it makes a difference to that one...: November 2014

This is my attempt to make what difference I can against the horrendous environmental crises we are making, by sending out some food for contemplation and conversation. It began as a long letter sent out to a few dozen friends, out of the need to feel that I was at least doing something (beyond simply living my life as low-carbon as I can manage), and which I posted here as my first entry. The title of the blog comes from a story I once heard, which (as I have finally found) was adapted from an essay by the anthropologist and philosopher Loren Eiseley. The version I first heard goes like this: A father and child are walking on a beach that is covered as far as the eye can see with starfish washed ashore, dead and dying. When the child picks up a starfish to toss it back in the ocean, the father asks "Why? What difference can you possibly make, just you, with all these thousands and thousands of starfish dying?" And the child picks up another one, tosses it in the ocean, and says "It makes a difference to that one..."

Monday, November 10, 2014

Chris Hedges on the case for going vegan

Chris Hedges has gone vegan as a response to climate change, saying that "becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species." In his column explaining his decision (Saving the Planet, One Meal at a Time) he lays out a treasure trove of statistics. Here are just a few (I've left out the sources, but they are easily found in his footnotes):

• A person who is vegan will save 1,100 gallons of water, 20 pounds CO2 equivalent, 30 square feet of forested land, 45 pounds of grain and one sentient animal’s life every day.
• Crops grown for livestock feed consume 56 percent of the water used in the United States.
• In the United States 70 percent of the grain we grow goes to feed livestock raised for consumption.
• Land devoted exclusively to raising livestock now represents 45 percent of the earth’s land mass.

If you have yet to be convinced, please read the full article!