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Dr. Sailesh Rao has over three decades of professional experience and is the Founder and Executive Director of Climate Healers, a non-profit dedicated towards healing the Earth’s climate.
A systems specialist with a Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Dr. Rao worked on the internet communications infrastructure for twenty years after graduation. During this period, he blazed the trail for high speed signal processing chips and technologies for High Definition Television, real-time video communications and the transformation of early analog internet connections to more robust digital connections, while accelerating their speeds ten-fold. Today, over a billion internet connections deploy the communications protocol that he designed.
He received five Exceptional Contribution Awards from AT&T Bell Laboratories between 1985 and 1991, a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff award in 1990, the Intel Principal Engineer Award in 2003, and the IIT Madras Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2013 for his technical contributions. He is the author of 22 peer-reviewed technical papers, 50 standards contributions, 10 US patents and 3 Canadian patents. He was the co-founder of Silicon Design Experts in 1991 which was acquired by Level One Communications in 1996 and which was later acquired by Intel Corporation in 1999 for $2.2 billion.
In 2006, he switched careers and became deeply immersed, full time, in solving the environmental crises affecting humanity. Dr. Rao is the author of four books, Carbon Dharma: The Occupation of Butterflies, Carbon Yoga: The Vegan Metamorphosis, Animal Agriculture is Immoral and The Pinky Promise, and an Executive Producer of several documentaries, The Human Experiment (2013), Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014), What The Health (2017), A Prayer for Compassion (2019), They’re Trying to Kill Us (2021), The End of Medicine (2022), The Land of Ahimsa (2022), Animals – A Parallel History (est. 2024), Milked (2022), Christspiracy (2024) and I Could Never Go Vegan (2024). His work is featured in the award winning film, Countdown to Year Zero produced by Jane Velez-Mitchell and Unchained TV.
Dr. Rao is a Human, Earth and Animal Liberation (HEAL) activist, husband, dad and since 2010, a star-struck grandfather. He has promised his granddaughter, Kimaya Rainy Rao, that the world will be largely Vegan before she turns 16 in 2026, so that people will stop eating her relatives, the animals. He has faith that humanity will transform to keep his pinky promise to Kimaya, not just for ethical reasons, but also out of sheer ecological necessity. Along with Kimaya, Dr. Rao was the co-recipient of the inaugural Homo Ahimsa award from the Interfaith Vegan Coalition in 2021. He has formally taken the Ubuntu pledge to become Homo Ahimsa.
Dr. Rao was honored with the Karmaveer Puraskaar Global Indian award by the Indian Confederation of NGOs (ICONGO) in 2008, the Shining World Award for Earth Protection from the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association in 2020 and the Winsome Constance Kindness Medal by the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust in 2022. He was designated a Climate Hero by The Guardian Newspaper in 2023, which recognized him as “a foremost voice on green transition and on the true scale of societal change required to save the planet.” He serves on the Universal Meals Advisory Council of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and he served on the Board of Directors of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies in 2023.

Tracey Winter Glover, JD, is an animal caretaker, activist, author, and filmmaker. She earned a BA in history and political philosophy from the University of Michigan, followed by a law degree (JD) in which she focused primarily on constitutional and international refugee law. In 2014, Tracey co-founded a non-profit intersectional pro-vegan animal rights group, Awakening Respect and Compassion for all Sentient Beings (“ARC”), of which she remains the Executive Director. In January 2019, she adopted eight chickens who had been rescued from a bankrupt chicken farm in Colorado that had turned off the heat and stopped feeding the 40,000 birds in its houses. This was the beginning of Sweet Peeps Microsanctuary, which occupies most of her time these days. She is the author of the book Lotus of the Heart: Living Yoga for Personal Wellness and Global Survival, published by Lantern Publishing & Media. She also released a short award-winning documentary entitled Until All Are Free, and her first children’s book, inspired by the chickens at Sweet Peeps, Chickens Are Animals Too! Fannie Goes to Washington, is scheduled to be published June 30th, 2024.

