Was there even a point?
The conclusion to our four week long DOT project
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world”
-Mahatma Gandhi
If there is one thing that this project has taught me about all of us, it is that a small change is not hard to make. A single step in the right direction is not excruciating by any means.
Despite the fact that a measly 64 kids doing one thing in a world of a massive 7.5 billion people isn’t going to reverse all of the wrong that has been done. I do see that it has an impact. Over the last four weeks I alone saved 204 oz of meat. That means that in a yer I would be able to save approximately 2,652 oz of meat. If every person Washington DC lived the way I did before making this change and proceeded to make the same change we could save an estimated 118,398,504 lbs of meat in just one year, (thats a lot of saved animals!).
I also understand that it can be scary to make changes in our lives no matter what it is for. I have decided that I will not be continuing my DOT. Despite it not being as hard as I though it would be, and despite the fact that it is good for the environment, well let’s just say there are somethings that we can’t give up completely.
This, however, does not mean that I will not continue to try and live in a way that is environmentally friendly. I will continue walking to school and composting and I will make sure that I don’t eat TOO much meat. After all we have to keep in mind that there will be no meat left for us to eat if we continue killing animals at the rate that we currently are. This project has opened my eyes to just how devastating our eating habits are. Killing an average of three billion animals per day is not reasonable by any means.
“The question is not can the reason?, nor can they talk?, but can they suffer?”
-Jeremy Bentham (1789)
So, to conclude what I have found in these four weeks, everything that we do has an impact on this world and we need to begin acting as such. I have acknowledged the impact that only four weeks of action have had. I know that if all of us just do one thing we could begin the process to save our planet. I can give you tons of reasons why you should, can you give me one good reason why you shouldn’t?
