A Cow’s Life
In connection with the Advocate’s May 12 cover story, “All Hail the Cheese Queen,” I feel it’s important that your readers know how cheese-making and all dairy products affect cows and calves.
Regardless of whether the farm is run by a family or a large manufacturer, regardless of whether the feed is organic or not, this is what happens to all cows and calves in dairy production:
Cows must be kept constantly pregnant in order to constantly provide milk for humans. Their calves, male and female, are taken from them within a day, causing severe trauma to both mothers and babies. The female calves are usually kept in milk-production slavery, and the male calves are fed a diet that keeps them weak, kept tied in small crates, and killed very young for veal. The dairy industry and the veal industry are one and the same.
Cows are forcefully inseminated on what is called a “rape rack.” Constant milking weakens them, and after a very few years, they are sent to slaughter for cheap hamburger, all that a tired and depleted body can provide.
We are the only mammals that drink the milk or eat the cheese of another species, and the only mammals that consume these foods after infancy. Thus, these foods lead to many digestive, respiratory, and circulatory diseases. Great calcium and protein sources lie in plant foods and in grains.
There is no such thing as “humane” dairy production, given the facts of life for cows and calves. I urge your readers to learn more from the following websites: humanemyth.org, farmsanctuary.org, and MercyForAnimals.org.
Joanne Ehret
Belchertown
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Biomass Saves Forests
With regard to Tom Vannah’s May 12 Between the Lines column, “Biomass Bully Pulpit,” I would encourage your readers to visit www.renewablebiomass.org, a site we (the National Alliance of Forest Owners) put together to inform the debate on biomass energy. You will find it informative, science-based, and free of hyperbole and rhetoric.
Here is a more general thought on forest product markets: 60 percent of Massachusetts’ forests are privately owned (even larger percentages in neighboring states), and virtually all of it is owned by small, family landowners. For those forest owners to keep their land in forests as opposed to non-forestry uses (i.e. housing), it has to be economically viable as a forest. This is achieved there through a combination of markets for forest products, a stable regulatory environment, and voluntary conservation agreements. Absent these, we will see deforestation through conversion to other uses. Biomass energy markets help forest owners keep land viable as a forest and provide needed funds for forest health improvements that they might not otherwise be able to fund.
The U.S. is a model of sustainable forestry, growing more timber than it harvests every year since the 1940s amid ever increasing demand for forest products.
Dan Whiting
National Alliance of Forest Owners
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Armory Inspired
Every time I give a tour of the Scibelli Enterprise Center at the STCC Technology Park, I often use the words, “oozing with innovation,” to describe this facility dedicated to business building and located in one of the former Springfield Armory buildings. Business building is what we are and what we do.
Your recent article, “Swords into Ploughshares,” (May 12) captured beautifully what I talk to aspiring entrepreneurs about: the Armory was a source of major innovations that fueled our local [and national] economy. We, at the Enterprise Center, hope that by using the many small business development services or locating at the Enterprise Center, companies can be inspired by the Armory’s legacy. The special relationship we have with the research powerhouse at UMass-Amherst can increase that likelihood, too.
The Scibelli Enterprise Center is home to the Western Regional Office of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center, the Procurement Technical Assistance Center, the U.S. Small Business Administration, Service Corp of Retired Executives (S.C.O.R.E.), the New England Business Associates Business Consulting Center, the Business Incubator, and several exciting young companies. Services at the entrepreneurship hub of Western Massachusetts include free business counseling, customized mentoring and training programs, and a community of innovative entrepreneurs busy building businesses. Cubicles and private suites are available starting at $250/month. Monthly open houses are free and open to the public on June 8, July 13, and Aug 10, noon-1 p.m. RSVP to incubator@stcc.edu and get more information at www.stcc.edu/sec.
Marla Michel
Director, Scibelli Enterprise Center, STCC
Executive Director, Economic Development Strategies and Regional Partnerships,
UMass Amherst
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From Fukushima Forward
When Japan recently announced it will be starting from scratch, building no new nuclear reactors and replacing them with renewable sources, it joined Germany and Denmark in leading the way to a healthy sustainable future. It is unfortunate that it took a catastrophic, preventable nuclear accident to result in this policy change as opposed to reasoned forethought.
Wind power could and most likely will replace the nukes in Japan as it could in the United States, where the wind potential alone between the Mississippi and the Rockies could provide 300 percent of the nation’s electricity.
Although individual countries can establish laws that bring an end to the use of nuclear power, the damage from accidents does not stop at national boundaries. As the result of the ongoing accident at Fukushima (Unit Four appears to be now on the verge of physical collapse) radioactive fallout has been detected in vegetables, milk and rainwater throughout the U.S., threatening the health of millions of U.S. citizens.
Highly radioactive fallout has been found miles from the site and millions of gallons of highly contaminated radioactive water have been discharged into the ocean.
The explosions, spent fuel fires and partial meltdowns at Fukushima have released massive amounts of heat into the global ecosystem, worsening global warming significantly.
It would be a good idea for the U.S. to cut the $36 billion in loan guarantees in the federal budget slated to build new nuclear reactors and use it to put people back to work building a safe and healthy energy grid for the future.
Amelia Shea
Peterborough
