Showing posts with label environmentalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmentalism. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Left Behind.

There is a responsibility we carry, as a species, to be conscious of the consequences of our choices.  While there are more than everyone's fair share of topics out there to be covered, I can pontificate on one close to my heart (and stomach).  Food.  Specifically, food that comes from a farm, and the farmers.There are small, medium, large and super-sized farms in our wide world, and from many of them come delicious nutritious food.  Some of them, not so much.

What  often isn't contemplated, is the farmer who got bigger and better and faster and more industrial in order to pay his mortgage and feed his family, who is proverbially and literally being left behind in this conundrum of politics vs. food vs. a higher consciousness of the people (which is a threat to the great food monopolies that be, and their astronomical yearly incomes!) (We won't mention ~ahem~ the political support they provide).

I'm guilty as charged.  I've often thought only of not feeding my family the anti-biotic laden, hormone-laced, arsenic fed and brutally handled animals that are now meats available in the local grocery stores.  I've not thought about the farmer who mortgaged his home, land and hence, his children's inheritance in order to build the housing for the aforementioned animals to be raised in.  I'm not thinking about the work he or she does daily in order to make the mortgage payment on that burden, so that we American's can eat large-breasted chickens.  

It became real to me when I heard a farmer say (after 10 + years of hard farming) that he still had over $90,000 to pay on his poultry houses and by that time, I figured in my head silently;  he'd probably have to spend $600,000 more to "upgrade" his houses, or be denied a contract.  


So, isn't it great that there is a food movement and a lot of us are cutting out High Fructose Corn Syrup and BHT and MSG and not using Baking Powder with Aluminum in it?  


What about the millions of people who are employed by the "monsters that be" and pay their bills from their week-to-week paycheck - do they have a voice?  Do they lead food-conscious lives?  Or are they left behind also, with their $56.88 balance showing on the ATM receipt, after a balance inquiry (which cost them $1.00, incidentally) to stand in the grocery store, choosing between a frozen pizza for $3.99 or a bag of apples for $4.29 knowing which is better, but what will fill the bellies of their children for now, until the next paycheck is cashed.  


It's a conundrum for sure, this 'movement', with a lot of variables and dynamics to be considered.


This is sometimes hard for me to process, and because of that, I revert back to a comforting saying, "If I don't help myself, I can't help others", and so it goes - with my sometimes overzealous and lofty goals of changing the world one bite at a time.  


In a sense, we've all been left behind some way, some how.  It makes a lot of sense to me that in our participation of this "food movement" that we consider the farmers of the "Factory Farms" and remember that they too have bills to pay, families to care for, and in a lot of ways, deserve as much respect as the organic, humane and certified farmer down the road.  



Wednesday, October 20, 2010

more things that seems wrong

Looks serene. Ideal. Fishing with mom and dad at the lake.























Nice Sign.






Read closer.












This got me thinking about what we put in our waterways, collectively, as a human society. I've long thought that things our ancestors did before they knew better set the stage for earth-damage and we've furthered it with our quest for bigger, better, faster cultural ideals.

Over the weekend of September 17 & 18, 2010 we visited the quaint little town of Badin, NC for their "Best of Badin Festival" and had a blast. One of the unexpected highlights was the tour of the Narrows Dam which I enjoyed the most. I can get cotton candy, home-made peach ice cream and most of the other stuff at any other given festival, but what I cannot get but once a year is a tour of the dam.

Have a go at this document, the watershed locations are extraordinary. North Carolina is bursting at the seams with small streams and waterway. Which leads me to a close-to-home thought; we have a well. A beloved, never-gone-dry well. A well that we drink from, bathe in, and use water to cook with.

That said, what got me thinking about all this was the fact that this lake we were fishing at is downstream from this dam - this hydroelectric power plant - owned by ALCOA . And here is another fascinating and informative piece from Wikipedia about Alcoa . Of primary interest to me is the part where it talks about the levels of PCB's in the groundwater because of "improper management".

I know I'm throwing a lot of links in here, but in order to fully understand what I'm talking about I think it's important to have a sort of "show and tell" where I tell and you show yourself by clicking on the links.

Speaking of which, here's another great article about Badin, wherein it talks about the origin of the power plant and the history of the town. Plus, it's got a great photograph of the dam, which having seen it myself, does not do it justice at all.

Speaking of justice, here's another great article from nearly a year ago. A lot of interesting points.

All this to say, I won't be eating any fish out of Badin Lake, or any other river, lake, stream or watershed around here. And at some soon point, am going to have our well tested.

What is this leisure time of which you speak?

my grateful button