7 Thanksgiving Traditions Radical Environmentalists Want to Ban
Environmentalists have a long history of demanding that anything fun be shut down, so The Daily Caller News Foundation decided to celebrate Thanksgiving by looking at the top seven essential traditions green groups want banned.
After all, Thanksgiving isn’t just a time to be with your family, it’s also a time to throw away traditions in the name of going “green,” according to environmental groups.
So, before you carve the tofu turkey and dig into the organic kale pie, think about these seven Thanksgiving traditions that environmentalists want to get rid of.
1: Eating Turkey and All Other Meat
Environmentalists are terrified of all the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated by cooking meats, including Thanksgiving turkeys.
“Studies are emerging that whether the meat is grown locally or far away, it still requires a lot of resources, including carbon resources,” Mike Tidwell, head of the environmental group Chesapeake Climate Action Network, told The Baltimore Sun. “If you really want to have a low-impact diet in terms of change, then you just have to eat a lot less.”
Tidwell claims raising beef generates the most CO2, but also says farm-raised fowl, like turkeys, are “still high-impact.”
Activists claim at the rate we’re munching through burgers alone, the world will need to use 42 percent of all land to meet future demand.
2: Long Drives to Visit the Family
The liberal blog ClimateProgress wants you to use mass transport to get to your turkey dinner this Thanksgiving to avoid spewing out excess CO2.
But there’s actually a big debate about whether mass transit actually reduces carbon emissions.
Even though gasoline is at records lows, environmentalists are already running campaigns discouraging summer road trips. Green politicians have spent years trying to convince Americans to drive less, with extremely limited results.
A study by Duke University researchers found that taking the bus instead of a car causes a small reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, but only if the average bus is more than 63 percent filled with passengers. However, in practice, buses only rarely have that many passengers and thus tend to create more emissions than moving a similar number of people by car.
3: Talking to Your Family Around the Dinner Table
ClimateProgress also has an entire article on how to talk to a “climate denier” over Thanksgiving dinner.
The article is meant to provide college kids with talking points about global warming. Other sites, like CNN, have entire “survival guides” on how to talk to family members with different political views.
Rather than arguing about the pause in global warming, spend the time celebrating the holiday with family.
4: Buying Tons of Cheap Great Food
Greens claim that only eating organic and locally grown food can save the planet, even if it does substantially increase prices.
But organic farming is less efficient from a land use perspective than conventional farming, meaning more land must be brought under cultivation to produce the same amount of food.
Organic farms produce only 80 percent of what a conventional farm of the same size makes, according to a study published in the journal Science. Other studies actually show organic yields are even lower, at 50 percent of conventional farms.
5: Watching Football
The NFL has been playing games during the Thanksgiving holiday since the league’s inception in 1920, but this cherished tradition could be ending soon if environmentalists get their way.
“The Super Bowl is an energy-guzzling, carbon-emitting, trash-generating machine, and Sunday’s tournament promises to be no different,” Maria Gallucci, an energy & environment reporter, wrote for International Business Times.
“Visitors will eat mountains of food and drink rivers of beer and soda in the stadium and at related events, and they’ll flip on lights and shower off in dozens of hotels,” she said.
Gallucci recommended buying large amounts of carbon offsets to prevent any damage.
While Gallucci is talking about the Super Bowl, it’s easy to see how this could eventually be applied to any day where football viewing sharply increases.
6: Enjoying Parades
Americans love watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The parade is regularly seen in person by about 3.5 million people and watched at home by another 50 million Americans, but environmentalists aren’t fond of it.
Green groups argue that filling the parade’s balloons depletes Earth’s helium supply, generates CO2 emissions and may pollute the surrounding area.
7: Loving America
Environmentalists consistently and inaccurately claim the U.S. contributes more to global warming than any other country.
President Barack Obama blamed America for man-made global warming and claimed that the nation embraces its responsibility to “do something” about the alleged problem.
Environmentalists are increasingly claiming the only way to solve global warming is to surrender American sovereignty to the United Nations. The recently-ratified Paris Agreement is one mechanism through which environmentalists want to achieve this goal.
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