Its All Connected: Book Post 2

Its me again!

I read some more of Diet for a Hot Planet last night and I fully realized that everything affecting our livelihood from birth to death and everything in between is interconnected beyond any doubt.  We live in a global economy and because money is a common language throughout the world, there is no denying that money controls our lives.  Wondering how the food system fits into this??  Just by improving the way we produce, distribute, and sell our food we will be well on our way to solving about every major problem we are dealing with today -- water, air, and soil quality, hunger rates, the economy, social relations, our health, better climate control, more job opportunity, crop sustainability and diversity, fewer chemicals, etc, etc. Rather than trying to fix each individual problem with a different and complex solution, all we have to focus on is that one necessity of life...food.  If you remember from my post before, we as a dependant are not taking cues from the resource providing us with our lifeline.  We are slapping the hand that feeds us in a very significant way. Once we address the issues of our food system and focus our energy on improving this, everything will naturally return to the ebb and flow of the earth's cycle; we just have to let it. 

Katherine Green mentioned this in class yesterday, but did you know that the manure from CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) is so high in chemicals due to the animals' diets that it cannot be reused as an easy and cost-effective fertilizer so the farms pollute the soil with more chemicals from synthetic fertilizer? Do you know what they do with all this useless waste instead?  The farms liquefy the excrement and spray it over surrounding fields.  This muck seeps into our ground water or becomes runoff into a larger source of water and pollutes the contents.  If they aren't able to shower the poop, they place it in huge containers (multiple football fields wide) and because the carbon dioxide and methane that naturally occurs in manure is not soluble in water, the compounds dissipate into the air as gas, polluting the air.  Don't blame the oil consumption for the disappearing ozone layer, blame the steak on your plate. 

I urge you to buy your produce and meats especially from local farmers.  By doing this, you eliminate exorbitant fuel consumption due to the decreased travel, allow the animals' manure to be reused as fertilizer, and you sustain your local economy among countless other benefits.

Oh, and don't forget to GO GREEN!