to tail as I do on a daily basis.

10:11 I think she has done more to promote veganism than any person I have ever met. And of course, she lost. Vegans win the Oxford Union debate. And some of the comments, my gosh, is she's auditioning for the Globe? That's a funny one. Oh, my God. How can that crazy woman be allowed to even speak? How embarrassing. Is she insane? You know, is she doing King Lear? What was your reaction? Before we go to the callers, what was your reaction to this woman who is apparently a very well-known TV pundit in Britain?

10:52 Right. No, my reaction was, my God, you don't have anything. You don't have anything real. You're basically appealing to fear and emotions, right? So after the debate, when she lost, she actually apologised to me. She said, sorry if I hurt you. And I realised, I mean, she was basically putting on an act. So and she was appealing to the basic instincts of people. I looked at the girl in the corner. The girl in the corner of Katie Hopkins' video, she represents us.

11:33 So you can see her reactions to everything she's doing. So, I mean, when she was saying it, she was attacking all of us. So to me, it was, you know, this is the way it is. Fine. I cannot react. And I was just letting it go. But after she lost, she was down. I mean, she was crestfallen. You know, she was like, oh, my God. She had promised her audience that she's going to win. Oh, wow. Well, you're a better person than I am, because if I had seen her after the debate, I would have given her a piece of my mind. You know, this is not a joke.

12:13 Animals being tortured to death and dying is not a joke. Wow. Shame on you. Let me say it. All right. We got callers. Paige in Los Angeles. Your question or thought for Dr. Rao. Yes, I have been a devoted disciple of Dr. Rao since 2018. And I mean that in the loveliest sense. And we're both working for our children and your grandchild. They're our bosses. With your pinky promise to your granddaughter and my promise to my daughter to do everything possible. Does this woman have children? Does she realise that there are future generations that we what we've done to the planet is what is causing the climate crisis and the dissolving of the planet?

13:04 Does she realise that? This is my question. And Dr. Rao, how do you stay motivated and keep going? And what do you feel are your intended results from this debate? Thank you so much. Yeah, for me, the debate was a turning point. The debate was like a mainstream affirmation of what we have been saying. So this is the students from Oxford. And they actually came to me after the debate. And they told me that the speeches from the proposition side gave them a lot of hope that there is a future on this planet for them.

13:44 Because a lot of young people are feeling depressed that they don't really belong, that we are all going to die off. I mean, these are the stories we've been telling them. And I really think that we as adults have a responsibility to start telling positive stories to our children, that they shouldn't feel this. I really, when Glenn Mercer said that there are six macronutrients, and he added the sixth macronutrient as optimism. I think he's right. Without that positivity, we don't want to live. I mean, you have to have that positivity. So this is why optimism is the sixth macronutrient.

14:30 And so we have to give that to our children. You know, no one told me horror stories when I was going to college. No one told me horror stories when I was in school, saying you're all going to die off. But that's what our kids are being subjected to right now. You know, the younger generation going through university or schools, because it's all climate, climate, climate, you know, and oh, my God, we're going to die. And they don't do anything about it. So they're all sitting around saying, you know, what can we do? What is anyone doing about this? And here we come along and say, actually, you can solve this problem. By just going vegan, you force them to solve this problem. And that, I think, was a very positive message that we gave them.

15:14 And they took it. All right. Well, let me get to the next caller. We've got Nilo Farr from Dallas, Texas, on the phone. Your question for Dr. Silas Rao, founder of Climate Healers, and the winner, along with his incredible team, of the Oxford Union debate. Hi, Dr. Rao. How were you and your team able to convince the Oxford Union to support the motion this house would go vegan? Was it ethics, health, or sustainability? And, you know, we saw the short clip where one of your team members gave a very powerful ethical argument.

