This month marks the 40th anniversary of "Silent Spring," Rachel Carson's epic warning that pesticides are destroying life on earth and the day could come when there will be no more birds to herald the coming of spring with their songs. That time may be near. As a senior citizen, I can attest to the fact that there are far fewer birds today than there were during my childhood.
In "Silent Spring," Carson meticulously described how toxins enter the food chain and accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals. These highly concentrated toxins are passed along to the humans who eat animals and animal products, and build up in even higher concentrations in the humans' fatty tissues.
Instead of taking Ms. Carson's advice, we cast our lot with the chemical companies. But insects developed resistance to the chemicals, resulting in ever-stronger chemicals and ever-stronger bugs. Dioxin, an ingredient in Agent Orange, is the most toxic chemical known to man. "It makes DDT," says author John Robbins, "look like a glass of champagne."
The Environmental Protection Agency says that up to 95 percent of people's exposure to dioxin comes from meat, fish and dairy products. This is because millions of pounds of 245-T, which contains dioxin, has been sprayed on land used to grow food for livestock.
In his book "The Food Revolution," Robbins tells how a study at the "Dioxins 2000" conference in August 2000 revealed that "levels of dioxin in a sample serving of Ben & Jerry's brand ice cream are approximately 2,200 times greater than the level of dioxin allowed in a 'serving' of wastewater discharged into San Francisco Bay from the Tosco Refinery."
My reason for turning vegetarian decades ago had little to do with toxins and much to do with the animals. The transition of farming from family to factory after World War II shocked me. As the number of animals slaughtered every year rose, the misery of animals skyrocketed, too. I could no longer eat the flesh of animals who had known only the inside of a cage or cement stall and had never enjoyed even a moment's happiness their entire lives.
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It was also a way to help the ailing earth. Processing crops through animals is outrageously wasteful- 20 vegetarians can be fed on the land needed to feed one meat-eater. If we all turned vegetarian, we could vastly reduce the use of pesticides. And we could reforest 200 million U.S. acres and stop cutting another acre of trees every five seconds. Bird populations would rebound, reducing pesticide use even more.
In honor of Rachel Carson and all life, including your own, please reread "Silent Spring," and think about going vegetarian.
by Carla Bennett
Knight Ridder-Tribune Columnist
Carla Bennett writes for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which can be found online at www.PETA.org.
