Botany of Desire

Posted on March 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

I apologize for not having posted in a while. I am now pretty settled at Chewonki so I’ll be able to post once a week, probably about this time. One of my favorite classes here is called Literature and the Land. In this class, we read a variety of stories, poems, and essays which explore the relationship between humans and our environment. It has been interesting to spend time finding a definition for nature and decide what is included in the term nature. While exploring our concept of nature, we read an excerpt from Michael Pollan’s book Botany of Desire. Here is a talk by Pollan which I found very thought-provoking and eye-opening. It is a pretty old book, but I like how it reverses the default human thought that we are in charge and can have control of nature. I think this change in thought can cause a great change in our actions and choices. I think Pollan’s exploration of human consciousness and its effect on our perspectives is important as he attempts to step outside this “disease of human self-importance.”

On a different note, we have a farm here at Chewonki which I’ve had the chance to work at. The farm produces vegetables, meat, wool, eggs, and milk. Once a week, we have a “farm talk” to learn about and discuss different aspects of agriculture as well as look at what happens on our farm and other farms. Every farm talk shows me something new, and farming is getting excited as we just got three beef cattle and triplet lambs were just born. I will definitely be posting soon about different things to do with the amazing farm here.

-Simon

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The Last Crop

Posted on January 29, 2012 | 2 comments
   This Thursday I saw a showing of a work in progress film called The Last Crop. The film is about Jeff and Annie Main and their farm in Northern California, Good Humus Farms. The Mains face the same problem as many other farmers across America, to carry on their farm for future generations. The film shows the importance of a farm to its community as something that can bring people together under a connection to the land. Jeff values the fertile land that the farm sits on and wants it to continue as farmland rather than being developed by suburban communities, as is increasingly common. Jeff shares a personal connection… The film provides some startling statistics, such as the fact that there are eight farmers in the U.S. over 65 for every one farmer under 35. It is a close look at one example of a sad trend of dying farms.

After watching the film and hearing Jeff and Annie Main answer questions about it, I kept asking myself “What should I take away from this story to apply in other places? What has this film taught me?” While I think this is something you have to decide for yourself, I couldn’t find much to apply the film too in my own world. All that I could think of was how important it is for us to plan for the future and provide for the land as it changes and continue to do what we know is good for the planet even as the communities and society around us change.

-Simon Willig

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“How I Fell in Love with a Fish”

Posted on January 22, 2012 | 1 comment

A subscriber told me about this video, http://blog.ted.com/2010/03/10/how_i_fell_in_l/ and I think it is a pretty cool story with a great conclusion, so thanks for sharing. My favorite part of the presentation is the story Barber tells about his friend Miguel’s farm in Spain. The farm is for me a great example of humans reverting to an old system and restoring the natural cycle of a habitat. Miguel’s farm is an example of the success to be had when humans become part of the environment around us, rather than stepping outside of the natural order to exploit it for our own benefit. Miguel’s farm benefits the flamingos and the water, having a positive impact on the surrounding environment while still providing for the population. This ties into Barber’s conclusion about how we can feed the world. He brings up that many might ask how such a system could feed the world. Barber points out that we already have more than enough food to get the job done, we just need to look at the idea of self-sustenance, where each community can provide for itself. In a community like Miguel’s, no technology or medicine is needed and therefore the only limiting factor is the environment. If the whole world was made up of these kinds of systems, we could all fit into nature and share it with other living things.

However, it is difficult to place our direct relationships with these kind of places. When a farm like Miguel’s is so unique, how are we supposed to support it or buy from it? I honestly think that the closest we can get is to grow our own food in gardens and support local agriculture at farmers markets, so we can form our own self-sustaining communities. In the economic model that produces most of America’s food, a factory farmer drives to do more for less money. However, this model is inefficient if we look at the resources it uses up. The ecological model of Miguel’s farm uses less resources, less energy, and produces less waste. The transition to an ecological model will be hard. But it is still a transition we need to make if we want humans and other living things to last very long.