15:56 And, you know, obviously, you're the leader in the sustainability global health project. What do you think made you win the house for vegan? I really think it was all of them. You know, because there were three. I made the environmental case. And then Dr. Chidi made the health case. And Joey Carbstrong made the ethical case. And I think all three of us, we put our case forward. You know, it was basically facts and telling them this is what is really going on. And they could sense that the other side was just saying it's inconvenient for us.

16:41 It's going to have major changes in your life if you do this. And we're going to take away your cream for your coffee if you vote for this. It was all that kind of tactic, right? And the students and the Oxford Union basically said, that's OK. We want to make this change happen. Well, guess what? You can still have cream in your coffee. You can have soy milk. You can have rice milk. You can have almond milk. You can have hemp milk. You can have, you know, oat milk. I mean, there's a gazillion. I had coffee this morning. I'm not there with you, Dr. Rao, who drinks only water yet. I had coffee this morning with soy milk. And look, here I am. No sacrifice.

17:23 I want to play some of those arguments in a second. Let's get to our third caller, and then we'll play some arguments. Annie in Sherman Oaks, your question or thought for Dr. Rao? Hi, yes. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for having me, Dane. And Dr. Rao, love and adore you. Everybody should join climatehealers.org. Incredible, incredible life, world changer. Dr. Rao, how did you manage not to laugh or address? I would have told her, yes, drama you're doing to this. You know, she acted like a loony, but also a big drama queen. The sins and everything, the suckling and all that. It really applies to us humans suckling a cow's milk.

18:04 How did you contain yourself? What about the sins she's talking about? The rapes, the murders, the tortures of the animals. These are, oh, if you're so religious woman, why don't you address those? You guys did an amazing job. You, you know, Dr. Chitty and Joey Carstrong. Love you all, and thank you for what you've done. All right, Dr. Rao, and then we're going to play another clip. Yeah, I saw that whatever they were saying is really about themselves. It's not about us. It was an argument they're having about themselves. Like when she says they lie, actually, she was lying. And she said that.

18:46 And she said that lying is one of the seven deadly sins. Actually, it is not. That's a lie. You're right. You are right. Lying is not one of the seven deadly sins. What is it? Gluttony, lust. I mean, there's a bunch of them, but it doesn't include lying. She was wrong about that. Yeah, it's pride, envy, gluttony, sloth, lust, anger, and greed. So those are the seven deadly sins. And she said she eats a cow from head to tail every day. Come on, that's a lie. You can't do that. There's so many things that she was doing that was obviously... She was talking about herself, but trying to project it on others.

19:30 Well, yeah, and that's exactly what people who are pathological liars, and I'm not saying she is, but pathological liars do that. Whatever they're doing, they push it on somebody else, and they accuse somebody else of doing it. And it's smoke and mirrors. It's to take away the attention from their own lives. Psychologists will tell you that. All right, let's hear some of the positive pro-vegan comments. I want to start with, well, they were all strong in different ways, but Joey Armstrong, which he's a very, very well-known social media influencer who speaks passionately and eloquently about veganism. Here's what he had to say. Millions of animals massacred, and for what? A burger, a ham sandwich, a chicken wing?

20:14 I bet you probably couldn't remember what you ate for lunch last week. That's how little it meant to you. But for the animals, it was all they had. Now, these numbers are unfathomable. We're talking between one and three trillion land and marine animals every year. But even if you were to believe that a human life is worth a thousand animal lives, a million animal lives, when we crunch the numbers, we surely should have reached the threshold to which you would consider our treatment of animals up there with the worst of moral crimes. If you don't, I'm sure the animals would see it that way. You see, it's easy to look at an issue from our perspective and say it just doesn't matter. But as famous animal rights lecturer Gary Yourofsky once said, when you're the victim, things look a lot differently from that angle.

20:56 If an atrocity like this were taking place to humans on such a scale, it would be the new holocaust on steroids. But the animal holocaust isn't new. The systematic domination, enslavement and mass killing of animals has taken place at least since the dawn of agriculture. And we've become more efficient at confining and terrorising animals with the rise of factory farming in the 1920s. Animals were the first to be enslaved, the first to be systematically slaughtered and the only victims to ever be served in a modern university cafeteria with no one batting an eye. For as long as non-human animals have been oppressed, they still are to this day, persecuted, treated like nothing, their charred bodies chewed up, digested and flushed down the toilet. The utter disregard and contempt for these sentient beings is unmatched.

