Another Thanksgiving Holiday is upon us here in the US.
Put aside the parades, football games, and getting fat in front of the boob tube, and we just might re-discover the roots of this indulgent holiday, and begin to understand that we may need to give thanks in a much, much bigger way for Mother Earth to give us a fighting chance.
The History Channel put together this short which should hit home for us all:
Most interestingly in the video is the reference to what the first feast included on that fine New England fall day…lobster and codfish.
That’s right – codfish, now nearly wiped out as a species let alone a productive fishery, and Maine lobster which probably isn’t too far behind. This is a sad state of affairs. Back in the Pilgrim and Indian days, these two marine resources were abundant and plentiful enough for a feast of epic proportions. Today, we’re left with hormone injected turkeys.
Considering I don’t eat seafood (yes, somewhat ironic), I’m just happy to be grazing on my hormone injected turkey. But as an environmentalist, the many sustainability issues raised on this Thanksgiving holiday run deep. We are existing in a manufactured state where a natural harvest of codfish and lobster would never sustain a grand feast, even at the local level. A natural harvest of turkeys would be hard to come by too. We, Americans anyway, are officially dependent on hormone injected turkeys raised in suboptimal conditions and perhaps even sub-ethical conditions for the animals. This entire manufactured system, which has been engineered to sustain a major population boom, is tipping the scales of our planet towards unsustainability.
Global unbalance.
The lesson – free the turkeys, and we may as well start in on the tofurkey to support an even more manufactured existence.
Now I don’t mean to be a downer on this holiday, but I do believe that we need to be paying close attention to what we are being thankful for, and how we are celebrating this thankfulness.
So with that, I challenge you – turn off the game, take a walk to the beach, and catch a codfish to bring home for your feast. It wont take long to realize that we are in a world of hurt out there.
Happy Thanksgiving.Share
