Letters: Save our forests; Leave turkey off the table
Save our forests
The recent article about preventing Lyme disease from spreading by saving a good-sized plot of land that has trees on it hit home with me. Being a lover of trees and having suffered through a bout of Lyme that caused me to want to jump out the window of our hospital, I feel very strongly that any forest in or around the State College area should be saved.
There’s one such block that has been on the list of possibly being removed to allow a developer to build another mini-complex that consists of apartments and convenience stores. It is close to 100 acres of what must be one of the oldest pieces of forest land that we have left in this area. You’ll find it between Blue Course Drive and Science Park Road along Old Gatesburg Road. Over the past half century many a folk has used it as a natural playground for those who like to hike and bike without catering to any parkland rules. A long time before that it had served, and still does, as one of the Central Region sources for water to our underground aquifer plus home to a good number of birds and animals.
It is a prime example of Mother Nature’s filter system for our ground water along with the air we breathe. Please jump on board to support any effort by environmental group or groups to save this precious piece of ground known as Pine Hall Woods.
Leave turkey off the table
In the United States alone, 46 million turkeys are killed for Thanksgiving. These innocent animal lives were taken for no reason.
Of the 245 million turkeys killed in the U.S. in 2022, nearly all were raised in crowded toxic fume-filled sheds, and their talons and beaks were violently clipped to prevent stress-induced aggression. At only 16 weeks, their throats are cut by industry workers before lowering them into boiling water to remove their feathers.
Human health also pays a hefty price at Thanksgiving. Turkey meat is full of saturated fats and cholesterol, and that elevates risk of heart disease and cancer. Intense prolonged cooking is required to stop the rotting process while also destroying deadly pathogens.
This Thanksgiving, let’s give thanks for our good fortune, health and happiness with a cruelty-free dinner of plant-based holiday roasts, vegetables, fruits and more. Try a simple search for “vegan plant-based Thanksgiving” for countless simple, delicious, and nutritious recipes.
Shapiro must get PA back into RGGI
The Fifth National Climate Assessment came out this week and it said that future climate change impacts (extreme storms, flooding, droughts, fires, extreme heat) will depend on the choices we make today.
We have serious work to do as individuals, and as a state, to reduce the pollution that is changing the climate. This is not the time to point fingers, this is the time to take action to move toward a common goal, to reduce how much energy we use. This is why Governor Shapiro must act quickly to get us back into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the most important climate regulation for Pennsylvania.
On April 22, 2022, RGGI became law, and it was immediately challenged by polluters and their allies. While this new law was handcuffed in court, no fees were collected, and the polluters continued to use the sky as an open sewer ... and the fees are significant. Keeping RGGI in court costs us $1.5 billion in fees not collected.
Eleven states have been participating in RGGI for years. In some states, emissions have gone down 50%. Billions of dollars have been put back into the states to reinvest in energy-efficient projects. The price of electricity has dropped.
Eight out of 10 Pennsylvanians support placing a limit on carbon pollution. Our ask is for Governor Shapiro to appeal the Commonwealth Court’s decision to strike down the law enabling Pennsylvania to participate in RGGI. Our climate, and future, depends on it.