-Simon

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Borneo and Palm Oil

Posted on January 16, 2012 | 4 comments

To me, it is sad how a product’s unsustainable production can be hidden from the public. I will often read ingredients on a label and have no idea about the processes that went into making them. I’m sure I have many to learn about, but for now I would like to talk about palm oil and palm kernel oil. Both are extracted from the oil palm, and palm oil’s biggest exporter is Indonesia, with Malaysia to its north a close second. These countries share the island of Borneo, which has some of the most biologically diverse jungles in the world. In the biodiversity hot spot of Borneo and its surrounding islands, you can find the Javan and Sumatran rhinoceroses, both critically endangered, the orangutan and Borneo elephant, both endangered, along with about 15,000 endemic plant species. Also native are very strange organisms like the carnivorous pitcher plant, paradise flying tree snake, or flying frog. If you see palm oil among the ingredients on the back of a product, you can be pretty sure it came from a palm oil plantation that displaced the jungles of southeast Asia and all these species that they hold. To read about Borneo’s biodiversity and the industries  and policies that are harming it, check out this National Geographic article, one of my favorites ever: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/borneo/white-text If you skip to page 4, you can read specifically about oil palm plantations, but I find the whole article both fascinating and touching. Pictures can be found here: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/borneo/klum-photography                    I think it is crazy how our choices here can affect the lives of amazing butterflies, frogs, or orchids thousands of miles away. I know that our choice to avoid products with palm oil, palm kernel oil, or coconut oil won’t get rid of deforestation or habitat destruction. However, I also know that I can’t stand to support something like oil palm plantations, which are quickly replacing the habitat of some of my favorite creatures; it just isn’t right.

-Simon

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New Sites Page

New Sites Page

I apologize for being a little late with my post. I have been working on the beginning of a new page, which includes sites that have changed how I think about our diet and its affects on the environment. Click on the “Sites” tab next to “Home” and “About” to view the list. The last link on the page is one I’ve just found which includes quotations and excerpts from John Robbins’s book “The Food Revolution.” I like this site because it shows us quotations from people involved in the meat industry and people opposed to it. Robbins then presents facts and information that help give background to the ideas presented in the quotations. The facts also help illustrate trends and themes in the meat industry. For me, the quotations show us the difference between what the meat industry likes to think or tell the public and the truth of the industry, well-hidden from so much of the public. The “Meet your Meat” and “45 Days: the Life and Death of a Broiler Chicken” videos found on the Sites page share footage and information on factory farms, also shedding light on the cruelties of factory farming. I will continue adding sites to this page as I find them, so please check it if you’re interested in a new place to learn.

-Simon

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Posted on January 2, 2012 in Everything

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Seafood Watch Program and Guides

Seafood Watch Program and Guides

I used to be part of a program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and while there I would always be talking about Seafood Watch Guides. For seafood, there are lots of variables such as fishing practices which make supporting sustainable seafood much easier than supporting sustainable beef or pork (99% of America’s meat comes from factory farms). That said, it’s really hard to find out exactly which seafood to stay away from and which to buy. Certain types of seafood are almost always sustainably caught, while others vary widely. I don’t know too much about specifics, but I’ve heard filter-feeders like scallops are usually energy-efficient because they can filter food directly out of the water and therefore do not need to be fed wastefully. Farmed salmon, on the other hand, are usually very harmful to the coastline because they require many antibiotics and produce a lot of waste which is toxic to animals living in the surrounding water. For a guide which you can take to the supermarket or where ever you go check out http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx There is also an app for iPhones or android, making it super convenient to carry around. The Seafood Watch Guide is a great success story for me, because I’ve seen it mentioned at the farmers’ market and at my school’s cafeteria. I think it shows how many people can find a connection between their food and the environment once it becomes more convenient apparent. Also, I think it’s a great sign that manufacturers are starting to advertise something like “Best Choice on Seafood Watch Guide” because they know many people are starting to care. The guide is very simple and has 3 different columns that list seafoods that are “Best Choices,” “Good Alternatives,” and those to “Avoid.” To learn about the program and recent news in seafood and the fishing industry, click on the title “Seafood Watch Program and Guides.” I think it is easy to generalize and say that farmed fish are great for the environment or tuna are always caught in ways that cause lots of bycatch, but this guide keeps us thinking and stops us from taking the easy way out and just buying the cheapest thing. I’m always thinking about how I boycott factory-farmed meat, but never really support family-farmed meat. It makes me very sad to think that I have to avoid meat completely because most of it is produced cruelly and wastefully. This guide gives us a chance to support what is right rather than just avoiding what is wrong. It empowers and educates the consumer. That said, we are of course placing a lot of power in this guide. While I think that Monterey Bay Aquarium is always researching and finding out new things, I also think it is important to question and stay up-to-date. Even though the truth of the meat industry has made me skeptical, I place my confidence in the aquarium’s research and information, especially because I know they are an agency with a goal to protect the oceans.
-Simon

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Posted on December 21, 2011 in Everything

