Everything I Want to Do is Illegal is a riveting and educational book in which author, Joel Salatin, describes a generations-long battle. On one side: the goliath agricultural industry and unfeeling government bureaucrats. On the other: small, hometown, traditional farmers and artisans.
If you’re trying to lessen your negative environmental impact on the world, composting can help a great deal.
Living in the country and composting is easy. All you need is a place to throw your food scraps and any fallen leaves, sticks, and grass clippings to get a good balance of carbon and nitrogen.
In an urban environment, composting can be more complicated…
Pastoral Song is an easy book to read. It is sometimes poetic, often peppered with relatable observations, even quaint. Because it paints a large picture of the forces at work in Western agriculture over the last 70 years it gives voice to the dawning realization many of us have that farming, coupled with profit motives, results in sub-optimal outcomes when considering the animals, planet, farmers, and consumer health.
In Facing the Climate Emergency Margaret Klein Salamon starts with an impressive call to arms. She invokes the hero’s journey and states quite clearly how much the climate crisis matters and that you have a calling in life. It seems a bit dramatic at first, but in light of the global climate crisis, she’s probably right.
There is a growing body of research that points towards a more plant-based diet being good for 1. your personal health, and 2. reducing your environmental impact. Besides, it’s undeniable that abstaining from eating meat and dairy will reduce the number of animals that suffer unnecessarily.
How often do you get to do three good things with one simple action?
Let’s brush aside the altruistic reasons for protecting the environment because though noble, I don’t think they affect everyone the same way.
To me, the most poignant argument is that we should protect the environment because it is us, the humans, who have the most to lose.