Thursday, August 23, 2018

Food Foolish #8: What About the Birds?

Photo: Mark Thiessen/National Geographic Creative

Whenever I present Food Foolish to a live audience, I always try to end on a hopeful note, saying that if we are smart and diligent, we can reduce food waste. And when we’re successful, the result will be good for everyone: less hunger, reduced carbon emissions, a stable agricultural footprint, more available fresh water, and greater food security for populations around the world.  Nobody loses. 

I usually see people nod in agreement until one evening at a local college, someone asked, “What about birds?” 

“Birds?” I asked. 

“What,” she explained, “would happen to birds that had come to depend on landfills if we stopped wasting food?”

It was a good question.  In the United States and other developed countries, much of the food we waste shows up in landfills.  Unfortunately, I had no answer at the time.  Recently, I decided to try to figure it out: How dependent are birds on human food waste, and what happens if we reduce it—as so many individuals, corporations, and governments are now committed to doing?

Saturday, August 18, 2018

The Last Battle is the Big One

 

A few hundred yards along Stone Avenue, just off Chambersburg Road on the Gettysburg battlefield, stands a six-foot-high bronze statue dedicated to John Burns (1793-1872).  The inscription includes a report from Major General Abner Doubleday, who wrote that Burns, though seventy years of age and a civilian, "shouldered his musket and offered his services" on the first day of the battle, joining the skirmish line of the 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers.  When the 150th retired from the field, Burns fought alongside the Iron Brigade in some of day one's most intensive action.  He was wounded three times and carried home to recover.

John Burns was a veteran of the War of 1812.  Neither this prior service nor his advanced age mattered when the Civil War invaded Gettysburg.  As gunfire erupted, he grabbed his ancient flintlock and powder horn, more Ichabod Crane in his "swallow tail" coat and black silk hat than Johnny Yank.  Insisting to Union commanders that he knew how to shoot, this citizen-warrior was provided a modern rifle and traded fire bravely with Confederates until he could no longer stand.

What would possess a 70-year-old veteran to put his life on the line? Perhaps Burns recognized that the single greatest fight of his life, to preserve the American union, had begun.  It did not matter if he had already served his country.  It did not matter that he was entering his seventh decade of life. Burns opened his door, listened for the gunfire, and then walked toward the battle.