21:39 But why are their lives disregarded? Well, just like racism or any other form of discrimination, it all starts in the mind first. Speciesism, you might have heard this term before. Similar to racism, it's essentially discrimination based on species alone. Dr. Rao, there's 6,000 students who are members of the Oxford Union. These are the creme de la creme, the vegan creme de la creme maybe now. What was their reaction to the arguments? Because that is one good speech that Joey Carbstrong gave. Absolutely. I mean, people were spellbound actually with our speeches, you know, and Joey Carbstrong really held them.

22:21 He was telling them relentlessly what is going on to the animals and why we should consider that as an atrocity, probably the greatest atrocity ever. But when we overcome this atrocity, we look back on this and say, that was the moment when we saw through it. We saw through what was going on and we stepped through this. Hole for the side of justice. OK, well, I think this is this is a dramatic debate. It was a dramatic debate.

23:02 I felt like, you know, it's worth it. All the preparation we did for a month and a half, I was working on the speech. And Kimaya came there and my wife came there and Kimaya's parents came there. Because I realised that this was a very pivotal moment in our road to 2026, Vegan World 2026. And by the way, if you want to know more about Vegan World 2026, you can watch on Unchained TV, the world's only vegan streaming network, which is free for you to download right on your phone. There it is. You can also get it on your Samsung TV, which is behind me.

23:44 You can also get it if you have an Amazon Fire Stick, an Apple device or Roku device, or you can just go to UnchainedTV.com and go right into the portal. But we have Countdown to Year Zero, a documentary that I did about Dr. Silas Rao that explains why we have to switch to a vegan culture globally by 2026, or we are going to literally pass the point of no return in terms of the climate apocalypse that is fast approaching. So really, the clock is ticking. All right, one more caller. We've got Michael in Los Angeles. Your question or thought for Dr. Silas Rao. Yes, hi. This is such a great way to get the vegan message across to the younger generation.

24:28 And my question was, are there any plans to take your team on the road to maybe other colleges or universities? Thank you. Oh, we would love to do that. We would love to do that. We're in discussions with the students at UCLA. We're asking, you know, at least there should be at least one major U.S. university where a similar debate needs to happen, in my opinion. And likewise, you know, in every country, there should be at least one premier institution in that country that examines this seriously so that the people in that country can say, OK, now we have to move.

25:08 I can tell you that the vegan movement in the U.K. is humming. I mean, it's buzzing. It's really going very, very fast. So when I go to the U.K., I feel like a vegan world by 2026 is possible. It is absolutely going to happen. Well, I want to say, just talking about universities, we just posted on Unchained TV a video about the UCLA VegFest, UCLA held its very first VegFest just the other day. We had a booth there, Unchained TV did, and we also did a whole story. And they want to take the VegFest to every university and even high schools around the United States.

25:50 So you should get together. I'm going to connect you with some of those student organisations like Lives Without Knives and Animal Welfare Alliance of UCLA, because you're right, UCLA would be a perfect place to have the next debate. I don't know if everybody's going to show up in black tie. And hopefully Katie Hopkins will not be part of the entourage. But I mean, that would be absolute. Would you be interested in doing that, Dr. Rao? Absolutely. We would love to have a debate where I want to hear the argument, serious arguments from the other side. Are there any serious arguments? Yes or no? If you don't have any serious arguments, then what are we debating?

26:30 You know, we should all be doing it, right? We should all be going vegan. So we need to establish that, yeah. I'm going to connect you as soon as we get off this Zoom with some of those organisations. They pulled off an amazing, amazing VegFest at UCLA. And their motto is, take it everywhere. So this could be part of that. All right, we've got another caller. Wow, we got two more. Liz in San Diego. Hey there, Jane. Hi, Dr. Rao. I just want to acknowledge Dr. Rao's incredible ability at manifestation. I've been Zooming into the Million Vegan Grandmothers meeting since last summer.

