Today, April 22, marks the 50th observance of Earth Day. Each of us can celebrate by reducing our driving, use of electric energy, and consumption of animals. That’s right!
Last fall, Oxford University’s prestigious Food Climate Research Network and Germany’s Heinrich Bolle Foundation concluded that solving the global warming catastrophe requires massive shift to a plant-based diet. A 2010 United Nations report blamed animal agriculture for 70 percent of global freshwater use, 38 percent of land use, and 19 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon dioxide is emitted by burning forests to create animal pastures and by operating farm machinery to grow animal feed. The more damaging methane and nitrous oxide are released from digestive tracts of cattle and from animal waste cesspools, respectively.
Moreover, meat and dairy production dumps more animal waste, crop debris, fertilizers, pesticides and other pollutants into our waterways than all other human activities combined. It is the driving force behind wildlife habitat destruction.
In an environmentally sustainable world, meat and dairy products in our diet must be replaced by vegetables, fruits and grains, just as fossil fuels are replaced by wind, solar and other pollution-free energy sources.
Let’s celebrate the 50th observance of Earth Day at our supermarket.
Wayne Weber
White River Junction
Tax Day reminds us that there is one place no tax dollars are spent — the United States Postal Service.
While providing universal service at uniform, reasonable rates to 157 million addresses, the USPS runs its operation on funds received from postage, products and services.
Letter volume is decreasing, but there is still lots of mail with almost 500 million pieces processed and delivered daily.
Package volume is rapidly increasing. With the e-commerce revolution, the USPS is as vital as ever, delivering some 40 percent of Amazon packages and a host of small business products.
The current USPS financial challenges were largely manufactured by a 2006 congressional action mandating that the USPS pre-fund retiree health care costs 75 years into the future (part of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act).
No other company or agency faces this crushing financial burden. It has led to short staffing, diminished services and slower mail.
There are commonsense, bipartisan “postal reform” bills pending in both the House and Senate. Congress should fix the pre-funding problem it created and ensure a vibrant public postal service for generations to come.
I am not an official spokesperson for the USPS, but an employee of this federal, but not federally funded, entity.
Patricia J. Dewey, President
American Postal Workers Union Local 520
East Thetford
On March 24, my wife and I participated in the “March For Our Lives” rally at the Statehouse in Concord. I understand that there were about 4,000 or so people there (a very small fraction of the 2 million participants in similar rallies throughout the country, and even around the world). All speakers that day were kids from the area high schools. I don’t remember precisely how many spoke. Besides, I wasn’t counting; I was listening.
I heard frustration and anger, directed not to the shooter at the school in Parkland, Fla., nor toward this one latest incident. I heard frustration and anger with ourselves — the society of which they and we are a part.
The students in Concord spoke from the heart and soul to the thousands of us who gathered. In the larger cities, the students spoke to the hundreds of thousands gathered at those rallies. All spoke to millions, perhaps billions, all over the world. The message was this: How could we possibly allow ourselves to accept a way of life in which mass shootings at schools — and within a community — are commonplace? What does their future look like in a country that seems to enable, maybe even at some level promote, unfettered access to assault weapons? Why must these kids sacrifice their childhoods so that we, as adults, can continue with ours?
Yes, there was fear. But there was overwhelmingly profound courage — a courage that goes far beyond that brief moment of speaking in public. Every day at school they wonder, “Am I next? When does it happen here?”
And now, in the wake of the shooting in Florida, they stand up and present their message and themselves. And they endure the ridicule, denigration and outright derogatory statements about their worth as humans. All meant to demoralize and break their resolve.
To be certain, many of these high school students will be eligible to vote in the upcoming midterm election. A great many more will be eligible in 2020. I do not believe they will take this privilege lightly.
Ken Swanson
Canaan
I’m waiting for it to occur to someone in the news media that if rational adults wanted the opinions of those whose brains are not yet fully developed, whose perspective is sorely limited, who equate their easily swayed emotions with thoughts and who are renowned for their unsound judgment, we would have asked for them. I’m referring to both age-appropriate children and adolescents and the perpetual ones with which our society is increasingly overburdened.
I had thought this letter was complete until I tuned in to Washington Journal on C-SPAN and found the topic put up for viewer comments to be whether 16-year-olds should be given the right to vote, an idea so idiotic that only those who share the above traits could entertain it.
Up to now I had taken some small comfort in my belief that those on the left couldn’t possibly be foolish enough to spark a civil war where the other side has all the guns, but my optimism seems to have been unwarranted — that appears to be precisely the case.
Anthony Stimson
Lebanon