No other creature on Earth explores natural resources, to its own benefit, as efficiently as humans do. Since early ages, humans have been developing effective techniques to ease their daily lives. From the discovery of fire to the invention of the wheel, including the invention of typography or the steam engine and the Industrial Revolution, humans always tried to stretch their own abilities, searching for and developing tools that could help improving their general well-being. Initially the quest was moved by the sole purpose of improving and easing human life, but soon it became, to a great extent, a quest for power and domination over other humans, animals and nature.
From questioning farmers at the local farmer's market and elsewhere, I've learned that many organic (and even non-organic) gardeners use blood and bone fertilizer on a regular basis. I question what to purchase with our dollars: food grown with chemicals that damage the soil’s fertility and our own health or food grown in blood and bone; the by-product of an industry that exploits animals. I accompanied a local organic certifier on an inspection, which made buying organic food less desirable because of my strong stance on veganism. I needed a solution to this problem. I never thought I would get my hands in the dirt with the worms, but I decided to help grow the food (vegan-organic) for Shangri-La, Gentle World’s Vegan Paradigm Center on the north island of New Zealand.
Dateline: June of the year 2109, in a high school social sciences class in Boise, Idaho.
The New England Journal of Medicine published an article recently giving scientific evidence linking antibiotic use in agriculture to the presence of drug-resistant pathogens in animals. The use of antibiotics in "farm" animals is also causing drug resistance in humans. Farmers routinely use antibiotic drugs to treat diseases in "livestock" and to promote growth (and more profits). Most bacteria exposed to these antibiotics are killed, but some survive. The resistant bugs multiply and can be passed on to humans through pollution of ground-water with animal wastes and thence into drinking water and raw vegetables as well as through the consumption of undercooked meat and animal products.
Scientists warn that long term tests are needed on a large scale to determine the safety of genetically modified (GM) foods. These tests have not been done to date. Without these tests, how do we know if GM foods are as safe as those produced through traditional breeding?
At the end of the movie, Schindler's List, the screen displays a famous quote from the Talmud. This quote applies to the theme of the picture, the rescue of Jews from the Nazi Holocaust by Oscar Schindler. It reads: "He who saves a single life saves the world entire."