27:12 And I remember conversations about this debate concept, kicking around ideas, where to do it, how to do it. And look at the home run that was scored. Debating in the ultimate debate house of all time, winning the debate. I knew he was going to do it. Congratulations. I just want to acknowledge Dr. Rao's incredible manifestation ability from taking an idea and a concept to reality and then hitting a home run. So love you guys. Looking forward to connecting again soon. Thank you for what you do. Wow. Love you, Liz. Love you, Liz. I actually want to say that she, Liz, was the one who said, go debate at universities.

27:57 Whoa. Yeah. We were trying to get Al Gore to debate us, or Bill McKibben to debate us. And they were all saying they didn't want to do it. And then Liz was the one who said, go debate at universities. And then we got the Oxford University opportunity. Wow. We've got Sam in Pasadena. Your question or thought for Dr. Silas Rao. Sam. Hello. Hi. Hi, Jane. Hi, Dr. Rao. Thank you so much for delivering such a powerful and awesome speech at the Oxford University. Thank you for this awesome win. I have a question for you. Do you have any advice for people looking to improve their debate skills, especially when talking about veganism?

28:43 Thank you. Oh, speaking from the heart, telling your story. And these are the things that make you authentic as a debater. And when you're authentic, it shows. And people feel it. They know it. They know that you're speaking from the heart. And so really, it's about connection with the people, the audience. And then they'll come along. So that's what I would say. Tell your story. Speak from the heart. And in my case, I had to stay within a 10-minute limit. So I wrote it all down. And I didn't want to miss anything.

29:23 So I was reading a speech. Normally, I speak extempore. I don't write things down. But then I may miss something. So I wanted to make sure that this time I got everything done. You did a great job. And again, I know it might sound superficial, but I just loved your outfit. I mean, I really do think because we can talk about this on the other side. We have to take a brief break. But we're going to stay live right here. So don't go anywhere. But this is all part of the meat and dairy industry is also commerce colonialism. There's a whole argument to be made. So by you wearing your traditional Indian garb, you're making a statement there, too. All right, we're going to take a very short break on Voice America Radio.

30:06 But we're going to stay live on Unchained TV, the streaming network, as well as all of our socials. So stay right there. I always take this opportunity to remind people to please download. You could actually be texting this video live out to your friends right now if you had downloaded the Unchained TV app. So basically, you just go to your app store. You know what an app store is on either one of your devices, either Android or iPhone. And you just put in Unchained TV one word. It's free. OK, people always go, what's your angle? We have no angle. I don't take a salary.

30:47 My sole goal is to burst through the vegan echo chamber and get to mainstream audiences. And we need help if we're going to do that. And we are doing it. We've gotten global publicity just this week, more than 1,000 articles written about Unchained TV. That's a story for another day. But we're getting global media attention. But you just basically can take any video. And you can literally hit text. You hit share. And you text it to anybody. You can text it to anybody you know. So instead of having all these arguments with people and wasting all your time and energy, you can actually just text people the information you want to give them.

31:28 If they say they can't give up cheese, there's a bunch of documentaries about dairy, about the addictive nature of cheese. If you think they can out-debate you, well, send the Oxford Union debate video. So there's so much you can do. I urge you to download. And it's super simple to do. Once again, you can download Unchained TV, the world's only vegan streaming network, for free on your phone. You can also download it on your TV, all Samsung TVs or any TV via Amazon Fire Stick, Roku device or Apple TV device. Then you can also go to unchainedtv.com and click on there. And we also write two articles a day, two articles a week, that we put out.

