How do we commit to carrying on this remarkably hopeful environmental activist’s work to protect all Earthlings and our Earth Home?
One thing we can do without too much trouble? Reshape our food habits and support our local farmers at farmers’ markets and independent grocery stores carrying local and regional organic farm produce. Goodall speaks eloquently about becoming a vegetarian to save the Rainforests threatened by corporations that clear cut to make room for more pasture land for the “beef” industry. (I put beef in quotes to remind myself that cattle are living beings, not inert blobs of flesh beneath celophane wrappers.)
Her call to become plant eaters mixes with many others, including John Robbins, scion of the Baskin and Robbins ice cream corporation. Early in life, he rejected his family’s millions to pioneer plant-based food awareness. An early spokesperson for a planet healthy died, he sparked awareness that infuriated corporations pushing food that uses up reserves of water, endangers the lives of humans who work in the “meat industry,” and inflicts cruelty beyond description on the emotionally intelligent animals it commodifies. If you doubt animal emotions, read Jeffrey Moussiaeff Masson’s The Pig Who Sang to the Moon for evidence of animal emotional expressions similar to humans’.