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Turkeys and Sheep

Turkeys and Sheep

I have come across this site a few times (click on “Turkeys and Sheep” to view) and I like it because it talks about all different animals we wouldn’t usually associate with factory farming. This link is specifically to the page on turkeys, because I thought it relevant for the holidays. However, there are a lot of different pages, another interesting one being the page on sheep. A lot of the stuff the page says is pretty harsh, but I agree with it and I think it suits the harshness of factory farming. That said, I know it’s very hard to make a sudden change in diet or lifestyle and I don’t think it’ll happen that everyone reading this will have a vegetarian Christmas dinner. I just know that as soon as we give more thought to that dinner, it will come to mean more. Maybe eventually it will become part of our mindset to think about how our choices affect the environment, especially where we least expect it. I don’t like the site because it’s harsh or scathing, I like it because it makes us think and gets to the heart of the problem for me: just how unnatural and forceful it is to treat animals like we do. Sheep, pigs, turkeys or cows are treated in a way that is both cruel and opposes the natural design of their bodies to force a productivity. What makes these animals different from a pet dog or cat? They are being produced to feed the world and therefore must be killed, but that doesn’t mean their lives are inherently less valuable or less worthy of our compassion. In fact, for me, the very purpose these animals serve to help us as a people makes them all the more worthy of our attention and care. That’s why I don’t sit down at Christmas to eat turkey, but instead to eat vegetables or eggs from a friend’s farm, or wild-caught salmon. I am not opposed to the idea of eating animals, I am opposed to the idea of eating animals that have suffered unnecessarily and not given the compassion they deserve. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, we give thanks for all the beautiful food we have to eat. For me, the best way to give thanks to the turkey, who has been forced to give its life for us, is to say no thanks. No thanks to cruelty. No thanks to immorality. I prefer turkeys who live in the wild, not in the harsh buildings we put them in. I prefer food from an animal whose life was given the proper attention and care. No thanks.

-Simon

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Posted on December 10, 2011 in Everything

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Eating For A Sustainable Planet

Here is a video I made for biology class about the affect of cattle and fishing on the environment. I made it a while a go and there are a few inaccuracies and generalizations, but I stay true to the overall message. When I say that 99% of animals come from factory farms “like this one,” the footage actually comes from a slaughterhouse, at a separate location from the farms where the cattle lived.

My goal with this video was to show how our diet affects the earth and connect our choices to a greater global impact, while supporting my position with statistics and pictures. I tried to reveal the cruel practices and facts in a way that people could understand on both a logical and emotional level. I hope that you can find a new piece of information or footage that means something to you and stays with you.

-Simon

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Posted on November 30, 2011 in Everything

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Personal Choice and Animals Used for Clothing

Posted on November 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

I have never really known the source of wool, leather, or fur clothes. I think it is very easy to forget about these products because we don’t see everything that happens to the animal before it is made into our clothes. I avoid leather products because I want to apply my choices in diet to my choices in clothing and avoid animal products in both. At the same time,  I’ve never really given animal clothing much thought as a separate issue from animal meat. I’ve never realized what it truly means to support clothing made from animal skin. I found some basic information here: http://www.idausa.org/facts/leatherfacts.html. What I found was scary because I had never actually seen the cruelties of skinning and leather production. What I started to think about was not the horrors of the leather industry specifically; I realized that the mistreatment of animals and the environmental harm that goes along with it reaches so many different aspects of our lives as consumers. After everything we do to other living things, more animal friendly and earth friendly alternatives are easily available if we just go out of our way a little bit. Still, it is disheartening and overwhelming to think of how ever-present these industries are. Many times, the individual choices we make seem inconsequential. After all, what change in factory farming does it bring about to buy the veggie burger instead of the hamburger? When I question myself and the affect of my choices as a consumer, I can’t honestly say that my avoiding meat makes a deep impact on worldwide factory farming; I can say I put my individual beliefs into action and choose a lifestyle based on what I know is right. When one person decides to avoid a product because of moral or environmental reasons, no animal is saved in that moment. However, that person will tell their friends and soon there will be a few more people who truly understand the carelessness with which we treat the earth, a few more people who know the destruction that our actions cause. For me, choice is about what I avoid, but more importantly what I support. There’s nothing better than going to a friend’s farm and picking vegetables and eggs to eat that night. And there’s nothing better than being a part of my own food and seeing the living things that surround it. The choice to avoid animal products has to be a meaningful, personal one because we can’t see an instant, worldly change. We have to have faith in our choices and look toward the future when our decisions will really start to count. We have to know that the personal choice of diet or clothing isn’t always a big thing, but it will always be the right thing.

-Simon

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“The New School of Fish”

Posted on November 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

I think a lot of people overlook fish as a globally impactful part of our diet. Fish are often times even further from our consideration than cattle or other farm animals, but their effect on the environment is no less. Fishing is a vital part of our modern food industry because fish and sea creatures are in fact the last wild animal hunted on a commercial level. By choosing which fish to eat, we support a movement towards sustainability, just like choosing local produce. As often is the case with the cattle industry, companies are often secretive or misleading in their claims. To me, education is again an important factor; we should learn about where our fish really come from and what was wasted, killed, or destroyed along the way. That way, we can make decisions on what we know and feel, rather than on what is commonly believed or claimed. Here is a very interesting look at different fishing practices and sources; the story follows the author as he searches for an honest meal, questioning and learning along the way. http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/the-new-school-of-fish

-Simon

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