"Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not being enough food to eat." -Amartya Sen
As a student of international development, I have heard a lot of what Amartya Sen has to say of cultural issues, developmental issues and political issues, but I have never related his arguements to the environmental crisis we face. This quote actually serves as a testament to understand how the environment is not a mutually exclusive entity to everything we are studying and doing in this world. It is a large part of it. What we deem as top priorities like peace, and economic growth and immigration policies, etc, can all be related to environmental degradation and how that ties in. Sen's quote put into perspective what poor populations suffer as a result of the indifference more affluent societies have for the environment and the billions that inhabit it.
"China slaughters more pigs than any nation on Earth and of course a pig takes four pounds of corn to produce one pound of pork” - Bill McKibben
We all need to stop eating meat. That is what I got from this McKibben quote and our subsequent conversations in class. Granted, black vegetarians are few and far between, but I have considered how inefficient meat consumption is, not to mention how unsafe it can be (particularly after reading the Vegetable Industrial Complex). What we eat has huge impacts on the environment. I understand that now.
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