Save the world and go vegan

Dear Editor:

Kelowna students skipped classes Friday to stage a protest march. Their aim was to awaken politicians to the imminent danger which climate change will bring to our planet and their future in it.

The students called on our government to prevent the devastation that climate change is bringing. This was a youth rallying call which politicians cannot ignore.

A number of older people also attended Friday to support the students’ call for action. They carried a few signs with suggestions to save the earth.

The best, and easiest to read sign simply said: “SAVE THE WORLD, GO VEGAN.”

Please don’t dismiss the suggestion outright. It is, after all, a message that would be endorsed Greta Thunberg, the 16-year old Swedish vegan who began the “Fridays for Future” movement, which inspired students in Kelowna, Montreal and other cities to hold their marches.

Our government has so far been deaf to the fact that meat production is one of the largest contributing factors to climate change, even more than all the transport in the world combined. Dairy production is close behind meat in greenhouse gas emissions.

And. yet our government is investing $250 million in the “dairy farm investment program,” seemingly unaware that milk consumption is declining, and that dairy has lost its special place in Canada’s food guide.

Thunberg and her vegan parents are doing what they can to save our planet. They have offered us hope, however fragile it seems to me, and today’s youth have grasped it. Helen Schiele Kelowna