Ellie Laks is the founder of the Gentle Barn Foundation, a national organization that rescues and rehabilitates unwanted animals and heals people with histories of trauma. She is an animal communicator, energy healer, TEDx speaker, educator, and the author of My Gentle Barn: Creating a Sanctuary Where Animals Heal and Children Learn to Hope. Ellie founded the Gentle Barn in 1999 and has since hosted hundreds of thousands of people who have come there seeking hope. She is the creator of Cow Hug Therapy as well as her Gentle Healing method, which allows old, sick, injured, and terrified animals to recover using a mixture of Western medicine, holistic healing modalities, holding therapy, and lots of love. Ellie lives at the Gentle Barn’s California location with her partner, Jay Weiner, who runs the organization with her. They have three children, hundreds of animals, and much to be grateful for. Ellie wants to spend the rest of her life improving the lives of animals and opening the hearts of humanity toward them in any way she can.More at GentleBarn.org and EllieLaks.com.

Bill Crain, Animal StoriesWilliam “Bill” Crain is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at The City College of New York. In 2008, he and his wife Ellen founded Safe Haven Farm Sanctuary in Poughquag, NY. The sanctuary provides a lifelong home to farmed animals rescued from slaughter and abandonment. Bill is the author of a major textbook in developmental psychology and other books and articles. In 2018, he received a PETA Hero to Animals Award for his efforts to protect black bears.

“If you can’t solve the problem, eliminate the problem!” was a favorite expression by Harold Hartglass, Caryn Hartglass’ father. H5N1, known as Bird Flu is a problem, that is only getting worse, spreading to at least 42 cattle herds in nine states, and infecting over 200 mammals. The government answer is to bailout industrial chicken farmers allowing them to kill their infected chickens, start over with a new batch, and pay them for their losses. The government is also paying cattle farmers to test their herds. This is a waste of taxpayer money and will not solve the problem. Bird flu is a symptom. Industrial animal agriculture is the problem, and this problem must be eliminated. Industrial animal agriculture is bad for many reasons, but to prevent the spread and mutation of this virus, which can be lethal to humans, this industry must be eliminated.
Robert Grillo, End USDA’s Bird Flu BailoutsAs an activist for all species (including the human ones), Robert Grillo has played the role of thought leader as well as front line activist, leading campaigns, large-scale protests and other creative actions since 2012. He has learned as much from academia as he has from the streets, from first-hand experience in grassroots activism. Most figures involved in social change are either academics on the theory side or activists on the practice side. Rarely do you find those who engage equally in both the theory and application, providing a unique perspective that bridges that gap between the two important sides of every movement.
Grillo is also the founder and director of Free from Harm, a non profit dedicated to advancing a plant-based food system and challenging the dominance of animal agriculture since 2009. He founded Slaughter Free Network in 2018 with the intent of building a powerful grassroots base and carrying out dramatic and innovative actions to capture the attention of media, public and food industry powerholders.  
American Journal of Lifestyle Magazine, Primary Pandemic Prevention, by Dr. Michael Greger
Michael Greger, Vegan MD
WHO, How does H5N1 influenza spread to people?
CDC, Current H5N1 Bird Flu Situation in Dairy Cows
Q&A on H5N1 Bird Flu
Take Action on the Farm Bill Workshop – REGISTER

Hartglass & De Mattei, What’s The Question?Caryn Hartglass and Gary De Mattei are back to ask the question to which there are so many wrong answers! Topics covered in the podcast: the recent ban on cell meat in Florida; morning routines and habits; featured NYC restaurants and bakeries; REAL’s Banana Date Walnut Oat Bread.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
A Little Night Music performances in Brooklyn.
Meat, Freedom and Ron DeSantisHow Far Should We Carry the Logic of the Animal-Rights Movement?
 

Mini Banana Date Walnut Oat Bread Loaves, Wheat-Free
Luanne’s Wild Ginger restaurant
Mia’s Brooklyn Bakery
Insomnia Cookies