Animal

Change.org: If you could ask 1 million people to all do one thing to advance causes that matter to you, what would it be?

Go vegan. By simply refusing to put meat, eggs, and dairy on your plate, you can save the lives of more than 100 animals every year. You also help save the planet, since animal agriculture is one of the largest polluters and producers of greenhouse gasses (it produces more greenhouse gasses than all the world's cars and trucks combined), and you also help protect your own health (vegans slash their risk of heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and other top killers). If you don’t know how to be vegan, try Chef Tal’s book, “The Conscious Cook,” or Alicia Silverstone’s “The Kind Diet” – both on the New York Times bestsellers list. And try ethnic vegan foods like Ethiopian, Indian, Italian, Mexican, Chinese where everything from split peas to tofu to beans and super pasta sauces will leave you amazed at the variety in the diet.

Change.org: When did you first know you wanted to dedicate your life to creating change and helping others?

When I was a little girl growing up in India, I saw a man beating an overloaded bullock who had collapsed from exhaustion. Even at that tender age—perhaps led by the example of my mother, who volunteered with Mother Teresa's charities—it did not occur to me simply to stand by and do nothing. But it wasn't until I was in my 20s that I started looking at animals in a different way. I was living in Maryland and studying to become a stockbroker when a neighbor abandoned some kittens. I took them to the local animal shelter, which was so run down and sad that I couldn’t walk away and took a job there. During my work as a cruelty investigator, I found a fox and a squirrel caught in steel traps, a pig left to starve on a farm, and other animals victimized by what I now know to be fairly routine cruelty. It made me realize that there needed to be a group like PETA out there fighting for all animals, not just dogs and...