Author: Shannon Short

Since President Trump took office, America has seen a ton of unbelievable changes in the government that will inevitably affect everyone. One of these changes is the new director of the Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA, named Scott Pruitt. The EPA is charged with, as the name suggests, protecting the environment. The way humans have been living is not sustainable, and is hurting the environment, so an agency like the EPA is just what the doctor ordered for our world.
However, Mr. Pruitt has different ideas. He is a climate change skeptic, and he is actually currently pursuing a lawsuit against the EPA. Despite protests from congress, namely democrats, and from the EPA itself, Mr. Pruitt was appointed to head the agency in February. Mr. Pruitt believes the EPA constantly oversteps their boundaries. He wants the efforts of the EPA to be passed down to the state level, instead of being a federal power. On his Linkedin page, Pruitt actually describes himself as a “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.” He also works very closely with the fossil fuel industry. Pruitt thinks carbon dioxide does not contribute to climate change, nor does he believe human activity has played a role in climate change. To be frank, he really does not believe anything in regards to sustainability needs to be changed.

So what do we do?

We march on anyway. We, as Americans, have the right to voice our opinions. Thankfully, Scott Pruitt does not have a monopoly on all conversation surrounding sustainability and climate change. We can continue to encourage participation in climate change conversation, and have real discussion about what can be done that is within our reach. The head of our Environmental Protection Agency does not believe the environment needs protecting, but that does not mean we cannot continue to push for more sustainable and eco-friendly ways to live.

 

 

• Shannon S.

Let’s talk about meat.

In January of 2016 I woke up and decided I was going to see how long I could go without eating meat. I had no reasons, no personal motivation, and no interest in the idea of being a vegetarian except I just wanted to test my own willpower. It wasn’t until I was wondering on the internet one day that I found the motherland of reasoning, motivation, and promotion of vegetarianism that made me decide I never wanted to eat meat again.

So let’s talk about meat and the environment.

WATER USAGE:
It takes an incredible amount of water to produce a single pound of meat. It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to make one pound of meat, whereas it takes 244 gallons of water to make a pound of tofu. A cow being prepped for slaughter will drink an upwards of 50 gallons of water a day. If one person goes vegan, that person alone can save approximately 219,000 gallons of water a year.

POLLUTION:
Runoff from factory farms and grazing is one of the largest contributors to pollution in rivers and lakes. Animals raised in captivity produce more manure per year than the entire country combined, and with no proper disposal method of this waste, it either sits in manure lagoons on the property or is sprayed over the fields. Furthermore, pollution limits are oftentimes limited by these groups by spraying liquid manure in the air, which is then carried to neighboring lands, where residents are forced to breath in toxins and pathogens from the manure.

LAND USAGE:
By using land to fuel the animal agricultural business, we are losing vast amounts of land to a unnecessary corporations. In the United States alone, 56 million acres of land are used to grow feed for animals to fuel the animal agricultural industry, whereas only 4 million acres are used to grow food for humans. More than 90% of all Amazon rainforest that has been cleared since 1970 has been used for grazing livestock. It takes approximately 20 times less land to feed a vegan than it does a single meat eater.

MORE INFORMATION I WANT TO SHARE:
The United States alone could meet the caloric needs of 800 million people using purely the grains that are used to fuel the animals in the animal agricultural industry. If we use that logic and apply it, even conservatively, to a few other countries with large animal agricultural industries we could meet the caloric needs of everyone in the world.

We do not need meat to survive. As much as I loved Cookout chicken tenders, eating meat was not worth the environmental impact. We have a limited number of resources in the world- water, land, air- and it isn’t logical to me to continue to kill animals for other animals to eat when we don’t need to and it is incredibly damaging for the environment.