32:11 So very, very dense information. But it's also very, very entertaining as well. There's a lot of fun stuff, like our new show At Home with the Jenners, which features Brandon Jenner, who's been on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. You are listening to Unchained TV. To reach the show today, call into 1 -866-472-5788. That's 1-866-472-5788. You may also send an email in to jane at unchainedtv.com. Now back to the show. All right. You're just looking at a screen wrap.

32:52 Thanks to Plant Based News for providing the videos of the Oxford Union debate for us. And people are really jazzed. It makes me so happy. Thank you for giving us hope. I hope you're talking about the Unchained TV app and the Oxford Union debate. Somebody says, Silas looks like a vegan priest. Al Gore has interest in cattle ranching. Al Gore didn't want to debate. Laugh my ass off. Huge success. People are just super, super jazzed that you won this debate. And I believe you should definitely take it to every university. Let's start out with a caller.

33:32 Jose in Texas. Your question or thought for Dr. Rao. First off, I just want to say thank you for letting me speak. And also, congratulations on this momentous victory. It was incredible to see all you guys talk. And I'm a big fan of Joey, a big fan of all your work. I just want to say, I'd ask, what do you feel like you want to see more of to really accelerate the vegan movement into the future, you know? Good question, Dr. Rao. Yeah, I want more discussion in the media about how urgent the situation is. Because they're only scaring people with climate change and saying, you all have to go buy electric cars to solve the problem.

34:15 That doesn't solve the problem. I mean, we're not being serious here. So I say we have to look at all of our environmental issues giving us the timeline. If you're doing it for health, you could say, look, I'm feeling fine now. So I don't have to do it right away. You could say ethics. You could say, well, we have been hurting animals for 10,000 years. So what's the problem with waiting another three, 10 years to hurt? You can continue doing it. But the environment is telling us, you better do it by this time. You better do it by this time. Otherwise, you're going to hit a point of no return. And that's giving us the timeline. This is why Vegan World 2026 is so important.

34:56 I want that story to be told by the media. I want that story to be told by everyone so that it becomes common knowledge. It's as if there is a fire in our home. And I use that analogy now. There are six fires on our planetary home. And people are walking around. They're saying, where is my coffee? And I say, what are you talking about? You've got a fire in your home. Forget about looking for coffee. Just get the kids out of there. That's what you would do when you have a fire in your home. You would say, what is most important to us? Life is most important to us. Our children are most important to us. Children of all species are more important to us than getting the next award from somewhere. No, I don't care about any of that anymore.

35:38 I want to get life to survive, to thrive on this planet. And that's the kind of urgency that we need to have. We are going to hit points of no return by 2026 from multiple angles, whether it is from a biodiversity perspective or from a climate perspective. These are all the different fires that are going on on the planet. Yeah, let me say this. One of the things that also struck me, as you said, there were very few, really no serious arguments. Here's another one that just boggled my mind, that the opposition was that it was inconvenient for her.

36:18 It is near impossible to reach a point of total morality. So people are just going to pick the side that is most convenient for them anyway. I think it's quite clear that if I came home this vacation and announced that I would no longer not just be eating meat, but no cow's milk, no honey, no eggs, no cheese, and so on, not only would I have to endure a lot of teasing and a traitor stamp on my forehead, but I'd also have to shop and cook for myself and opt out of a system where I don't spend the dregs of my student loan on a quinoa. You may think that these are sort of funny and insignificant little arguments, but they speak to a wider truth that switching to veganism just isn't realistic or desirable for most people. I mean, a five-year-old could answer that.

37:01 It's perfectly convenient. I don't know what you had, but today I had tacos with some vegan chicken from Gardein with hot sauce, with a salad that had lettuce and a little onion and some chickpeas. And boy, did I have a lot for lunch. And then some fried potatoes that I fried up in the air fryer. Now, it sounds like a lot, but it was a very nice dish. It was basically a wrap with a side of salad. Now, oh, that's such a terrible inconvenience. No, it's not. And the idea that she is at the most prestigious debate forum in the world, saying that she's opposed to something that could save our planet because she would have to cook her own food.

