The Road Ahead
Breath In. Hold It. Breath Out. That right there is the sigh of relief that the people of this country made the right decision in choosing our next president. I am inprired and hopeful about the next four years, knowing that we will move slightly closer to a place that’s not so scary to live in.
While issues such as the econmy, the war, and health care are vitally important, and will require much of President Obamas (!!!) time, I think there are even more fundamental, and pressing issues on the table. Rising disease rates across the country; obesity, diabetes, heart disease, autism…, and diseases showing up in children younger and younger, a “planet in peril”, rising energy costs, rising food costs..these are all issues that will absolutely undermine the foundation of our future.
And all of these isses are linked. Rising food prices are caused, in part, by higher energy costs, which are due in part to our dependence on foods that require excessive amounts of energy to produce. Rising obesity, is caused in part, by a market flooded with cheap, calorie laden, nutritionally deficient foods. These foods, which are there thanks for government subsidies for cheap ingredients like corn, wheat and soy, are responsible for not only excessive use of natural resouces, but contribute to a large number of environmental ails. Land erosion, water pollution, air pollution, ozone destruction. You name it, big agribusiness is responsible. And rising rates of disease are linked as well. Poor quality, pesticide, fungicide laden food is the basis of the standard american diet, causing untold numbers of illnesses and disease. Corrupt marketing practices about food, and more frequently pharmaceutical medicines are driving people to rely more than ever on “little purple pills”.
This sounds bleak, I know. And it is. But it can be changed. Michael Pollan, in the New York Times Magazine from Oct. 9th, ran a huge letter to “Dear Mr. President-Elect” outlining his suggestions for this brave new world, saying it all much more eloquently than I ever could. I want desperately for Barack Obama to read Pollan’s letter and truly take it to heart. As he said last weeks acceptance speach, “if our children should live to see the next century…what change will they see? What progress will we have made?”
Congratulations to Mr. Obama. Cheers. And here’s to the change we so desperately need.
