To the editor:
My last letter was about waste as the archvillain causing our environmental symptoms: extreme/temperatures, hurricanes, food shortages, tornado and health risks etc.
We are facing global energy transition. To succeed, we need to step up and do the right thing (ethics). We know the root causes behind the problems we are seeing. Figuring out why we’re burning our planet is an essential part of the “problem solving process” in order to guarantee the right responses and also to help citizens “own” their problems.
Sorta like going Detox to back off from alcohol or drugs.
Can we accept the temporary inconveniences of using less fossil fuel and stop throwing food into the garbage? How do we treat that banana peel ethically? In the natural world, nothing is wasted. Every piece of fruit is decomposed by microbes in the soil and converted into nutrients that new plants can use to grow-beginning the cycle again.
Our food waste must be reduced. We can do it, no high tech needed, and its necessary. Diverting organic material from landfills is one of the best steps to draw-down GHG.
Michigan landfills 2 billion lbs. of food waste per year. Food waste takes up 25% of landfills. Once that peel lands, its tarts off-gassing methane (80 times the warming power of Co2.) Emissions from organics is responsible for 58% of the total emissions from that landfill.
Check out this link: http:// drawdown. org/ solutions/ reduced-food-waste.
Robert LaPorte, M.D. Elmwood Township