37:53 I mean, I'm actually embarrassed for them. And I'm not even saying that in a snarky way. Well, if you notice all the opposition arguments are all about me, me, me. And we were talking about, you know, what is our role, our responsibility to them, to others? How do we contribute more to the planet? So we were looking at others and they were looking at me, me, me. And that was a major divide in the debate. And I think that's what's going to happen in the other debates, too. If you go and debate others. Because the arguments against veganism are all about me.

38:33 I may be inconvenienced. It doesn't taste good for me. It's all about me. And yeah, but I think this is interesting to point out, right? Yes, but it is about us. It is in our self-interest. She's sort of arguing that it's something that people are doing for a higher moral purpose, but it's not in our self-interest. But as the doctor who spoke in favour of the vegan argument explains, it is in our interest to adopt a plant-based diet for our own health. Then they discovered, when they put all the evidence together, they said that the more meat and dairy products you have in your diet, the greater your risk of cancer.

39:19 Now, the people doing the surveys were not vegetarians or vegans. I used to be an orthopaedic surgeon. I used to replace people's hips. And my professors would say to all of those old ladies, look, go and eat as much cheese, drink as much milk, your bones will get stronger. That is absolutely the opposite of the truth. The more of these big proteins you have in your diet swilling around in your bloodstream, the more acidic your blood becomes. If your blood is acidic, you need calcium to neutralise it. Where do you get the calcium from? It comes from the bones. In this country, we have weaker bones than the people in certain countries where their diets are pretty much animal product free.

40:05 I thought he did a great job explaining the health benefits because people who ignore this information do so at their own peril. Yeah, the beauty of the system that's nature is that when you start thinking about the animals and you say, I'm going to do things for others, you actually help yourself too. The beauty of it is the highest form of self-interest is actually doing things for others.

40:46 When you do things for others, you get better. This is the beauty of nature. I think that's what he was pointing out. It's actually good for us, even though we think it's inconvenient to begin with. We've got another caller, Tiffany in Los Angeles. Your question or thought for Dr. Rao, the winner of the Oxford Union debate. Would this house go vegan? Yes, it would. And it did. Go ahead. Oh, I love this. Dr. Rao, can you tell us a little bit more about your organisation and how we can support you? Sure. So the organisation that we have, I started this in 2007.

41:30 It's called Climate Healers. And you can go to climatehealers.org. And you will see, and we have a For You tab. If you click on the For You tab, you'll see all the things you could do. There's a calendar there, which shows you all the meetings that we have. So we get together. There's a large core team at Climate Healers. And we get together and we organise convergences every quarter. We are basically, our primary motivation is to get to a vegan world as quickly as possible. Definitely before the end of 2026. My granddaughter's 16th birthday, which is November 19th, 2026.

42:10 And she has told me she wants a vegan world by then. And whatever she says has always happened. My job is to make it happen for her. I'm very excited. And you just had a convergence. I was very honoured and delighted to speak at the convergence, along with some other notables like Dotsie Bausch, the vegan Olympian who did an incredible, incredible job. You know, we're only got a few minutes. I want to go back to, actually, we have another pro. This was a woman who is, I believe, connected to the Oxford Debate Club, maybe in a leadership position, or was at the moment that she spoke.

42:54 And she is, in favour of veganism, I believe she is an unabashed vegan. There's no animal that drinks milk past infancy. Babies drink milk from their mothers until they're toddlers. And for some reason, after that, society tells us that we need to move to cow's milk, which is meant for a baby cow. Now, when does a cow start producing milk? After it's pregnant. I say that because for some reason, people seem to think that cows just magically keep producing milk. They don't. Now, of course, farms aren't leaving a cow and a bull in a room together with some candles and music. No, they are artificially inseminating cows so that we can produce the billions of litres of milk that the industry needs.

