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Stop eating animal products

To the editor:

You are receiving many letters suggesting that people consider the climate when they vote in our upcoming election. For those truly interested in reducing their negative impact on the environment they should stop eating animal products. This business is so big that most politicians reap support from them as do the agribusinesses reciprocally benefitting from subsidies. The subsidies can be redirected toward other positive products and still provide work, however, the current practice of animal production and slaughter unnecessarily for our consumption is the single biggest most influential factor in climate change. I’m sure you don’t believe me; I am just the messenger so you can educate yourself. There are a plethora of presentations, documentaries, statistics that verify the fact that without this unnecessary burden on the environment climate change will slowly reverse the course it’s on. “…switching from a meat-based to a plant-based diet would do more to curb and reverse global warming than any other initiative” states T. Colin Campbell, PhD in his book “Whole” (p. 167). Moreover, the Guardian recently had a story titled: Avoiding meat and dairy is “single biggest way” to reduce your impact on Earth. It states that “Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of livestock – it provides just 18 percent of calories but takes up 83 percent of farmland.” A recent video explains it well at bigthink.com.

If you won’t give up animal consumption for your own health then do it for the environment. Those of you who tell us to change our light bulbs and our appliances could themselves do more to make a positive impact. Walk the walk! I do; I compost almost everything and recycle the rest (and I do not eat animal products). Hancock is very active in environmental issues. I have a person who picks up my compost once a week and takes it to our community garden. Econo Foods in Houghton will pay you 5 cents for every shopping bag you bring in instead of using theirs. All businesses could do this and we all could do a lot more now that we know how terrible animal production is to our earth. We are so misled by marketing to believe these products are good for us. They are not good for us or the planet. If you really do care about the future of our climate you, too, can walk the walk and stop eating animal products. Or stop claiming to care about the environment.

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