43:42 Now, after the cow gives birth, what happens next? If they're male, they are separated, taken, usually killed straight away because they don't have much of a use for the industry. And if they're female, the calf will grow up to suffer the same fate as its mother. Now, of course, there are obvious ethical issues here. And I'm aware that not everyone is convinced by the case that on a moral level, this is simply wrong. For some reason, we consider animals to be less intelligent and therefore less deserving of our empathy, which doesn't really make sense. I mean, there are lots of unintelligent humans, but you wouldn't want to go around, you know, eating Piers Morgan or eating Katie Hopkins, for example.

44:34 But on a fundamental level, animals want to live. They feel pain, they feel suffering. And just because we can do something doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do. But if that hasn't convinced you, this is also really bad for you. It means that the cow's milk that we buy is what's known as stress milk. I want to end by saying that in the absence of necessity, there is also the absence of justification. In our world today, we do not need to eat meat or dairy. And all it does is bring more suffering, not only to ourselves, but also to the environment and also to the poor animals who are going through this.

45:16 Oh, I just loved her. Her speech was great. And she had that funny line about just because you can eat, doesn't mean you would want to eat Piers Morgan or Katie Hopkins. Katie Hopkins was the one with the vile, nasty, dark, almost demonic presentation. Now, tell us about the vote. What was the vote? I have it written down somewhere, but it was pretty overwhelming. And also who that lady was. Oh, yeah. So we owe her a lot for this debate to happen. We owe her and Charles Frazier was the one who connected us with Oxford Union.

45:58 And so she's Disha Hegde. And she was the president of the Oxford Union during that term. Michelmas term. So they changed their presidents every term. They changed their office holders every time. So there's an election every time. So she was the president and she was a vegan. She had been vegan for four years. And she's the one who said, we were debating whether, we were asking whether it should be called this house would go plant-based or this house would go vegan. And she said, we have to do vegan. Okay. So she insisted it should be vegan. And the incoming president, who is now the president in this quarter, I think it's called the Hillary term, is Hannah Edwards.

46:43 And she was on the other side. She was arguing against the proposition. We've got a little bit of her. So what I would like to do is play a little bit of her, you know, by the way, this went on a long time. So we picked clips. But here's the one who's the new president. And she was arguing against veganism. It may include clips of some other people, but she's the blonde and she is most of this clip. You eat a cow. It's the Holocaust. You murderers. When you're the victim, things look a lot differently from that angle. With this house against all our instincts and better judgement go vegan.

47:26 When I Googled what do people think about vegans in preparation for this debate, the results that came up were, why do people hate vegans? The war on vegans, the science of why people hate vegans and vegophobia, which I had never heard of. We've even seen high profile cases where vegans have been discriminated against. William Sittwell was ex editor of Waitrose magazine and he had to resign after an email was leaked where he joked about killing vegans one by one. NatWest Bank faced a scandal when a customer calling to apply for a loan was told by an employee that all vegans should be punched in the face. Wow, again, another ridiculous, absurd and not to the point argument.

48:11 And that's not what you get when you look up vegans. She selectively chose things that she thought might be funny. They seem to be resorting to sort of callous sophomoric humour, Dr. Rao. It was actually appealing. They were trying to appeal to the students saying, don't go there, then you'll be looked down upon by society and blah, blah, blah. I think that was the motivation for what she was trying to do. But obviously, no, she lost. And they lost 112 to 84. That was the score. Though I heard from people that the line for, because the way they do the tabulation of the words, they divide the door in two.

48:54 So they put a pole in the door. And if you go to the left of the pole, you're voting no. If you go to the right of the pole, you're voting yes. And people told me that the line for the yes was so long that people at the back said, hey, they're gonna win anyway. And they walked out the no door. So despite that, it was 112 to 84. Wow, so what we've gotten out of this conversation, we only have a few minutes, is that essentially we're gonna try to take this on the road, which I think would be absolutely fantastic. And I'm going to hook you up with the fabulous vegan student organisations at UCLA.

49:36 They're very organised. And they're all about spreading the word. And so I think this is a great way to reach the up and coming generation. First of all, I also think they're a little out of touch because I think for younger people, it's very cool and in to be vegan. It's not out. Frankly, they sound like their grandparents. These are young people who seem trapped in an Agatha Christie movie. I don't get it because if you look at the cool factor, the cool factor is vegan. And so I don't know.

50:17 I honestly think it was just that they didn't have any good arguments. I mean, if you don't have any good arguments, you just go with what you can go with. There are no good arguments against veganism. Absolutely. I really think that was what happened. They didn't have any good arguments. And they also felt, they also feel like they can openly attack vegans and not be dragged out of the room for doing that. I mean, if Katie Hopkins had said, all black people are short, she would have been pulled out of there. No one would have tolerated that. But she was saying all vegans are short. All vegans have small members and things like that. She was going on and on about physical characteristics.

51:00 And she was trying to scare people. If you do this, your hair is going to fall off and this sort of thing. This is the kind of thing that people try to do to scare people from adopting something that makes sense to them. And so, yeah, it's highly unscientific from that perspective. Let me ask you about another issue. We only have a couple of minutes. I'd like to ask you personally, were you nervous when you had to get up there knowing everything that was riding on it? How did you handle that? For people who have to, if we're going to do this at every university, it might not always be you and Joey Carbstrong, who is a trained speaker.

51:42 Were you nervous? And how did you handle that if so? No, I wasn't nervous. I mean, see, I'm fortunate because when I was going to school, my dad asked me to join the debate club. He asked me to join. So I was doing all these. I used to go to schools and do these debates. And as a result, I lost my fear of public speaking. So for me, I'm telling you my story. And if you don't like it, fine. If you like it, fine. So I always had that attitude. And I'm thankful to my dad for making me do that when I was a kid, because then I was scared.

52:23 As a child, I was scared to do it. But after you do the 15th debate, the 20th debate, you get used to it. Yes. And to answer this question, nobody's saying there's anything wrong with being short. The woman who said that was doing it offensively as if there was something wrong with being short. Yeah. You know, I'm just so impressed by all of this. And it does give me hope. People, one of the reasons we started Unchained TV is that the mainstream media does not tell this. And I went and looked for, well, what stories do we have on this? And I found Plant-Based News and some other publication that is basically one of the speakers wrote a little...

53:04 It should have been in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, the Sun Magazine. By the way, Unchained TV is in all of those publications with the exception of the New York Times. This week, due to our show, At Home with the Jenners, we hope you download our app and check out that very fun show, At Home with the Jenners, starring Brandon Jenner and his wife, Kaylee Jenner. And they are plant-based and they are inviting people into their Malibu home to cook vegan. And it's a delightful show. So we've gotten massive publicity, but it was the celebrity factor that brought that publicity in.

53:44 And vegans are trying to break through the mainstream media blackout on animal rights and veganism. And that's why we started Unchained TV, the vegan streaming network. So that win at the Oxford Union is just one more example of how they won this spectacular win and there's no mainstream media reporting on it. And that's truly offensive. It's an abrogation of journalistic responsibility. And we're here to fill in the gap. So thank you for watching, Dr. Rao. I just wanna say, you're my hero. I remember I first heard you speaking in Texas at a cattle ranch turned vegan animal sanctuary, the Rowdy Girls Sanctuary.

54:28 And you said, we are gonna go vegan and we're gonna do it by 2026. And I was transformed. I was like, finally, somebody saying that we're gonna do this and giving us a deadline. And that's when I really jumped in to your movement. And we did a documentary called Countdown to Year Zero. It's on Amazon Prime, but it's also on Unchained TV. I urge you to watch it because if we are going to achieve a vegan world by 2026, all of you have to get busy, okay? It's great to be vegan, but be vegan plus be an activist. That's what we urge you to do. Thank you so much, Dr. Silas Rao.

55:11 Check out climatehealers.org. Learn more about everything this extraordinary individual is doing to save our planet by 2026.